Finishing up the Light Clay Wood Chip

Here is a video update of the shed.  Winter and other projects and responsibilities have slowed down the progress of the shed, but I have been working more on it lately.  I am just about done with the light clay wood chip infill, and am getting ready for the plaster.  This weekend we installed the door and started putting up the chicken wire over the pallets in preparation for the plaster.

Looking back on this project, I have decided that it has taken A LOT OF WORK!  This way of building is not for the faint of heart.  Some of the painstakingly time consuming things I have done so far are:

1. The foundation:  stone by stone trying to save as much mortar as possible by fitting each rock neatly within the wall.  Usually masons will slop on a large wad of mortar and roughly fit the rocks together.  It takes much less time, but uses about twice as much mortar.  I used 15 bags.  Even easier would have been to pour cement footings.  The way I did it saved me money, and used up a pile of rocks and used cement curbing dumped in my yard by my neighbor (dumped before I bought the lot[he did insist on taking care of the pile, but I told him I had a use for it])
2. Salvaging the materials:  I spent hours dumpster diving looking for useful materials. Then, when I got them, I usually had to take out nails, cut of bad parts, or reinforce sections.  Pallet wood is tough and ornery.  The nails don't come out easily, it is hard to cut, and never straight.  
3. The light clay wood chips: Even though I used a cement mixer this process took forever.  We dug by hand a hole big enough for our trampoline to get enough clay.  We found that the term "light clay wood chips" isn't really "light" at all.  When you try and use a light clay slip to hold the wood chips together, they just become flaky when they dry out (even worse if they freeze while still wet).  It takes a lot of clay to keep the chips stuck together.  Our recipe ended up being something like 1/2 parts water, 1 1/2 parts clay, 1 part wood chips.  The end consistency ended up a lot like plaster.  In fact, I ended up using it much like plaster to patch holes.  That is another problem with the way I used pallets; There were many gaps that I missed while filling up the walls that I had to patch later.

Other time consuming things I have still waiting for me to complete include plastering both inside and outside and putting down the earthen floor.  The upside of both of these is that I will be using far less material to make both products.  The walls of the shed are about 10 inches thick and took a few tones of clay and wood to fill. I plan on putting just two coats of plaster on the walls, so they shouldn't take as much clay .  I will need to sift the clay better, but a good chunk of the plaster will be made of sand.

I am not saying that the methods I have employed are bad, but they are just more than I originally reckoned for.  When I am done, I will have a large, sturdy, environmentally friendly, warm, and comfy shed.  I think I'll turn it into my glass shop.

A poor video of me putting light clay wood chips in the wall

I know I need to work on my video technique, but I was also working at the time and it is hard to pay attention to both where the camera is pointed and what you are doing while slopping mud.  I just wanted to show what it is like using light clay wood chip.  From the video you can see that the clay isn't too light.  It definitely isn't cob, but we found that if we didn't have enough clay in the mix, the small wood chips wouldn't stick together very well.  The first few batches we did had about the same recipe as light clay straw, but with wood chips replacing the straw.  The results of those first batches were unsatisfactory and the walls started flaking off wood chips when they were rubbed.  With more clay in the mix, it makes it less insulative, it has  more thermal mass, and it is much stronger.

Stained Glass Bountiful Utah Temple

This year for Christmas we had Sarah’s brother Joseph and his family to give presents to.  So, following the traditions of previous years, I made them a stained glass picture of the Bountiful Utah Temple where they were married.  I wasn’t able to use much recycled glass on this one, only the windows, but I was able to put to good use some of the wood floor we have been salvaging to use as a frame.  The floor boards are tongue and groove.  The stained glass fit nicely into the groove.  So, I sanded off the old paint, trimmed off the tongue side, routed an edge on it and turned it into a picture frame.

 Another innovation this piece has on it are a couple of female ends to chain locks.  I have been struggling to find a secure way to hang heavy stained glass on a wall and I hope this will finally be the solution.

