Low Rent Renaissance

PVC Pipe & Scrap Sheet Metal Quonset Hut #2

2012-01-26T14:59:00.001-08:00

The basic structure is complete.

I'm looking forward to coating the whole thing with Kool Seal (or something like it).

PVC Pipe and Scrap Sheet Metal Quonset Hut #1

2012-01-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

I built a PVC Quonset pump house about twenty years ago.

I used 10 ft. pieces 0f ½” grey electrical conduit mounted on a base made of treated 2x4s, then covered the frame with galvanized corrugated roofing tin. I used plywood for the front and back. The whole thing is held down by a couple of mobile home tie-downs and can be lifted off the pump if need be. It has worked out well, and, thanks to the magic of Kool Seal (or actually of less expensive products similar to Kool Seal), still serves its purpose today.

I didn’t get out much back then, and I actually thought a PVC Quonset was an original idea. Since then, of course, I’ve seen many a Quonset made pretty much the same way.

It always seemed like PVC pipe and roofing tin would make for a simpler, cheaper, more interesting shed than wood, siding, shingles, and the like. But the problem with making a PVC Quonset bigger than a pump house, at least for me, was the pressure that bigger pipes put on those puny plastic couplings when you bent them enough to form a Quonset. Those couplings were prone to cracking. I once tried using a heat gun on the pipe to help it curve and take some pressure off the couplings, but I didn’t really have much luck.

I’ve seen some twenty foot lengths of 1” to 1.5” inch pipe here and there, but wasn’t sure how I’d get that stuff home without a delivery charge

adding to the cost of my shed.

The answer to these little dilemmas came from this web

site: (http://www.wps.com/J/BM/PVC-Quonset-Hut-assembly/). I’d never thought of using 12” lengths of larger pipe as couplings. True to that writer’s word, pressure alone is enough to hold the 10’ lengths of 1” pipe together when using those 12” pieces of 1.5” as couplings.

The Burning Man shelter featured on that website was temporary. I’m hoping mine will be a permanent storage facility. Instead of using rebar uprights to hold the pipe at the base, I made the base of PVC pipe held together by plastic tees, and buried it in approx. 6” deep trenches, which I hope will hold the hut better to the ground. Also the end pieces include uprights (in the back, one treated 2x4 and in the front, two 3x4” landscaping timbers) that are cemented like posts in the ground.

My Quonset is approximately 10’ by 10’ at the base. I was lucky to have scrap sheet metal from the mobile home we disassembled and other sources, and a few sticks of treated 1x4 laying about.

Re-using Building Materials

2011-07-15T13:17:00.001-07:00

Our little outhouse is partially recycled: the lovely avocado toilet, drainage pipes, siding, roofing tin, steps, most of the screws and other hardware, the shower curtain and galvanized curtain rod, and the septic tank were salvaged from the mobile home we demolished a few months back. The plumping fittings, PVC pipe, and much of the treated wood came from Lowes, Home Depot, or our local Swansea Hardware. Now visiting kids have one less excuse to track through the house from the pool. The toilet is rigged to automatically fill from a garden hose, which I hope will make for easier winterizing.

Same with the awning we built for the shed -- a boon for me because I finally have a place to work in the shade. The treated lumber is for the most part new, and the sheet metal roofing material was cut from the trailer roof. The little work table, made from plywood from the bathroom floor and mounted on one end of an axel, spins like a lazy susan.

Chickens

2011-05-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

We've not been idle around here lately, but I've had less time for making art.

I finished laying our water pipes in the back field, then immediately began planting new trees and trying to

give our struggling fruit trees a new lease on life. We cut five foot lengths of 3” PVC pipe and planted them upright a foot or two from our trees and about a foot and a half deep. The idea is to fill the pipes

with water and let it slowly seep into the ground for deeper watering.

We refurbished our old chicken coop, including building

nesting boxes, a PVC feeder (idea courtesy of

the folks at Avian Aqua Miser (http://www.avian aquamiser .com/) and a water

reservoir from a kit that also came from them. One important note for making a similar

feeder is to use a 45 degree elbow rather

than a 90 so that the feed more easily slides into the trough. I glued a test cap at the trough end instead of a regular cap because it cost less than a dollar. The $4 cap at the top isn’t glued on so we can take it off and pour the feed in.

We bought Rhode Island Reds -- three hens and a rooster.

Improvised Shelves for our Frigidaire Refrigerator

2011-04-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

Well, this is not necessarily recommended. Ask me in six weeks, or six months, how it's going and maybe I'll recommend it then.

These machines--these Frigidaire Energy Star refrigerators (like the one we purchased at Lowes only four short years ago) are frail. Seriously. All the cheesy, half-ass components that make this feeble milksop of an appliance come to life supposedly work together to make it more energy efficient.

Cheap, frail plastic and glass shelves included.

Of course, the energy efficient aspect of these newfangled appliances are supposed to save us money. That's the sales pitch, anyway. We replace our shabby old energy hungry appliances with new ones (appliance purchases usually indiiate an emergency, so we might well be using our credit card to make the purchase), and we're rewarded not only by a cleaner environment, but with a slightly fatter wallet. Only so far, this particular appliance is begging to be replaced after only four years. That's not less money. That's more money.

Our lightweight glass and plastic shelves are all cracked.

The truth is, we never put anything incredibly heavy on them. Nothing out of the ordinary. A gallon of milk. A pot, cooled, from the stove. I don't know. Maybe a ten pound Turkey in November.

In my right mind, I probably

would have simply forked over the $160 plus shipping for new shelves.

On the other hand, the new ones probably would not have lasted any longer than the ones I ended up replacing with pieces cut with a Dremel Tool from Rubbermaid linen shelves. The top shelf started cracking a couple years after we bought the refrigerator. This week I noticed that all three shelves were seriously cracked, and the bottom one was bowed and ready to cave.

The top shelf

had been duct taped and glued and fitted with various makeshift support systems over these last few months. We had lowered the milk jug from the top to the middle to the bottom shelf. We had moved all the "heavy" items toward the edges.

But the cracking was getting worse.

I'd been online a couple years ago, when the first cracks appeared in the middle of the top shelf, shopping for a replacement. Prices have actually come down since then. The three plastic frames (shelves minus the glass) would have cost about $160 plus shipping.

Our shelves were ready to crash, too. Yet, I couldn't make myself submit to giving Frigidaire any more of my hard earned money for their cheesy, highly breakable stuff.

