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Re: Woodchip Clay Brick [Re: TIMBEAL] #24320 08/30/10 11:09 AM
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Cecile en Don Wa Offline
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Re: Woodchip Clay Brick #24322 08/30/10 09:28 PM
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D L Bahler Offline OP
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Waterproof?

Looks nice, and I'm sure it smells wonderful. That is if it is wood tar.

What will you be using this for?

This fall after the fields have been cleared I am planning on doing at least 1 tar burn, using the Scandinavian funnel-bottomed pit kiln method. There is a lot of wood on some huge piles back along the creek behind us here because the local airport did some work all along the creek bed to improve their drainage, due to a large extension of the runways. I hope to get a good deal of both tar and charcoal to use on my project, coal for the blocks and tar to seal off the timbers.

About the bricks, they are drying quickly, and will be dry by the end of the week no problem, possibly by Wednesday. At this point, they are remarkably lightweight, which is good. I will take some weight measurements when they are thoroughly dry and try to come up with an 'average'.

At this point, I would feel confident in saying that the risk of the charcoal being a fire hazard or dusting off (charcoal dust is bad) is very low. I am quite pleased with the way it bonded with the clay.

I have made one observation, however. Charcoal pieces cannot be larger than maybe 3/4", and preferably should be much smaller than that. IF they are too big, they are problematic and like to flake apart inside the clay.


Was de eine ilüchtet isch für angeri villech nid so klar.
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Re: Woodchip Clay Brick [Re: D L Bahler] #24328 08/31/10 08:29 AM
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Cecile en Don Wa Offline
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Hi,
yes D L, I would just refere you to the comment section on my personal web pages for specific questions. Using the search option helps.
home

tar making details

Re: Woodchip Clay Brick #24435 09/21/10 12:39 AM
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northern hewer Offline
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Hello everyone tonight:

I just thought that I would add a little to this thread

I once examined a very early school in the Maxville area we opened up one of the walls to observe how it had been constructed--the timber frame had been raised and the exterior had been covered with vertical boarding and batts. Then on the inside the cavity had been filled with clay bricks and bedded with a clay mortar, to the front face of the timberframe.

The window and door frames were placed in the walls ahead of the placement of the clay infil. Horizontal wood strips were placed in the rows of clay brick infil at about 24" intervals to attach the interior wall covering which in this case was very wide handplaned 1" beaded pine boarding, which was painted a lovely red colour

Above this interior horizontal boarding the clay filled wall had been plastered with a LIME plaster it must have been a beautiful wall in its day

NH

Re: Woodchip Clay Brick [Re: northern hewer] #24441 09/21/10 11:14 AM
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Cecile en Don Wa Offline
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Hello,
This process sounds very Dutch to me, especially what you wright about setting the window and door frames in their place and filling in around them. It is still done this way today only not so much with clay anymore.

Greetings,

Don

Re: Woodchip Clay Brick #24446 09/21/10 08:33 PM
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D L Bahler Offline OP
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Northern hewer, where abouts was this schoolhouse? You said Maxville, but I have no idea where that is... Also, do you have any pictures?

The panel and plaster wall does sound beautiful, wish I could have seen it in its day.

Don, does anybody put the windows and door frames in AFTER the walls are infilled?

About the bricks. They are dry, and have been for quite some time. It only took them maybe 3 or 4 days to dry out. They are remarkably light weight, but not quite as strong as I want. I haven't yet been able to test their insulation values to me, but observation would tell me that it would be fairly good. In the future, I need to break the coal down into a bit finer of an aggregate, I believe this will make the mix stronger, more stable, and easier to work with and pack in a form. And the easier it is to pack into the form, it seems, the easier it is to get it out of the form in the right shape.

Last edited by D L Bahler; 09/21/10 08:37 PM.

Was de eine ilüchtet isch für angeri villech nid so klar.
http://riegelbau.wordpress.com/
Re: Woodchip Clay Brick #24451 09/22/10 01:27 AM
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Hello all:

Maxville is to the northeast of Cornwall Ontario here in Canada,
and was colonized around 1784 by Scottish United Empire Loyalists, who was part of a large contingent of displaced persons who remained loyal to the British Crown after the war of Independence.

I suspect that the building had scottish charcteristics due to the founding fathers, but they did bring other building ideas such as Dutch trademark techniques and incorporated them in their new buildings at that time.

There were the large anchor beam barns, and some swing beam barns sprinkled throughout the area, and by that I mean "Upper Canada" area that stretched from the Quebec border to Kingston Ontario, along the St. Lawrence, as far north as Ottawa on the Ottawa river, the capital of Canada.

Getting back to the school itself it had a very crude attic area with just round and spit logs crossing the building to support the ceiling

Lath and plaster was applied to these crude supports and with some manouvering by the part of the tradesman trued up the underneath side to hide all the roughness.

There were 4 layers of floors one on top of the other as they wore out, as far as I know the building has disappeared unfortunately, But I did some video work at that time, and copies of my work are stored in the archives at UPPER CANADA VILLAGE, I did retain a copy for my own records.

I was hoping to reconstruct the building in entirtey but time caught up to me and the best I could do was to try and preserve information for future generations

NH

Re: Woodchip Clay Brick [Re: northern hewer] #24455 09/22/10 07:04 AM
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Cecile en Don Wa Offline
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Hi,
Still, what you write is consistent with my experience of typical construction the way it is practiced by the Dutch. And it seems pretty characteristic of how they build.
Here is a picture of a house I renovated just up the road, although the pine planking is new. Originally there was only chicken wire there and then the roof tiles. I even have out in the barn, floor boards like the ones you describe, one layer of many stacked on top of one another, waiting to be put down here in the house.
Is this something like what you have seen?

Greetings,

Don

Last edited by Cecile en Don Wa; 09/22/10 07:12 AM.
Re: Woodchip Clay Brick #24467 09/23/10 12:04 AM
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Hi Don and others tonight:

Well Don not exactly, the roof structure is different the rafters in the Maxville school were just vertical sawn 2 by 5's
half lapped at the peak and pinned.

I am perplexed about the chicken wire under the shingles that is unusual for sure.

Tarring wooden shingles was widely practised here in Upper Canada in the early days of settlement

I forgot to mention that the system of early settlement here in Upper Canada saw the religious groups settled separately. the french, scotch, german, and irish respectively, and I suspect the building types sort of melded together.

NH

Re: Woodchip Clay Brick [Re: northern hewer] #24500 09/26/10 12:51 PM
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Cecile en Don Wa Offline
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The chicken wire... Yes, this was a luxury that is not present in most buildings and probably was supposed to keep smaller flying birds and other vermin from coming in under the roof tiles.
These straw bundles, looking a lot like whisk brooms, on the other hand were mostly meant to prevent blowing snow coming in from between the tiles.




Greetings,

Don

Last edited by Cecile en Don Wa; 09/26/10 01:00 PM.
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