[Greenbuilding] Dog Hair and Salt

kenn brown kenn2536 at centurylink.net
Fri Jan 14 16:09:26 CST 2011


Frank,

I know that salt or borate dries to almost diamond hard consistency (sp?),
particularly on wood. It is still susceptible to water.

What happens when it is mixed with other materials, I don't know. 

kenn

  _____  

From: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Frank
Cetera
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 12:57 PM
To: greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Greenbuilding] Dog Hair and Salt

 

Michael, now I know another use for my shaggy dog's hair after his quarterly
cuts! Though maybe it is not course enough?

Kenn, salt is a good idea.  In fact, I just learned about salt's hardening
property when my girlfriend was preparing an activity for her after-school
kids program, by mixing a basic dough with lots of salt and then baking
rock-hard beads for painting and jewelry making.

~Frank Cetera
www.alchemicalnursery.org



------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:31:01 -0800
From: "Michael O'Brien" <obrien at hevanet.com>
To: Green Building <greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Sprouting Floor?
Message-ID: <65CE7FBD-00AB-439B-99DA-D9157423B656 at hevanet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi, Frank--

We built a cob wall inside our house and the straw sprouted green shoots for
a week or so. I assume it was the moisture and clay that allowed the seeds
to sprout.

I love Andy Goldsworthy's work and learned from his clay walls that people
have used a variety of additives to give clay tensile strength, including
pig hair and human hair. I prefer straw and shoots myself!

Best,

Mike O'Brien

On Jan 12, 2011, at 12:02 PM, Frank Cetera wrote:

> Any more details?  Would love to know if they figured out why the grass
sprouted.  Has this happened to anyone else?
>
> ~Frank Cetera
> www.alchemicalnursery.org
>
>

Message: 8
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:06:13 -0600
From: "kenn brown" <kenn2536 at centurylink.net>
To: "'Green Building'" <greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Sprouting Floor?
Message-ID: <DB3A06C4E4264F5D8656A5100D211658 at environm787aa3>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I just had an idea. You could use salt that you feed livestock, mix it into
the mud that you put into the wall. It will dissolve temporarily into the
wall then dry rock hard, and will not sustain insects, plant growth or
insects. My borate is labeled for pest control.. It doesn't matter to a do
it yourselfer.

Kenn Brown



 

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