I'm having a sort of consumer meltdown. I'm tired of lousy products and poor service. I'm recognizing that what we had before the so-called "Consumer Economy" took hold was better -- that the refrigerator we sold not long ago -- the incredibly heavy bastard with the tiny freezer compartment -- the short, fat one from the early 1960s that sat on our front porch and was fired up as a cooler during parties -- was a better deal. That crusty old energy hog was still going strong after almost fifty years. The one we're using now is four years old. Did I have a choice? Could I have shopped for a better refrigerator? I could have spent more. I peeked in some newer, more expensive models and they sported metal shelves. Who knows if spending one or two hundred more for a new refrigerator would mean that the shelves would not crack in two years under normal use.

This product has already been serviced for a defective icemaker. Its warranty is expired. It's time, I guess, to fork over another thousand bucks for a new one.

The idea was making my hands shake. These companies, I swear, do not deserve more of my money.

So I cut three shelves for my Frigidaire refrigerator from $36 worth of Rubbermaid shelving. They fit okay. I had to do some retrofitting to make them work. The plastic sleeve that lines this refrigerator is subtly more narrow in back than in front, so that a perfectly square shelf won't work. Cut it to fit in front, and it scrapes against the sides in back, threatening to crack the obviously feeble eggshell of a plastic lining, A hole in the lining, I'm sure, would be an even bigger pain in the butt to fix. Cut the shelf to fit in back, and it slides off the little supports in front.

That was disappointing.

I experimented a bit more, using a piece of slit rubber tubing from an aquarium pump over the front sides of the new top shelf to help hold it up. That seemed to work okay. On the other two, I wound strips of rubbery shelf liner around the same area, which worked well too and I thought looked better.

So far, so good. The shelves seem sturdy enough, but time will tell.

We're hoping we don't hear a loud crash in the night.

Honestly, the white wire shelves look good in there. Better, we think, that the cheap plastic ones, even before they were all cracked up.

Advance Auto's Defective Socket Set

2011-04-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

Here is my very long and convoluted letter to Advance Auto concerning a defective socket set I bought that they would not let me return.

I only paid $10 for the set, but it's the principal of the thing.

Or maybe it's not so much the principal of the thing as it is the $10.
$10 is almost three gallons of gas in these sad economic times. It's a loaf of whole grain bread, a box of oatmeal, and a bag of oranges. Six lengths of 1/2" PVC pipe. Almost a bag of cement.

$10 is worth less than it used to be, yet it's more precious.

April 12, 2011

Advance Auto Parts, Corporate Office
Store Support center
5008 Airport Road
Roanoke, va 24012-1119

To Whom It May Concern:
It used to be that whenever I needed a headlight for my VW Beetle or some wiper blades or decided to change my own oil, I'd head to Advance Auto. I loved it when you opened the store in Gaston, SC. It's a fifteen minute drive from my home.
My feelings about Advance Auto, however, have changed somewhat. I carry the socket set I bought from your Gaston store in my car, and I show it to whoever I can. The punch line is that I bought it at Advance Auto for "a really good price."
"It was a bargain," I say. "Take a look."
The humor comes from the fact that both ratchets are broken. I point that out, and I point out the hollowed-out 9/16 socket as well. It's just a joke, but I also want my friends to know that Advance Auto sells products that will indeed let you down, and then does not back them up with any sort of warranty. If you buy it and, while you're using it, it breaks, it's your hard earned dollars down the drain. Even if you've only used it a few times. Money is tight what with gas prices going up and all, but it’s better to invest in Stanley or Craftsman. My friend tells me that even K-mart will replace tools that break. Harbor Freight, that great purveyor of "bargain tools," will exchange defective ones no questions asked.
Granted, this set was inexpensive. On the other hand, it wasn't a good price, because the product didn't hold up at all. I only thought it was a good price. I thought because Advance Auto was selling it I was getting a good deal on a quality product, but I wasn't. Your good name fooled me.
I don't know everybody in Gaston, but the ones I talk to about my socket set remember the story.
The folks in your Gaston, SC store were downright rude when I walked in with my broken socket set. I'd been working in my yard all day. It was hot. I looked rough. I guess I didn't appear worthy of courtesy. It was the cheapest socket set on Advance Auto's shelves, and I didn't have a receipt. I explained that I'd carried the socket set in the trunk of my car for a long while, and when I finally decided to use it, it more or less came apart. I know that many stores won't refund without a receipt. A store credit would have been fine. Though the store wasn't particularly busy, the two associates and store manager pretty much ignored me and my problem. You would think it's their job to be minimally courteous and at least feign a little concern or empathy for a dissatisfied customer, but then they get paid whether a complainer like myself ever darkens Advance Auto's doorway again or not. That's the attitude I saw anyway. If the manager had courteously offered me even half of what I’d paid for the tool set that Advance Auto had advertised as a bargain--if she had, using a little ingenuity, offered me a store credit for five measly dollars for the toolset I'd purchased in good faith--I would have been satisfied. Instead, she barely blinked in my direction, and I walked out feeling like an idiot. If it had been my store, I wouldn't have let my customer walk out feeling angry and foolish. I would have thrown the dog a bone. I would have kept my customer coming back for more headlights and wiper blades. I would have made him brag about my service.
I wouldn't have so easily given him to the likes of AutoZone or O'Reily's. I swear, it's worth the drive. (It's only a fifty foot drive -- AutoZone opened right across the street from Advance Auto.) But at Advance Auto, customers are apparently dispensable. And why not? As P.T. Barnum put it, "There's a sucker born every minute."
I guess that's all I have to say. I called a number I found on your web site and the operator offered to pass my complaint on with an official complaint number, but I wanted to express my feelings to you personally. I apologize for the length of this letter.
I'd be happy to send you my Toolworks socket set for a full refund and the price of postage. I paid about $10 for it during your sale. It wasn't worth $10. It normally sells for about $20, but I didn't get $10 worth of use out of it. It's honestly a piece of garbage. It’s like I gave you $10. Of course, as I indicated earlier, if it was my place of business I'd recognize a satisfied customer as continued future sales and a dissatisfied one as bad advertising. Your manager and her charges in the Gaston store need some instruction in customer service. Money is too precious these days to be thrown away on total crap sold by rude people.
Feel free to puruse a copy of this letter on my blog at http://papercreteparadise.blogspot.com/, with it’s link on Facebook.
Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

F. Michael LaRosa
Dissatisfied (Ex)Customer

Deconstructing A Mobile Home (Part Six: Almost Gone)

2011-04-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

We've been inspired to use much of what we took from the trailer, but not so much these big beams. We wanted them out of the way of the garden. Surprisingly, it only took a couple hours to cut them into manageable pieces that we'll be carrying to the recycling man on my next day off.

