[Cob] tiller cob and other machines

[joe]

		I'll second the bobcat use. The zero
turning radius of the bobcat and the front end loader make quick work
of cob work. All of the professional builds I was apart of (or knew of)
in the UK were all done with "tractor cob". Bascially the same thing on
a slightly larger scale using a medium sized 4x4 front end loader. 

Mixing with your feet sounds like a very environmental way to go about
things, but if it takes you 10x as long (and 10xs the number of
commutes to and from the building site in order to get the same work
done you can do in a week with a tractor you're not going to be saving
anything.

J

----------------------------------------

				From: "Gregory Lehman" <lehmangr at hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:14 PM
To: coblist at deatech.com
Subject: RE: [Cob] tiller cob and other machines 

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 
>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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