[Cob] tiller cob and other machines

[Gregory Lehman]

I've had good luck mixing cob with a rented Bobcat. I mixed around 10 tons 
in four hours (one bale of straw per ton). I coved it with a tarp and it 
stayed nice for days. It was very nice stiff cob which could be stacked up 
high without sagging. Two of us in two days raised part of the wall 4'.

I ditched the cobbers thumb. Got a pitchfork. I built on the wall about 1 
cubic yard (2 tons) per day. In Yemen they have buildings 9-10 stories tall 
in which they they threw balls forcefully on the wall--no cobbers thumb or 
knitting together involved. If I do more cob work I'll ditch the pitchfork 
and go directly from the bucket of a machine onto the wall.

Greg Lehman


>From: Copper Harding <copperharding at yahoo.com>
>To: coblist at deatech.com
>Subject: [Cob] tiller cob and other machines
>Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:07:54 -0700 (PDT)
>
>David,
>
>I expect some of what I say might be considered
>heresey on this list, however, I'm of the theory that
>using machines is great if you pick and choose your
>"efficiency".
>
>So, tiller cob is great.  Use a front tined tiller,
>chain drive.  I have a 4 tined one and might have
>gotten away with a 2 tined little "mantis"
>
>I've never chopped my straw for it and haven't yet had
>a problem.  I recommend watching how you "stage" your
>water, sand, clay.  If you're ordering it in have them
>dump near your site and lay the sand and clay right
>next to eachother so you can have a mixing area in
>between.  That means that you shovel a few shovelfuls
>of sand over to the clay pile, spray it down and then
>till.
>
>With only one person putting up cob I can till a batch
>of cob that will take me 3 days (or so) to get
>through.
>
>Alternatively, if you have a large group of hands to
>help you I recommend the method we use at work.  Rent
>a tractor with PTO and rent a cattle feed mixer  (they
>look like large blenders)  You can put anything in
>them and get pounds and pounds of cob out.  But that's
>overkill on anything less than 5 hands.  Where you
>could continue with a tiller and just keep one person
>on mixing duty every day.
>
>Best of luck!!
>
>:)
>
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