Deconsctructing a Mobile Home (Part Five)

2011-03-26T06:17:00.000-07:00

Here it is...the final and most intimidating aspect of deconstructing this trailer...cutting up the chassis. We used an angle grinder, and have thus far removed all the crossties and most of the wings on which the floor was fastened. The metal is soft and the grinder cuts it like a saw cuts wood. I'd been spraying the axel bolts with WD-40 for days, and the bolts slipped right off, so we removed the axels intact. Then I finally began cutting the big beams that ran the entire length.

Deconstructing a Mobile Home (Part Four)

2011-03-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

At last, we're pretty much down to the bare metal chassis. We saved many pieces of this mobile home for future use -- most of the wood from inside the interior walls, the trim from inside, the rafters, the interior doors, kitchen cabinets, kitchen and bathroom sinks, tubs, drain and other pipes, some lighting fixtures, windows, carpets, much of the siding, etc. We decided to keep the sheet metal from the roof. But so much of what we pulled off and out of that trailer has been affected by years of heat, moisture, and pests. Much of the paneling and wall board simply fell apart as we attempted to take it off intact, as did the ceiling tiles. Insulation was simply nasty. All of that, for better or for worse, went to the landfill along with many of the exterior wall studs. We learned how to take the floor apart without cutting, so many of the joists were salvaged.

Deconstructing a Mobile Home (Part Three)

2011-03-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

We were moving at a good clip until we got to the floor. Where the floor isn’t soft from the trailer leaking, it’s difficult to pull apart. The press wood is incredibly heavy and well fastened to the joists, which are 2x4. We tried going at the floor with hand saws, crow bars, hammers, and the like, but I ended up buying a reciprocating saw from Harbor Freight. That's working okay. We're taking it apart in about 1.5 by 5 ft. pieces. It's slow, but coming along. I found a video on Youtube in which young men went at the floor of a mobile home with an ax, but that's not for me. They also cut the steel frame with an angle grinder. Since that's the only info I've seen online regarding actual disassembly of a mobile home, it's probably what I'll try. I'm up for any suggestions that don't involve a welding torch.

Deconstructing a Mobile Home (Part Two)

2011-02-28T13:13:00.000-08:00

I was going to try to cut the roof up with a circular saw and one of those fibrous metal cutting blades. (Or maybe a few of those blades, as they wear out quickly.) My wife had the idea that we could take the roof apart at the seams, and it was a good idea, too. Once two of the metal sheets that make up the roof are separated at the edge, a flat crow bar can be hammered down the seam. We figured this out toward the end of our day, after having removed the frames for one long side and the front, breaking them up and stacking them on the truck, and finally detaching the roof from the section behind the front porch, which was difficult to reach. We're thinking to use the porch as a garden shed, so we want it intact. Anyway, we were tired, and decided to call it a day. We'll hopefully have the roof apart and off the floor next time.

"Deconstructing" a Mobile Home (Part One)

2011-02-23T07:54:00.000-08:00

We intended to refurbish our 1972 model single wide mobile home. The county had passed laws that would not allow us to sell it, or rather to move it to anywhere other than the landfill, but it seemed too nice and big a space to simply destroy.
No one had lived in this trailer for years, and it was not in great shape. It was leaking here and there. The presswood floor was mushy in places. It was wired with aluminum instead of copper, which was popular in the day but is said to be prone to vibration and overheating and thus unsafe, and we were thinking we’d have to buy or build a small solar system like the one in our current shed.
I coated the roof and started replacing windows, but had quite a way to go, and the whole thing begin to seem such a daunting task and, more importantly, so expensive and time consuming. So we decided we'd rather spend the time and money on other projects.
It cost too much to have someone pull the mobile home to the landfill. Various websites we visited indicated that "deconstruction" might be our answer. That's "deconstruction" as opposed to "demolition." Naturally, we didn’t document the beginning of the deconstruction process, but here it is in what i guess is mid-stage.
The most fascinating aspect of this trailer is not the multitude of squirrel nests we found in the few inches between the roof and the ceiling nor the dozens of wasp nests and residue from other critters cited throughout the three-inch space between the aluminum siding and the cheesy paneling within, but that, other than the couple that the previous owner had installed while making repairs, there was not a 2x4 in entire structure. Even the rafters were 1x2s held together will scraps of wallboard. There was a 1x4 that ran the 62ft. length of the trailer, tying the flimsy rafters together.
That was the heftiest bit of lumber originally in the thing. (The "studs" in the photos below are not 2x4s but rather...1.5 x 3s(?).
Which makes it a typical product of American ingenuity. Truly. Like the booming economy during the first decade of this century -- all flash (in it's day) and no substance. Of course, we did pull it down the highway, which means it withstood at least 45 or 50 mile an hour winds. And, at 39 years old, it would have been habitable in a pinch, though not particularly safe or comfortable. And it was probably quite affordable in it's day.
So it served it's purpose...cheap housing "for the time being."
It's almost a bit of history now.
The most difficult part of deconstruction so far? Detatching the roof.

Papercrete Gazebo 12

2010-08-31T08:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I poured half of the concrete floor. I started out with a formula for concrete I found online: 1 - 2 - 3. That is, one part Portland cement, two parts sand, three parts coarse aggregate. I was using the large gravel I have on hand rather than the pea gravel I've seen in bags of concrete mix, and ended by mixing 1 - 2 - 2, which made it easier to smooth. Having jumped the gun and not even made a footing for this structure, I dug out from under the walls and shoved concrete under there as well so that the papercrete isn't setting directly on the ground. I got to use my Harbor Freight cement mixer, which is still hard work but easdier than mixing so much concrete in a wheelbarrow with a hoe. I used coffee cans to measure my ingredients. Mixing it 2 - 4 - 4, it took four batches to pour half the floor. I'm hoping I can pour the other half Friday.

Blues For Breakfast -- polymer sculpture

2010-08-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

The sculpture has been setting around a little while. I finally repainted her and mounted her on a board. The miserable heat outside is still forcing me to catch up on some inside projects.

Her bed and guitar are not polymer clay but are cut from Luan wood. The mattress is a piece of Luan covered with linen (stuffed with a polymer filler) and coated with white glue and water for stiffness.