 I bought an LED light bar from IKEA to mount on the back.  The problem is that there is n o sign at IKEA that says that when you buy an LED light strip, you have to buy a plug to go with it.  So, I don’t have any pictures with the light working.   In fact, I haven’t seen it work yet.  We sent the plug to them after the picture was delivered and haven’t had a chance to see the whole ensemble together.

Look Ma, no plug

Salvaging for a new home.

Free Toilets in good condition

These doors are solid wood from the early 1900s

We are officially getting ready to build our new house in Ephraim Utah. We are going to build a Straw Bale House, which will be the subject of several posts I’m sure. Because this blog is dedicated to sustainable living (recycled glass and gardening) I have decided to add the home construction in as well. Besides, right now there is a lot more going on with the house construction than there is with either of the other two topics. This entry will be dedicated to salvaging materials for the new house.



Here in Ephraim there are a few houses slated for demolition to make way for a new shiny parking lot. We were given permission to go in one of them (hopefully in the near future the other two as well) and take out anything we want. The house had already been picked apart by some other people, but we were able to salvage 10 doors, two toilets, several light fixtures, an armoire, the electrical breaker box and a few really old window frames as well as a few other odds and ends. Over all we have probably saved a couple thousand dollars towards the new construction. Next we are going to try and pull out the old wood floor and some of the cool old moldings.



These are the original windows from the house.  We found them in the root celar



The first batch of wood floor.  We will have to pull the nails and plane each peice before we can refinish it.

Another amaizing door knob

Glass Color

People often ask me how I get my glass to be the right color. Some people ask me if I paint the glass or if I add chemicals to the glass. So I'm going to explain here about recycled glass colors. Let me first off say that even though I can often be found with a variety of liquor bottles in my possession, I don't drink alcohol. However, alcohol bottles are the most abundant type of bottle out there and come in the biggest variety of colors. That’s right; I get my colors from the bottles themselves.

There are a few ways stained glass gets its color. First of all normal glass is clear which is very convenient because it would be weird to look out of colored glass windows all the time. To get different colors of glass manufacturers add metal oxides to a batch of molten glass. Different metal oxides in different ratios produce the myriad of colors that you see in stained glass. These colors can range between opaque to clear, dark and light and everything in between. There are several companies out there that specialize in producing consistent colors for use in art glass.

This is a good time to talk about compatibility. The companies that make art glass usually try and make their glass compatible. This means that two different pieces will fuse together when heated and when they cool they will maintain a congruent, cohesive bond. Basically glass expands as it is heated and as it cools it contracts. Depending on the chemical makeup of the glass, i.e. the different metal oxides mixed in, the glass may expand and contract at different rates. If you try and fuse two pieces of glass that are not compatible, they will expand and contract at different rates and a cohesive bond will not form resulting in cracking and in extreme cases explosions. The trick here is to produce glass that is not only compatible, but also in a range of colors. The swirly colors seen in a lot of stained glass is produced in this way.

Bottle and window manufacturers don’t care if their glass is compatible with others, they only care if their glass finishes out structurally and visually sound. This is why people usually don’t fuse recycled glass; it just isn’t compatible. Because some of the metal oxides required to get certain colors are expensive (silver and gold for example) there are several colors that you will rarely see in “throw away” liquor bottles. Reds, yellows, oranges, and purples are rare in bottles and are usually reserved for art glass or more expensive containers and vases.

Another way glass is colored is by painting it with fuseable glass. If you look at stained glass in churches and see faces that look like they are painted it is because they are. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a cheap trick because it usually isn’t. Specially trained glass painters practice for years to learn to paint with enamels on glass. Enamels are basically powered glass. The artist will paint on the glass and then fire the glass in a kiln to fuse the enamel onto the glass. The end product truly is “stained glass” that won’t scrape off and can’t be washed off.

The last way glass is colored is by painting it with regular paint. This is the cheapest and worst way to color glass. Basically the glass is painted with normal paint, and that’s all. This kind of paint will eventually come off because there is no chemical bond to adhere it to the glass. If you were to put painted glass in a kiln it would burn of the paint and you will get a dirty clear glass as a result.

