[Greenbuilding] Crushing Clay
JOHN SALMEN
terrain at shaw.ca
Sat Aug 6 01:22:41 CDT 2011
I have an old commercial 1/3 yard cement mixer that I used once for breaking
up some local dried clay. I loaded a few shovels of 1 1/2" washed drainrock
(uncrushed) and let it run and then dumped it on a screen. It was pretty
effective and didn't harm the mixer (baffled but very heavy duty steel).
Clay turned out to be useless for what I wanted but it worked to make a
coarse powder.
-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Ward
Edwards
Sent: August-03-11 11:58 AM
To: Green Building; natural building
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Crushing Clay
You were on the right track with the cement mixer, but you need a cylinder
without baffles and rounder balls. Ball mills are used in the mining
industry to crush ore down to powder for refining. A search online for
homemade ball mills shows a few variations that would work, but might need
scaling up for your project.
Ward Edwards
On Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:45:45 -0400, natural building
<naturalbuilding at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Ladies and gentlemen,
>
> I wonder if I can tap into your collective intelligence and ingenuity to
> come up with a simple, cheep, mechanical system for crushing dry clay
> into a coarse powder.
>
> The mechanism could be store-bought or home-made and needs to be able to
> stand up to the task of crushing lumpy dry clay - typically 1 inch minus
> - down to powder.
>
> It could be hand-driven but would preferably be electrically powered.
>
> I tried using a cement mixer with a large smooth rock to pulverise the
> clay but, while this system did produce good results, it also damaged
> the mixer by creating bulges on either side where the rock impacted.
>
> For those that are curious, the clay powder is part of my rammed earth
> mixture which will be used - either unstabilised or with 1% lime
> stabilisation - to form the foundation of my new workshop. (see website
> below)
>
> I look forward to your suggestions!
>
> Regards,
> Steve Satow
>
> www.naturalbuildingsite.net
> naturalbuilding at shaw.ca
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