I've been wanted to work on papercrete projects, but I swear it's either too hot (and humid) (heat + humidity = "heat index," which has generally a good ten degrees above the actual temperature), or it's raining. We've had heat index temps as high as 108. This has got to be one of the hottest, wettest summers on record down here in good old South Carolina.

Only the mosquitoes are happy.

Polymer Sculpture: Bus Stop, Bukowski, Dylan

2010-08-08T14:11:00.001-07:00

Polymer Sculpture: New American Gothic, Mama Drama, Little Nude

2010-08-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

Polymer Sculpture: Piedmont Blues, Fat Tuesday, Fiesta

2010-08-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

I took my webpage off line (money, money, money) but still wanted some photos of polymer sculptues available online. These are rather old. I'll be posting some more recent ones soon.
The figures are generally 12 to 15 inches tall. They are made of Super Sculpy polymer clay over a 4 gauge copper wire armature (The arms/shoulders are a double strand of 8 guage aluminum wire which is mounted to the main armature with electric tape. The copper wire is stiff and strong enough to support a "tall" figure, and the aluminum is flexible and easier to pose.). They're painted with acrylics and mounted on stained pine bases.
The heat down here has been incredible ("heat index," or "how it feels" due to the humidity has been as high as 108), and it's been keeping me inside and away from my papercrete projects.
Hoping to get back at the papercrete soon.

Papercrete Gazebo 11

2010-06-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

Too many projects, too little time.

And then there's the threat of rain.

Every day.

Excuses aside, I worked on the facade of the gazebo using the sculpture mix, and added a couple coats of latex cement to the roof, and a final, thicker coat on three panels of the roof.

papercrete gazebo 10

2010-05-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

papercrete recipe update 5-8-2010

2010-05-08T09:55:00.001-07:00

http://papercreteparadise.blogspot.com/2009/06/papercrete-rcipe.html

papercrete gazebo 9

2010-05-08T05:41:00.000-07:00

I made a couple batches of papercrete with the tow mixer last week, and used it to daub a base coat over much of the remaining bare armature. It's been difficult to get a base coat to stick if there was any flexibility in the armature. One thing that helped was to rewire remaining areas of the armature so that the chicken wire, which is more flexible, is behind the stiffer fence wire. Once a single coat of papercrete dries over the armature, it's much easier to add layers of papercrete. I soaked the dry base coat with plenty of water, and added readymix joint compound to the crete to help it stick.

This time instead of making papercrete leaves and attaching them to the base, I simply added and shaped a lump of my current sculpture mix to the base and pressed the leaves in on the spot. This is so much faster and simpler, and gives much more control over where I can place the leaves.

Same with the stones on the base. Instead of making them with the stepping stone mold and attaching them with sheetrock screws, I just gobbed some papercrete onto the base and shaped it into stones using a trowel. A discarded cd makes a great trowel.

For the facade, I'm currently using this sculpture mix (with 2-pound coffee can):

** four cans cellulose insulation

** two cans sand

** one can cement

** water to mix thoroughly but not too wet

** ample (and I do mean ample) readymix joint compound

I mix it by hand in a five gallon bucket, wearing latex gloves, adding the joint compound last. I find I often have to add joint compound as I go, and keep a bucket of water handy to wash it off my gloves so that the papercrete doesn't stick to my gloves instead of the base when I try to daub it on.

lime plaster over papercrete

2010-04-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

Among those who really like our papercrete wall is our cat, Sushi, who has been using it as a scratching post.
Cats.
You gotta love 'em.
I've been trying to figure out a way to "finish" the wall--to give it a bit more of a hard shell--and thought lime stucco might be the answer.
Like papercrete, lime is pourous and thus "breathes," absorbing and releasing moisture, etc. from the atmosphere.
Modern paints, as far as I know, wouldn’t do that.
Nor would Portland cement-based "stucco."
I could not find anyone online who has actually put lime plaster over papercrete. So this was a true experiment.
When I first started researching lime it seemed a bit intimidating.
Lime is a "traditional" building material, and some people take that aspect of it very seriously. They seem determined to preserve the "old ways" when it comes to working with lime.
Slaking quicklime, etc.
All very complex and time consuming and more dangerous than working with good ol’ Portland cement, which requires a certain amount of caution, but nothing like quicklime, which, they say, can burn the crap out of you.
Flannery O'Conner's protagonist puts his eyes out with quicklime in the novel Wise Blood.
As it turns out, builder’s lime is pretty much like Portland cement in regards to safety. You want to wear a decent dust mask when working with the powder, and wear rubber gloves. Use common sense, etc.
I bought two 50 pound bags of Type S building lime. Building lime is different from agricultural "lime," which, I understand, is simply powered lime stone. Building lime, also called "hydrated lime," is made from quicklime. Lowes and Home Depot do not carry building lime, at least in my area. I called several building supply houses before I found one that sold it.
It was $12 a bag.
Adding the lime to the water, as instructed, and using an electric drill with a paint mixer bit, I mixed four five gallon buckets of plaster which had the consistency of...cold cream? Sun tan lotion? I didn't actually measure the lime as I added it, but more or less tried to make a "paste" of it. It thickened considerably when I added sand just before use. Though not measuring precisely, I generally used a one to one mixture of sand to plaster. The golden sand turned the stark white lime putty a beautiful beige/coral color.
That lightened a bit as it dried.
Online instructions indicated that lime plaster, once mixed, had to set a couple weeks before use. The instructions on the bag indicated that this particular lime was ready to use as soon as mixed, but because of time constraints it had to set a few days.
I wet the wall well and applied the plaster using some old cds as trowels.
Lime plaster smells more like plaster of Paris than cement. Cement really sort of stinks. Lime smells nice and clean. It was a pleasure to work with.
As is my nature, my experiment involved almost the entire wall.
As the lime plaster dried, I noted one section of hairline cracks. This was a section on which I'd used less aggregate (sand) in my mix, which had made the plaster noticably less gritty during application. Otherwise, the lime plaster seems to have made a nice, very attractive shell over the papercrete.
Time, I suppose, will tell the story.

trash paper gazebo 8

2010-03-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

Only the threat of rain yesterday, so at last I had an opportunity to work on the gazebo. I attached some papercrete magnolia leaves from the previous post with sheetrock screws and added a portion of the tree design along with some stones to the base, and a face to the bottom of the totem.