As a result of all this, I have a limited pallet of colored glass to choose from. Most of my glass comes from bottles including the ones shown here. (No, I am not endorsing any of them.) Sometimes I use different colored (usually white) light sconces. To get the hard to find colors I search the thrift stores for vases, plates, cups, etc. Everything I use has to be cut with my saw and then fired flat in the kiln before I can use it in stained glass.

 

Christmas Presents

A little Late, but here are some of the projects I did for Christmas.  As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Stained glass Mickey Mouse

This Mickey was for my boss who is a huge fan.  100% recycled glass.



Stained Glass Humming Bird and Iris

 These two were requests.  I had made these two before and gave them to my Mother in Law who hung them up in her classroom at school.  This time they were made for someone who saw them in the window and wanted me to make them one as well.  Both are 100% recycled.

Stained Glass Joseph

 Here is Joseph for a stained glass nativity.  About  80% recycled glass and 20% reclaimed glass.

Mary & Jesus for a Nativity

 Here is Mary for the stained glass nativity. She is also about 80% recycled glass and 20% reclaimed glass.

 

The "complete"  Nativity

 Here is the whole family together just after opening on Christmas day.  I actually made two of these Nativity sets.

Recycle, Reuse, Reclaim, Salvage, Upcycle: Words to Live By

Because I am pretty new to selling glass art, I have been checking out other people’s stuff online to see what they are making and how much they are selling it for. I have seen a lot of cool stuff out there, but I have come to the conclusion that people need to use a dictionary when they are describing their glass art. So in this blog entry I will attempt to define several “green” terms that are commonly misused or misunderstood. Whenever you see my description of my glass products, you will know that I follow closely the following definitions:

Recycle – Recycling is the process of reclaiming materials from used products or materials from their manufacturing and using them in the manufacturing of new products. -sustainabilitydictionary.com



"Bones"- left over edges from flattened light sconces

 When a plastic bag is recycled into a new plastic bag, it is melted down and reprocessed into a new bag.  It may not be the same color, size or other similar characteristics to the original bag. It may have even been changed into something completely different than a bag like plastic car paneling, or polar fleece. When I recycle glass it means that I take old used glass and change it into a new object. When I make stained glass out of bottles, I first cut the bottles, then fire them in my kiln, then cut them to shape and assemble them into the stained glass piece. When I make tiles, I crush the bottles into powder and then fire them into molds in the kiln. Some of my recycled glass jewelry is made by simply cutting out patterns from bottles or vases and using just that bottle or pattern in the jewelry.

Reuse – noun 2. the act or process of using again. - Dictionary.com

“Often, the most sustainable option is to reuse materials and objects already manufactured, either for their original or new purposes, rather than recycle them into other products. This decreases further energy and materials use in recreating them into a new form.“ -stainabilitydictionary.com

People will often reuse bottles or vases by gluing, cementing, or painting objects onto them. The glass objects retain their original form, but are just decorated. The bottle does not undergo any major changes or processing.



The temple was made from recycled light sconces, but the
 sky was made of salvaged glass a lady was getting rid of.

Reclaimed – verb 2. to recover (substances) in a pure or usable form from refuse, discarded articles, etc. -Dictionary.com

Reclaimed means it has already been thrown away. Objects may be reclaimed to either be recycled or reused.

Salvage - noun 2. the act of saving any goods or property in danger of damage or destruction -Dictionary.com

Salvage may or may not have been thrown away, but without intervention would otherwise be destroyed.



Bottle bottom boxes are upcycled because the new
product is deffinitly worth more than hte original bottles
they are made out of.

  Upcycle - The process of converting an industrial nutrient (material) into something of similar or greater value, in its second life. sustainabilitydictionary.com

Upcycle is a new phrase that I have seen used for items that are both recycled and reused. I believe that to be upcycled the object should be worth more after the alterations have been made.