Cob: remodelling - Strawboard- Papercrete recipe??

[Chris Holmes]

Suggestion for a material is a product called ISOBOARD, it is a fibreboard made of straw 
and non-toxic glues. If you coat it with linseed oil, or a non toxic verethane, it has a 
very interesting mottled golden look, manufactured in Alberta and one western state 
somewhere near you, you should be able to find info from a search engine.

As to Papercrete, does anyone have a recipe?  What can it be used for?  Is it similar to 
the wood fibre concrete  blocks that are available?

Please keep the list updated on what you choose for the Cafe, I am always keen to learn 
about new materials to use in interiors that are interesting, inexpensive, durable, and 
non-toxic.

Chris.
cholmes at medserv.ca

> 
> My good friend is opening a philosophy cafe/ art gallery in north Portland
> soon and she has to fix up the interior to get a deal on rent.
> 
> She and I are both students of natural building and we had some ideas
> about how to approach the problem in some cheap and non-toxic,
> non-polluting ways.
> 
> First, the walls are just standard walls with no insulation at the moment,
> and the same goes for the ceiling. These are the two main tasks.
> 
> My best Idea was to try making papercrete blocks just the right size to
> fit between the joists (16 inches apart?) and make a shitload of them-
> enough to fill the entirety of the walls up to the ceiling.  Maybe they
> could be mortared in with a light lim-sand mortar. My only preoccupation
> is how future remodellers will be able to deal with a lime and paper wall-
> seems fine I guess.
> 
> Now the ceiling could just be covered with boards of coarse, but maybe
> there is some other alternative I haven't heard of that is available and
> cheep- like some of those fiber and lime (was it?) boards that they make
> by hand in Germany. We would be able to make the boards our selves to the
> required dimensions.  Someone mentioned these fiber (hemp maybe) boards
> recently on this listserve. Please tell me again.
> 
> Other Ideas we had included using rock board, or making our own fiber
> boards for the walls and buying eco-friendly insulation.
> 
> Under all of the above scenarios we would like to finish the wals and
> maybe the ceiling with a fine earthen plaster with some sort of pigment. I
> know there are some great resources out there for this by Bill and Athena
> Steen and others. But I have also wondered for some time if any one out
> there has ever tried simply applying pigment along with a coat or three of
> linseed oil of some dilution just as a pointer doing an oil painting
> would? I would really like to hear about anyone who has tried this.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Scott
> 
> Portland, Oregon
> 
> 
> 
>