very fast & easy papercrete leaves

2010-03-02T09:26:00.001-08:00

These leaves have been a potential experiment for awhile now.
They were inspired by about a thousand web pages and videos featuring concrete leaves.
They are made of papercrete and intended as part of the facade on my trash paper gazebo.
They're almost too easy to make.
I used magnolia leaves. Not only are they available down here this time of year, but they seemed a perfect size for this particular application.
A mound of damp sand serves as a sort of cushion for the leaves and containment system for the crete. Most instructions for making concrete leaves include placing sandwich wrap between the sand and the concrete so that the sand won't stick. It didn't seem necessary for my leaves. I'll just brush the sand off once the crete is fully cured.
Simply press the leaves face down in the damp sand (the backs of the leaves veiny and offer more detail than the fronts), then daub on the papercrete, pressing down firmly, covering the entire leaf.
I used a simple mixture of four parts cellulose insulation, one part Portland cement, and enough water to make a paste.
After three days the very light weight crete, though still delicate, had cured enough for me to peel away the leaves and reveal little fossil-like replicas. They'll have to cure awhile longer before I attempt to clean them up and attach them to the gazebo.

a home made digital TV antenna

2010-02-25T14:19:00.000-08:00

Had I not almost everything I needed laying about the tool shed, this antenna might have cost as much as $20 to make.
A piece of 2x4. Some wire. A piece of PVC pipe. Some little lag bolts.
I purchased a balun (a type of transformer) on Ebay for $3. You can by a similar device at Lowe's for about $4. I didn't know it at the time.
I pretty much followed these directions to build my antenna: http://www.tschmidt.com/writings/Design%20and%20install%20outdoor%20TV%20antenna.pdf.
But incorporated some of this guy's plans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8jsDxNgHn4
The antenna works great inside.
But this behemoth is, as are most antennas, not particularly pleasing to the eye.
And we have so much stuff to knock around in here.
So I decided to put it outside.
The thing about that is this: Once outside, an antenna is pretty much a lightening rod.
Especially when you hang it high, on a pole.
Yup.
Our antenna pole, including its stand, is about 20 feet from the ground up.
The antenna that sets at its apex has to be seriously grounded.
Some good information about grounding an outdoor antenna can be found here: http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/basics.html.
Scroll down until you see "Grounding Outdoor Antennas."
And so, between the stuff needed to mount the antenna (I already had some 1" metal conduit, but had to purchase two 4x4s and a bag of ready-mix concrete (about $20)--(I didn't want to mount the antenna to the roof) and the stuff needed to ground it (grounding rod, grounding wire, clamps, grounding block ($35), the coax cable and little ends ($20) needed to connect our big, fat, old-timey analog television to the digital converter box ($25 from Ebay), you're talking well over $100 to set up an antenna that cost almost nothing to make.
Which is still cheaper than paying the satellite people (those pirates) $45 a month for 30 channels of infomercials and the opportunity to pay even more money to watch a half-way decent (pay-per-view) movie. (In all honesty, I like and will probably miss the Biography channel, Science channel, and maybe one or two other channels as well. But $45 a month still seems a steep price for something only somewhat better than the "free" over-the-air TV I grew up with.)
I don't know if there is a "store bought" antenna that works any better than this one. Certainly the indoor antennas we tried during the initial change-over from analog to digital television didn't work worth a crap.
With this antenna stuck in the window, we get 7 channels--various far flung affiliates of NBC, CBS, ABC, ETV, and FOX--plus their "sub" channels...weather and so forth.
All clear and smooth.
I think we'll get even better reception once I actually mount the antenna to the pole I've assembled.
Anyway, this is all in anticipation for June, when our contract with the satellite company is finished and we can cancel service.
You can probably tell.
I can hardly wait.

trash paper gazebo 7

2010-02-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

These papercrete stone shapes were made with a Quikcrete Walkmaker mold, allowed to cure for several weeks, and mounted on the gazebo with sheetrock screws. Then I filled in behind and around them using the papercrete sculpture mixture.

I fastened a couple more faces to the totem pole at the entrance the same way, then used the sculpture mix to fashion their "hair."
I also began applying the first layer of papercrete to the next section of wall.

As stated in an earlier post, applying the first layer to my flimsy fence wire + chicken wire + hardware cloth armature is difficult, and I've had trouble finding a way to reinforce the armature. (Once the first layer of papercrete cures, the walls are firm enough to daub on more. The finished wall, with the faux stones attached, is several inches thick and seems to be very strong.) Anyway, I experimented by attaching some recycled aluminum window screen to the inside wall and coating it with the latex paint, sand and cement mixture. The "industrial" papercrete formula, with some ready-mix joint compound added for "stickiness", seems to adhere very well to this hard latex cement shell, so I hope that problem is solved, and I'll be reinforcing the rest of the armature with window screen and latex cement.

trash paper gazebo 6

2010-01-20T05:47:00.000-08:00

Friday I replaced another window in our vintage mobile home, then replaced a headlight in our '98 New Beetle. Both were merciless chores that ate the day away. It's no wonder they charge so much to replace a headlight at the dealership.
I worked the weekend, then on Monday finally had an opportunity to put some time on the gazebo. It was 60 beautiful degrees out there. I mixed two batches of papercrete using the tow mixer, making a tiny dent in the mountain of trash paper I've collected lately, and added layers to the inside and outside of this first section of the gazebo. I wanted to work one section as opposed to giving the entire structure a coat to be sure the fence, chicken wire, and hardware cloth armature is sturdy enough to support the papercrete.
This fence wire--a generous gift from a neighbor--is incredibly flimsy, and even with a couple layers of it the armature was somewhat flexible. I sturdied the bottom wall using pvc pipe for studs (no rebar handy) but, despite a few ideas, couldn't work anything out for the top portion. I had a sense that if I got one layer of papercrete to stick it would give me a sturdy foundation on which to add more layers, and this turned out to be the case. This secition of wall is probably 3 and 4 inches thick now, and is very sturdy.
I added ready mix joint compound to some of the mix to make it stickier and used it to form the hair design facade, and to make a couple more faces for the totem at the entrance.

latex-cement stucco facade

2010-01-01T15:48:00.000-08:00

As stated in my last post, I had issues with the section of latex-cement skirting I'd done along the front walk. Unlike the first section I'd completed, it was simply uneven and otherwise flawed and unattractive.
Just not a good job.

The first step toward repairing it was to replace the papercrete vents with "cleaner" looking vents cut from plywood.

