[Cob] WOOD FIBER COB--alternative uses/ideas

[Charmaine Taylor]

" but all of the wood fibers that I have seen so far are stronger than
any straw that I have ever seen.
The pile of shredded wood in my photo essay is 100% willow oak,
Robert uses a six inch Vermeer shredder with auto-feed, but I have
seen similar chips
produced by other chippers and other types of wood."
 ++++++++++++++++

I am always glad to see wood fiber/waste fiber being discussed, as it
proves the  wide scale of uses for organic materials.

As you all  know 'papercrete' and paper adobe uses shredded paper, and
clay sandy dirt combined with cement, or without, to  make walls,
blocks, plasters..similar to cob. Becky Bee saw paper being added
while she was in AU/NZ and added it to her cob too, creating
'papercob',  and cobber  Michael Smith called his version with wood
fibers 'cobwood'

But as reported for the more than the last DECADE- since 1998-  use of
OTHER organics:  chopped dry fibers, Redwood tree sawdust ( my
favorite)  and dry shredded shrubbery/bushes (called Agstone by
inventor in  Calif., John Stahl,  learn more  at www.tree.org).

Redwood  bark comes off in long strips, and is very 'stringy'
naturally, once dried, can be combined with sawdust to give both
volume and tensile strength to a clay mix.

Also  Stahl and Canadian  builders used hemp/bast fiber-  both waste
from  medicinal  plant growth and  industrial hemp waste can be
shredded and used with clay.
John said he often awoke at his remote land site  in Mendicino county
to find  huge mounds of chopped down medicinal hemp plants  dumped on
his property by local nervous growers. Which he gratefully used to
grind up in  his Hollander beater, and with a boat turbine mixer he
added other binders to make his "Agstone" building material.  (John
had virtually NO clay on his rocky property, so he used purchased sand
and cement- his only option he thought, to test and create his
formulas.  And he did it very scientifically, making tubes of many
variations of mixes to determine the best for building outdoor stairs,
floors, and walls. He used a commercial grade wood chipper too.

So where is the dividing line?  There isn't one!

 Purists will never consider cement in  anything,  that is fine- you
can accomplish so much, gaining great strength, and mass, by using
only clay and organics, even seaweed has been tried.

Combo of paper/cardboard plus clay is called ' paper  adobe' or
"fidobe', but falls right into the 'cob' camp  too!

I've tested Foxtail plants, Pampas grass, even used a partial bale  of
the "Coccoon  brand" newspaper insulation material, dried 6" lawn
clippings and other 'weeds' in my mixes.. just about anything  dry &
organic can  work.

Charmaine Taylor Publishing
www.papercrete.com