richard walker

I just spent about 4 hours playing with these bricks. I had a heck of a time figuring out the moisture content, then I got it. I put a piece of 1/4 inch plate steel inside the chamber and then put the dirt in. Once I made the brick I popped it out and slid the plate off and unloaded it in the drying area. That worked famously! I was able to make 15 bricks out of a half wheel barrel of dirt. I think If 2 people were mixing the soil in a cement mixer and kept it coming, and 2 men were working the Cinva you could probably get 400 bricks in a day. Once I got rolling It went pretty quick and I got 15 in an Hour by myself.

I'm going to buy some cheap clay cat litter and crush it into a powder and add about 10% of that to my mix. I know there is clay in the Red Clay sand because I can Isolate chunks of it. I did try different amounts of water and have been watching a lot of youtube videos as well. Trial and error will eventually prevail.

I need help with the Cinva Ram. Its making the bricks just fine but I cannot lift them without them breaking in half! What am I doing wrong?

It works! now I'm off to get some Portland Cement. My first Brick

These are a couple pics of the Rail system Up and running.

Thanks big Al!
It is working great! I have had it running for about 2 weeks now and havn't lost a single plant. Take a little tweaking of the nozzles to get the flow right, but, I already have roots growing down towards the reservoir.
I'll post a few pics of the running unit.

I recently built one of these and it was by far the easiest and fastest project I have done. I have always hated videos that don't show you step by step so I was sure to do mine like a "For Dummies" style cause that's the kind I like when I have a couple hundred $'s in parts sitting in front of me! LOL

I recently bought a kit from the supplier on your link. You may want to let him know that the slot size has been changed from 2" to 1" for the pull arm guide slot.
So far I have everything welded except the cam. It appears to be going well and Thank You for posting this!
A lot of welding could have been avoided and a stronger product as well, by building certain components out of 1/2" steel such as the bottom push assembly could have been cut as a T, as well as the top and bottom plates. I am currently working with a Machine shop and will have an alternative source available soon for these parts as a kit, using the same dimensions but a slightly different part layout using 1/2" where needed for those of us who are not quite as handy at welding.
Again it was Awesome of You to post his resource! I will post again when it's done.
Thanks,
Richard

I built one out in my yard using a 40 gallon propane tank which I cut the top and bottom off of, and then cut the guts out of it until it was empty.
I took a 12 inch ring about 7" wide that was left over from my gasification stove build and place it in the front and built a chamber out of bricks about 2' deep and 18" wide,
At the back i placed a stove pipe 90* attached to about 2" of vertical pipe I placed the Steel tank over the top of the pipe, resting on the block, and put one end of the tank upside down in the top acting like a bowl. I took a scrap piece of the vent pipe in the bottom to replicate the exhaust vent for a thermal mass bench, then sealed it with clay dirt.
That thing works awesome!!It's not even 100% sealed.
The flame shoots straight up on the bottom of the steel bowl which gets incredibly hot! Now I plan to coil copper and insulate it with Cob then run water through it. It should heat the water pretty well! I like this design the best of all I have seen yet, because you can walk away from it for a couple of hours, I put whole logs in it. The smaller ones are too needy, requiring constant attention, their worse than a puppy!
I'm just playing with it now, I just wanted to see if it worked like everyone said, IT DOES!!!

We are buying some land and I plan to build an Earthbag/Cob home. My intent will be to slope the roofing system to one central collection point and collect the rain.
I will have a 5 gallon bucket covered by screen and a paint strainer in the bucket as a first line of cleaning. The plan then is to collect it in a 1500 gallon cystern where it will be emptied into a 55 gallon drum full of sand, wjich will empty into another with activated charcoal, which will empty into another with a 12v medical grade uv bulb in a sealed quartz crystal jar epoxied into the top.
Will this work?