The second was to mix a thicker than usual batch of latex-cement and use it like stucco, spreading it to create a rough, random facade over the previously smooth finish.

It camouflaged the obvious flaws, and I love the new finish so much I plan to go over all the skirting with latex-cement "stucco."

I was going to use a wallpaper smoother as a trowel, but wound up using discarded cds. I went through four of them on this 25 foot section, but they worked really well, and at least I got additional use out of them before they made it to the landfill.

home-made vents for latex cement skirting

2009-12-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

Last summer I took a week off work in hopes of completing a few projects, one of which was to build the section of latex cement skirting that would run right along the front walk.

As it turned out, it was a terrible week, and the finished skirting, which involved some experimenting, was a big disappointment.

For one thing, I used fewer of the pvc studs described in an earlier post (http://papercreteparadise.blogspot.com/2009/05/latex-cement-skirting-for-mobile-home.html), so the nylon flyscreen was even more prone to stretching and sagging under the weight of the first coat of latex cement. Secondly, I ran out of the little washerless screws I'd been using to attach the flyscreen to the studs, and substituted sheetrock screws I had laying about. I used small pieces of cardboard as washers. This was certainly less expensive, but my little cardboard washers are visible under the latex cement. Third, and most important, I attached vents I'd made from papercrete, which looked terrible.

So this section of latex-cement skirting did not have the clean, "professional" look of the first section I'd done. Sad, because it's more visible.

Anyway, replacing those vents as a way to improve the look of the skirting has long been on my list of things I've wanted to do but just could not find the time. Today, despite my desire to work on the gazebo, I decided to make the vents.

They are simple enough to make using scrap plywood, hardware cloth, and flyscreen. The wooden frames are painted with latex cement, and the hardware cloth is spray painted black. The hardware cloth and screen are stapled to the frame. I only attached one vent to the skirting before the sun set, but it's a big improvement. I don't have a photo yet of the attached vent. But below is the ugly papercrete one I replaced.

Gazebo 5

2009-12-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

I finally had the opportunity to work on the gazebo. Inclement weather, early sundowns, and other projects always seem to get the way of adding more papercrete to the structure.

The other projects include renovating a 40 year old mobile home (I'm replacing the windows first (two down, ten to go), building a papercrete "sprayer" for use with an air compressor, and, of course, working on polymer sculptures. I'm hoping to post photographs of the mobile home (and new sculptures) as we progress. The trailer has been on our property awhile, and we were going to give it to the in laws to use for storage. But the county will not give us a permit to move a mobile home build prior to 1985 unless it's going to the land fill. Nor will they give a contractor a permit to rewire the thing. We felt it was just too valuable a space to pay someone to haul it to the dump, so we're taking it "off grid" and turning it into a studio. I'm hoping to cover the entire beast with some form of papercrete (perhaps mixed with latex paint), and to use the same type solar "system" we use in our shed (small panel with a battery or two for each room).
Meanwhile, I used wood screws to attach two papercrete faces to the gazebo columns, added more of the sculpture recipe, and reinforced the armature with more hardware cloth.

Gazebo 4

2009-12-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

I've been adding more papercrete to the fence/hardware cloth/chickenwire armature, using small, hand-mixed batches of the sculptue mix, which is cellulose insulation, Portland cement, and joint compound, with no sand. Once this dries I think the armature will be more substantial, and additional layers may be of the "construction" mix using the tow mixer, which will probably go faster.

The poles at the entrance will be totems. Since they are upright (and I'll be working "against gravity") I'm going to try fastening the faces to the crete-covered poles with masonry glue and wood screws, and papercreting around them.

Umbrella-gazebo structure 3

2009-12-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

The wire armature for the gazebo is almost complete. I couldn't wait, and started daubing papercrete on. I'm interested to see if the armature will be sturdy enough.
My pre-soaked cellulose papercrete formula wasn't working out. There was just too much slump. The crete would not stick to the upright armature. So, instead of my usual sculpture mix, I mixed three 2-pound coffee cans of dry cellulose insulation and one can of Portland cement, then added water until it was a damp, thick paste. Then, instead of the powdered joint compound I've been sold on, I added (a big gob) of premixed joint compound.
The result, when well mixed by (rubber-gloved) hand, was truly clay-like and stuck well to the chicken wire and hardware cloth.
Hope to work more on it tomorrow.

Building with Papercrete and Paper Adobe: An excellent book.

2009-11-25T05:55:00.000-08:00

I love this book.

It is a beautiful, inspirational compilation of information chock full of grainy b&w photographs of experimental papercrete and paper adobe structures, mixers, etc. There are valuable recipies, speculations, instructions, and considerations, all from guys who have been making stuff out of paper trash, sand, and cement or clay for years now .

Well worth the $32 plus shipping I paid for it.

I've seen used editions of this book on Amazon.com for as much $120.

But your brand new copy is a mere $32 plus shipping at http://papercretenm.com/.

umbrella-gazebo garden structure 2 -- a work in progress

2009-11-23T14:04:00.000-08:00

It doesn't look like much yet.
You can barely see the fence wire form, which is almost complete, in the bottom photograph.
All but the center post, which is just a 10 ft. 4x4, are made the same way as the armature for the totem pole shown in an earlier post. I had doubts about making the armature this way, thinking I had to wrap a whole 4x4 post with hardware cloth to get a sturdy armature, but the finished totem pole seems incredibly strong, and I was inspired to make the posts for this project the same way.
Especially since the "key stone" of this structure is the center post anyway.
On the papercrete post, the hardware cloth is tacked to a three foot piece of 4x4 with fence nails. The post extends into the hardware cloth tube approximately one foot, so there are two feet of bare wood at the bottom. The posts are then set so that the hardware cloth is about an inch above ground level. I can go directly over the hardware cloth with papercrete.
For the center support, I bored a hole in one end of the 4x4 just big and deep enough for what remained of the umbrella shaft. Once the post was set and the umbrella was in place, I drilled across in two directions and bolted the shaft in.
My plan is to cover the fence wire that makes up the rest of the armature with chickenwire and daub the papercrete on. The umbrella roof won't be covered with papercrete, but will need a few more coats of the latex-cement mixture.

papercrete gazebo structure with latex cement umbrella roof

2009-11-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

So the neighbor was setting up her patio umbrella to sell at her yard sale and somehow broke the shaft.
And I kept thinking that, coated with latex cement (the same stuff with which I made the fly screen skirting for our mobile home as described in an earlier post) it would make a great dome-like roof for a small gazebo.
And so I gave her $5 for her broken umbrella and added a papercrete gazebo to my ever-growing "to do" list.
Naturally, I didn't photograph the umbrella before I coated it, but here it is after a couple of coats of latex cement.

papercrete totem pole

2009-11-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

So much for photographing my efforts step by step.

