19-20 May 2012

Boyz toyz for the gals

I've put aside the pickaxe and am now employing the use of heavy machinery to get through the rocks on the front face that will be our planter. Actually, I'm using everything from pickaxe, electric thumper, chisel and small pick - I'm determined to get this planter dug out once and for all. And it's very close...

I've also started leveling the floor and making space for the front doors.

The line in the dust showing what will be the curved planter

The front entrance

The hat at work

Dave has been finishing the roof join between the round room and the greenhouse. This involves lots of intricate carpentry and a bit of heavy lifting the beams in place.

All beams now secured in place

Mud cakes

Anyone who's volunteered with us will know how much I love cake - from cup cakes to carrot cake I've tried 'em all. But what about mud cakes? Well I've been trying these too lately, all in the pursuit of a covering for the geodesic. As much as we love the structure we do need to insulate and waterproof it. We've planned to tie a layer of cane to the outside of the wood struts then on top of this we'll put some sort of corkcrete, or maybe simply tie the bags of cork in place! This means we still see the geodesic structure from the inside and use local materials - we're hoping to source the cane from Sunseed who have loads of it clogging up their stream.

Anyway, in case we go for the corkcrete option I've been doing samples of mixes.

From left to right: 2:2:1 = cork, paper, cement. 1:1:1 = cork, paper, mud. 1:1 = cork and mud (the mud on site has a high clay content making it perfect for adobe).

As I was moving the sample today the 1:1 mix fell off, now does this mean it's not sticky enough or maybe it's heavier than the others?

Enjoying the geodesic structure before we cover it