Cement Mixer Cob

[Patrick Hayes]

John: have you any slides of your project?  I am in need of several cob slides for
a presentaion next Saturday in San Francisco.  I was looking for some from Michael
Smith, but he is away for awhile.

For all:  I  have found that straw that has been trampled a little bitworks well.
On our demonstration site there was a spot whre we had straw on the ground.  We
cleaned it up and found all of the fines at the bottom.  I mixed a small batch and
did some blocks.  The fines were all about 3"long, not the 8-10 I was taught to
use.  It made mixing much easier, as the parts were smaller.  I will see how the
wall holds up with this mix.

This goes back to the idea of a mixer, with smaller pieces of straw, I think a
mixer will work.  I am working on a pedal power mixer with my coworker Jossie.  I
hope we can get it going soon.

more later.

Otherfish at aol.com wrote:

> to GRLWYMIN
> if you can get the straw to mix in ok with a cement mixer then by all means
> use a cement mixer
> - at a cob project now under construction in Berkeley, CA we are using a small
> (appx. 15 gal. capacity) cement mixer to mix the soil / sand / water to a
> plastic state & then we dump it on a tarp & foot mix in he straw
> - works real good
> -is a big lador saver over all foot mixed
>
> -don't know about mortar / stucco mixers
> apparently some folks have had good results mixing cob - straw & all in small
> batches this way
>
> check the list archives & you'll probably find some good stuff
>
> cob on
> john fordice
>
> john fordice