I started this totem pole during the heat of the summer and abandoned it for other projects. It's an experiment in that I tacked an eight foot hardware cloth "tube" to a three foot piece of 4x4 instead of wrapping the hardware cloth around a 10 foot post.

So the armature is basically a hollow tube of hardware cloth with two feet of wood at the bottom.

This made the totem pole less expensive to make.

I sculpted the faces with the armature laying under our big sycamore, and became worried it might crack under it's own weight when I tried to lift it. I could imagine it bending and breaking in the middle.

It held together well though.

I stuck it in the ground to finish the back, which meant more or less plastering it with papercrete and texturing it with an old butter knife.

When I made the bottom three faces, I tried mixing all the ingredients (cellulose insulation, cement, and joint compound) dry in a 5 gallon bucket, then adding water, the way you might mix cement. This worked okay, but the papercrete was a bit lumpy. The best mix so far is, using a two pound coffee can for measuring: 3 cans of pre-soaked cellulose insulation (pulverized paper), 1 can cement, 1/3 to 1/2 can powdered joint compound. These are "loose" measurements, I promise.

There is no need to add more water.

The thing about pre-soaking the insulation is you can add too much water initially. The insulation shouldn't be "floating" in the bucket, but setting in it as a big, wet lump. In case you do have too much water, you can just add a little more insulation to thicken the mixture.

The difference in coloration between the top and bottom of the pole is simply that the bottom faces have been curing for weeks, and the others are just days old.

Thanks.

Mike

2009-07-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the completed entrance section of the papercrete wall, with arch, gate, and a concrete slab mosaic.
The gate is made on a chain-link type gate frame covered with hardware cloth and plastered with papercrete. I mixed it with vermiculite. It's still fairly heavy, and the back is "unfinished," so that you can see the hardware cloth, etc. It's like a stage prop.
The wall, of course, is made of papercrete in slip forms over recycled metal fence posts (as discussed in a previous post), then plastered over with more papercrete.
The arch was one of those very light metal arbors purchased some years ago at a Dollar General Store and covered in hardware cloth. I layered it once in a papercrete-vermiculite mixture, then set it in place and simply plastered it with many layers of papercrete.

Papercrete Recipes updated May 8,2010

2009-06-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

This recipe is for my little tow mixer.

I use a five gallon bucket.

** 2.5 buckets wet, shredded paper

** .75 buckets sand

** .25 buckets Portland cement

** some boric acid (lately I put a whole bottle of Roach Pruf)

** two, maybe three buckets water

The longer the paper soaks, the better.

For sculpture, I mix it by hand in a five gallon bucket.

I use cellulose insulation, which is simply pulped paper, purchased from Lowes for $10 for...I don't know...a big bag, and a large (2-pound) coffee can as a measuring device.

** 4 cans cellulose insulation

** 2 cans sand

** 1 can cement

** 2 to 2.5 cans water -- enough to mix it well but not make it too runny

** plenty of premixed joint compound

I just mix it by (rubber gloved) hand in a 5-gallon bucket. I mix everything but the joint compound, and add that just before use--a couple of big handfuls. I find I sometimes have to add more joint compound as I work, depending on the project at hand, and keep a bucket of water nearby to wash the joint compound off my gloves so the crete won't stick to them.

It's just a starting place.

My formulas are always evolving, and yours probably will too as you work with this amazing stuff.

Building A Papercrete Wall, Part 1

2009-06-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

What I'm about to say would have probably been obvious in a couple minutes anyway, but I'll go ahead and say it.

I know little about building.

The angels generally protect me, though they are not beyond letting me spend some extra money. The 8x16 ft. shed I constructed about twenty years ago probably has more wood in it than my house does. If there is ever a tornado, that shed will be the place to go.

On the other hand, it's still standing despite it's many structural insufficiencies.

Admittedly, I had to replace the roof.

Anyway, one day, I know, my luck will probably run out.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd try building a wall with papercrete.

My footing was some old cement blocks that were laying around. My plan was to drive some old metal fence posts, which were also laying around, through every other hole. The post would support the wall, which I imagined would be light and perhaps a little more flexible than conrete. After I filled in the holes in the blocks with concrete, they'd keep the papercrete a few inches off the ground.
I purchased what they called a "mini-load" of sand from the local sand mine. The guy dumped about a fifth of what he had in his front loader into the bed of my fabulous 1990 Ford Ranger and, I swear to God, the bumper was touching the ground. So...I didn't get much for my $20. Still, as long as I didn't break down on the way home, it was cheaper than buying it for $3.88 a damned 50 lb. bag from Lowes.

Back then, I was still towing my papercrete mixer with my truck. Actually, this was my very first batch of "industrial" papercrete. Prior, I'd mixed it by hand with a 5 gallon bucket and used it for sculpture.

I soaked my old newspapers in a trach can for a couple of days. It was December, and not particularly cold unless you had your poor old hands in cold water shredding newspaper.

I couldn't wait until summer, though.

I was excited about this project. My little cat Dylan Thomas, who is since deseased, hung out with me that day. It was a good time.
I used slip forms to make my wall. I made them of plywood. You can see the finished wall section and gate here: http://papercreteparadise.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

View this project completed: http://papercreteparadise.blogspot.com/2009/07/completed-entrance-section-of.html

building a papercrete wall

2009-05-10T09:22:00.001-07:00

I've been building this wall (for months now?) using "slip forms" made from some plywood.

a low rent papercrete mixer

2009-05-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

This is a sort of low-rent papercrete mixer that does well for small volumes and might do ever better if I pulled it with my truck instead of my lawn mower. I actually tried it with the truck the first time I used it, but the truck is old and can't take the wear and tear--all that stopping and starting and rolling along at one or two miles per hour--so I just felt more comfortable pulling the mixer around with the lawn mower.

I call it low rent because, while most tow mixers involve some welding, this one is made primarily of a piece of fairly thick treated plywood I happened to have laying about from an earlier project.

Plywood was not my first choice. I'd been inspired by some guys online who'd made tow mixers out of the rear axels of trucks. One lucky guy in particular told a tale in which the junk man sold him the axel for $25 and, excited by the idea of papercrete, welded the hitch and other metal supports for nothing.

