Getting my clay dirt, (to make the
cob filler) did consume
alot of my time, it kind of depends on your weather now, harvest more dirt than what you will need, and get it moved close to your build site, I guess you could do it in the rain, but it is easier when dry. I got lucky this year with a drought, which made handling the clay dirt kind of easy compared to when the moisture is higher. I used 1/4" screen to sift out the rocks &
roots, which took alot of time. If your going make your clay slip/mud, you might want to strain the dirt further...thru a window screen and have that fine dirt already sifted & available, stored with a tarp or something over it...it doesn't cost anything, this dirt...but it does require alot of time to refine it. I never refined clay before so it took me a while, plus I didn't want to just dig a hole in the
yard, so where I got my clay was some distance. Have some extra buckets around, and a tough clean trash can might help if your going to make your own clay slip/mud. Once you fill a couple buckets full of wet slip, it takes maybe a day for the
water to rise out of the dirt, pour the standing water off to get a clean sticky mud.
Once you get all your stuff together, building the thing is pretty fast, took me about 3 days. I spent alot of time because I'm not really a sheet metal mechanic & I had to find & repair some scrap air-duct to make the exhaust mass heater tubes (check with your
local heat & air business, see if they have a scrap pile out back, for some free duct & elbows & manifolds, the stuff I got had screws in it already,
reuse the self-tapping screws) the build of the thing would of been faster if I had the air-duct supplies already on hand.
Pile up some
wood early to become very dry by the time you want to test the thing. Consider some time for alterations & tuning of the thing.
good luck!
james beam
