I have heard that French Mirabelle plums grow true to type from seed.

I have 4 different grafted varieties if anybody wants the stones or some cuttings once they start fruiting. An ungrafted mirabelle grows very large so if you grow from seed you will need to prune a lot. Mine are 3 or 4 years old now. You can order grafted ones from a nursery. I got mine from Raintree.

I have been thinking about planting some of the stones to test this out; I have the space and time.

Hey people have made interlocking bricks at least in South America...you can see a video or two on youtube. If you can't find them by searching cinva ram I'll gather some links for ya.

I am hiring a friend to build one for me. If you want to be involved he might be able to build 2 of this design at lower cost which would be a win for all three of us, and he might be able to modify yours the way you want it.

Elliander Eldridge wrote:Hi, I joined this forum specifically to ask a few questions about this, and to share a link that others might find helpful.

Here's an eBook I found digging around which has some good information on how to make the clay as well as overcoming some of the problems with it:

http://www.rivendellvillage.org/CINVA_RAM_Compressed_Earthen_Block_Press.pdf

1.) Is anyone still selling this unit? I'd like to purchase one pre-assembled if at all possible. (I have absolutely no experience with welding). I sent an email to the first contact in this thread, but didn't get a response about it.

2.) Has anyone considered changing the mold to an interlocking brick design? Like, an H shaped brick? Or bricks set out like Legos?

One image in my head: A press that makes bricks in a Lego mold shape, and with a screw on attachment that could be used to set one to have a hole through the center of one end or the other so that at an interval it could be embedded with standard steel rebar for reinforcing the structure. At the very least, it shouldn't be too difficult to make a mold for something resembling the EverBlocks so that the pieces would connect without mortar and hold together:

An H design where the squares (and gap) are the same size and a perfect cube shape would also allow a brick footing to interconnect. In fact, there is one ancient structure that has stood for tens of thousands of years (at least) uses interlocking H shaped blocks and no mortar.

Here's a replica of one of those blocks which should work fairly well as a mold shape, though obviously not as a simple brick mold.



But even something like this would be an improvement over a flat brick:



That would probably be the simplest modification, requiring one strip of extra metal on the bottom and two strips of extra metal on the top and could still be designed to allow mortar, but would make sure the wall would always be build completely straight. (although I imagine would present a problem when building the corners, so something adjustable would be perfect)

Anybody have a used ram to sell? If not, I'll just have one made. Got a buddy who's a welder, machinist, has plasma cutter.

Hello, I wanted to share another nifty tool with you guys. Does anyone use a cant hook, peavey or log jack? They are all variations on a lever arm used to roll logs or lift them. I use a peavey with log stand from logrite and I lift logs over 1000 kilos off the ground by myself. I put small logs under the ends to raise them off the ground for sawing them into lumber with my chainsaw. They are also really handy for rolling logs around the yard. If you're looking to inoculate larger logs, or to raise logs off the ground as part of your mushroom cultivation you should try one. You can find fine antique ones sometimes for very cheap and I was fortunate enough to inherit two of them but I also purchased a 60 inch extreme duty peavey from logrite (the stihl chainsaw version is the same one, they buy them from logrite although the ones stihl sells are the regular duty version). You can see my review under the 60 inch extreme duty peavey on logrites website (only one) and this guys demo video showing how they work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt6f0JnTXxk