I didn't have that kind of luck. The junk yards around here wanted $150 for an axel whether I took it off or they did, and that didn't include the wheels or tires. I finally found one on Craig's List for $100 and the kid selling it threw in the wheels and tires, and I felt like I'd gotten a bargain.
So I took the axel along with a photo of a tow mixer and a drawing of the one I thought I'd like to make to some welding shops, and they were happy to do with work for what amounted to another $150. So...damn. I decided to try to make one out of the plywood and other crap I had laying around.

So far it's worked okay. Pulling it with the mower, it works best with one and a half 5-gallon buckets of wet shredded paper, 2/3 of a five gallon bucket of sand, 1/3 of a 5-gallon bucket of Portland cement, a little joint compound, and some boric acid. According to some of the large-scale papercrete projects I see online, that wouldn't amount to much, but this mixer works well for the smaller scale stuff I've been doing.

Considering my (lack of) mechanical aptitutde, it's a miracle it works at all, so I'm happy with it.

Since these photos were taken, I've cut the top third of the plastic barrel off, so that I can simply scoop the papercrete out of the top rather than using the "hatch" in back, which, incidentally, I cover with a piece of tin held in place by two bungies. I've also changed the blade. Orginally, I cut the blade too short, and wads of shredded paper would get stuck between the blade and the side of the barrel. I replaced the lawn mower blade, purchased for our old clunker of a mower that up and died before I ever got the new blade on, with the cutting end of an old sling blade.

Latex-cement skirting for mobile home

2009-05-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

It cost about $600 for a guy to install vinyl skirting around our double-wide mobile home. Skirting is a requirement in our county. There was no concrete or other structures to deal with, so our job was a piece of cake for the guy, who just secured the lower track by pushing long nails into the dirt and secured the skirting up top with wood screws. Within the first few months we had covered holes made with our string trimmer with duct tape. Pretty soon there were too many holes to cover.

Then the high winds came and and beat the crap out of it--one side completely out of the track and pushed in under the house. I put it back in the track, but it was all bent up. It needed replacing.

I wanted something better. Brick, I was thinking. Or cement block.

I was intimidated by the cost.

I thought about some sort of stucco over metal lathe over plywood. It was the plywood that made me think I might be replacing that in 20 years. If I live another 20 years, I'll be 74. Nope. I wanted it all--inexpensive, nice looking, and durable.

So I was looking for an alternative.

I tried making some concrete panels, using so-called "crack resistant" concrete laced with fiberglass fibers. They were, of course, heavy and quite delicate.

It was a stupid idea.
Then I came across a formula for latex cement. The article stated they used a mixture of Portland cement, sand, and latex paint over nylon window screen to make roofs for shelters for refugees in some third world countries. The source indicated that, ten years after they were made, the roofs were still perfect, and appeared to be stable, and would probably last forever.

Forever?

And that's when I decided to make my skirting out of latex cement.

I did only one end of the trailer as an experiment. I plan to do the front side of the home this summer, after I complete the papercrete wall I'm building.

This is a simple, relatively easy and inexpensive way to create skirting for a mobile home. You can probably come up with improvements to the process. If you do, let me know.
I cut "studs" from PVC pipe. These were two to three feet long, with a notch at the top so they could slip up under the little vinyl lip, and hole drilled through which to fasten in. I buried them four to six inches in the ground.

I attached nylon window screen to the pvc studs using little washerless screws. There might be a better way to do this.

The recipe for refugee roof latex cement is as follows;

First coat--

** one part latex paint (a "mistint" is about $5 a gallon if you have to buy it).

** one part water

** add Portland cement to make a paste-like slurry

Second and third coats:

** one part latex paint

** one part water

** then 3 parts sand to one part cement

Three coats dries to a hard shell.
Simply apply each coat with a brush after the previous coat dries. Three coats make a hard shell.

I had trouble attaching vents. The nylon window screen tends to sag with the weight of the first coat. Personally, I like the uneven finished surface, with it's bulges and sags, but it creates an uneven surface on which to attach the vents necessary to ventilate the crawl space.
I wound up cutting little frames for the vents from plywood, attaching them to the pvc pipe studs, and caulking behind them. These were rather cheesey black plastic vents purchased a few months back from Lowes with this very project in mind. I decorated them with some gold metallic spray paint, trying to simulate a sort of patina. I think a need I touch of green as well.
Anyway, cutting the frames from plywood gave me an idea of how to make my own vents.

A more attractive finish for flyscreen skirting: http://papercreteparadise.blogspot.com/2010/01/latex-cement-stucco-facade.html

Easy homemade vents: http://papercreteparadise.blogspot.com/2009/12/home-made-vents-for-latex-cement.html

About this blog...

2009-04-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'll be using this blog to share information about my experiments with papercrete and related materials.
I know little of building fundamentals, though I'm learning here and there. I mention this to let anyone who stumbles upon this blog that I'm pretty much winging it when it comes to construction. I'll document failed experiments as well as successes. I think all of it offers information to the novice who sees the potential in papercrete and other alternatives to expensive traditional building and sculpting materials.
For instance, I made skirting for my mobile home using a sort of "third world" tecnology--latex cement over fly screen. I read online that someone was making shelters for refugees in various war torn and famine ravaged African countries by stretching nylon window screen over bamboo frames and painting it with a mix of discarded latex paint, sand, and Portland cement. I attached nylon window screen to PVC "studs," painted it with their recipe for latex cement and, I swear, it made an attractive and what appears to be durable skirting for my trailer. I'd spent a good many hours online searching for an attractive, durable, and afordable alternative to the usual options for mobile home skirting--vinyl, sheet metal, cement block, brick, etc.--and began experimenting by making thin concrete panels that simply did not work. Anyway, I think the latex cement skirting idea is valuable for anyone searching, as I was, for a reasonable alternative to what is commercially available. I have an idea to make an awning for my shed using PVC and latex cement. I'll certainly try to document that project when it manifests.
I'd also like to publish information about my papercrete tow mixer and how I came to build it as I did. That was another little struggle to gather information about making a tow mixer without spending hundreds of dollars. I still mix some small batches for sculpture, mortor, and plaster by hand using cellulose insulation, but such an expensive process defeated the purpose for building larger structures with papercrete. The mixer allows me to use old newspapers, magazines, junk mail, cardboard, etc., and to mix larger batches to make blocks, etc.