321

Yeah yeah

309

In order to try and make this project a bit more exciting I added some curry to the mix today.

288

I'm optimistic about a big day tomorrow, the 20 brick frame is ready to be freed up.

276

I'm not feeling flash at the moment hence the run rate has slowed a bit.

263

A lean few days. I've noticed that, as could be expected, the bricks that are drying deep in the back of the shed are taking ages to dry. Consequently most of my frames are occupied for a long time. This is a problem. I'll try and put my bricks closer to the front of the shed from now on.

There is plenty of other things that can be done though. I've got enough dry bricks now that if I had a foundation, I could be laying some of them now, while the others are still drying. I've got a site lined up and I've changed my mind about how the roof is going to be. I had intended that it would just have one angle, but now I'm thinking it would be better to have a traditional house shape. The reason for this is that I can then use shorter pieces of corrugated iron, and I'll be able to have more overlap all round, to protect the bricks from any rain that gets driven in.

I've seen some good things at the auction rooms in Rangers, bits of metal that sit on top of the roof, and cover the change in angles between the corrugated iron. Struggling to use good words to explain that, but when I get some photos up it will become clear.

Something like this, Tim?

230

Hal Ogen and Connell Cretemixer made their first appearances at the shed today. I had a brief ethical debate as to whether having Mr Cretemixer's assistance maintained the purity of the project. I think it'll be ok.

I'm still having problems with the shortage of frames, even though I have about 80 bricks worth. They are all holding drying bricks right now. So I changed my plan a little bit today, and decided I was going to put some time into drawing some plans and selecting a site, maybe start digging foundations.

There is some corrugated iron here, but some of it is assigned to another project. That other project occupied me for the most of the day. Once I know what iron I can use, that will help me determine the dimensions of the shack. I just can't wait to start again tomorrow.

219

2 frames that hold 26 bricks and 26 bricks made.

193

What a day. Luke Williams injected some much appreciated enthusiasm to the project. 38 bricks became the new day high. But there was more to it than that. Luke had a towball on his car which meant we could utilise a trailer and cart some serious clay. I've now got a great pile right beside where I'm doing my brick making that will occupy me for the next few days.

The first offal pile is pretty much exhausted so we attacked the second one. Extraction from there proved surprisingly simple, and we developed a really good system with the sifter on an angle so that the big stones would run off. Awesome. Thanks Luke, a top day at it.

155

A productive few hours there today. 29 bricks and a 12 brick frame made. I tidied things up a bit in the shed too, I've got quite a few bricks drying on the floor, and not much floor space left.

126

Friday yielded 9 bricks, and the making of a 9 brick frame. Saturday I constructed an 11 brick frame and made 6 bricks. Sunday was a horrible Canterbury day and I had other things to do, so no bricks made. Tomorrow should see some bricks being dry enough for me to remove the frames, so there is the potential for making many bricks.

111

A productive day - 25 bricks, my best day yet. It only took about 3 hours to make them too. Unfortunately my 3 frames are now full of semi-wet bricks, so I think tomorrow I'll need to build some more frames.

The offal quarry may be good for another 50 bricks, then I'll need to come up with some fresh ideas. There is another offal pit further down the way which also has a great clay mass beside it, but that has been there for many years, so will be a lot harder, and it will have more plant roots through it. An option though. Stop editing my sentences Blogger so that they only have one space after the full stop. Noone needs that.

Canterbury is serving up some pretty conducive conditions for working right now. The days are calm and nice, not really warm, but pleasant enough. I've been covering the setting bricks at night with a tarpaulin, they are in an open shed, and the frost could do some damage to the bricks if it had its way I reckon.

86

Dennis laughs at the strength testing process

Rationale

Hello. I'm trying to make a shack using mud bricks. It's been done before, but not by me.

I can build something with floor area of 10 square metres or less, and a few other restrictions, without needing a building permit.

Plans - pff

I haven't drawn any plans or identified an exact site as yet for the shack, though my Mum, whose land I'm building this on, says she doesn't want it visible from the house. Fair call. I don't need plans just now, the bottleneck of the process is making the bricks.

I reckon I'll need about 700 bricks. The brick count is currently 86, and it's not that difficult to make 10 bricks a day.

Guidance available via literature - pff

There is a lot of information out there about how to build using mud bricks. I've read some and taken it on board, but I've favoured a make it up as you go approach. By way of a bit of experimentation, I've found that a mix that is quite wet when the bricks are set makes the strongest bricks.

Rammed bricks - pff

In the early days of the brick making (about 4 weeks ago), I was making the bricks by ramming damp, but not wet, clay into a frame. Some of these bricks were really good, but they took a relatively long time to make, maybe 10-15 minutes per brick. The wet mix means that each brick can be made pretty quickly, somewhere near 5 minutes I reckon, including the mixing of the clay, cement, and water, but not including the time taken to dig the clay out of the ground.

Recipes are for J's

My current recipe, which I didn't have to pay for, I heard someone needed to pay for a special strong brick recipe what a farce, is 18 big shovels of clay, about a cup of cement, and about 2.5-3 litres of water. This makes 3 bricks.

Offal pit

I started digging a hole in the ground to source my clay. Mum wasn't much of a fan of this approach, and suggested that I use the mound of clay that was discarded when we had an offal pit dug. This is working great, I just have to crowbar it loose, sift out the big stones and I'm ready to go. It is not going to last many more bricks, but it has been really good, it's simpler scraping it off than digging it out of a hole.

Ladder frames - the way of the future

The one drawback of my wet mix is that the bricks take a while to dry. I have to have heaps of moulds. I've currently built 3 separate moulding apparati that kind of resemble ladders. They can handle 42 bricks. At the moment, I don't feel comfortable removing the bricks from the frames in less than 5 days. I may need more frames. To get the bricks out of the frames I dissemble them, they are tacked together with nails not fully banged in.

Millimetres - pff

The bricks are 30cm x 15cm x 10cm

Strength testing

One book I had suggested that you should be able to stand on a brick, with it's ends off the ground, and it should not break. Justin reckons this kind of testing is not really relevant, the bricks will never have to take load like this. I agree with that reasoning, however I do want to know that my bricks do have some strength.

When I tested some of the bricks that I had rammed, they didn't fare too well. These were too dry when they were made, and would crumble when I would run my hand over them. Other bricks that were made wetter survived the strength test. I'll try and upload a clip of the strength testing.

My best brick, Dennis, was made real wet, with all large stones removed. It took over a week until I could even remove its frame, it was that wet. It has dried real strong and angular though, and laughed at the strength testing.


Bricks that fail strength testing are dumped back in the wheelbarrow for destruction and restruction.