Should i keep this mason?

Keyhole gardens is a popular gardening method recently.  Nashesha, our 14 year old daughter,  did some research and did this today.  She is half through filing with compost, soil, waste, etc.

Should I pay her?

Recycled wood , Stan's packing crate

Stan Benson is a significant part of my life.  He found me a couple of jobs in Tanzania and encouraged me in what I was doing.  He retired to the USA maybe 20 years ago after spending about 40 years in Tanzania as a missionary.

He was a missionary first in Borneo before coming to Tanzania.  In about 1950 he left Borneo with this crate in the picture below, maybe a year later he came to Tanzania and stayed about 40 years.  (This is my beautiful wife Bernice).

When Stan left for retirement he cleared out all his junk and brought a pickup load to me.  There were many treasures in there, like a box of odd bolts and nuts, hinges, morticed wood boxes that hoes came in,  etc, and this crate.  It weighs allot.  It is the heaviest wood I have touched, including our own loliondo wood.

While farming it  became the chemical cabinet, then it was a box to store scrap metal.  In Dec 2009 I took it apart and tried to remove all the nails.  It was too heavy to move around.  Even the nails were interesting.  Then I planned one board and realized it was beautiful wood.  I looked at it in a different light.

It was on my list to make into furniture, and when daughter Nashesha came back from grade 9 as exchange student she needed another clothes cabinet.  So this was made.  I can barely lift it up.  Planning the wood on the shaper took 4 times as long as African teak.  It has some imperfections but it will last forever and I will think of Stan Benson when I see it.

Thank you Stan for the memories.

I just met a vault star

I just met a rock vault star.

I was minding my own business, and was transitioning from contractor to managing director and was about to leave for my office job.

Fred Nnko, a builder, calls after many months and says there is an architecht from South Africa and he would like to show him some of my vaults.  He suggests Kisongo but I say come to the brick factory.

I envision the architect being ho hum about vaults like engineers. 

So I meet Peter Rich pictured above and realize right away he knows all about vaults.    Then he mentions he was the architect on the Mapungubwe Interpretation Center In South Africa! 

"Sorry what is your name again"
"Peter Rich"

  This Center won a world architectural award in 2009 and I have spent hours looking at pictures of it.  I mean this guy has taken timbrel vaulting to extreme levels, and the architect is standing there in my house talking shop!

One article about this is here .

He knows and works with people I read about such as John Ochsendorf.  After some years maybe now I have someone to discuss things with.  Like right away he said what i want is quick setting gypsum.  We talked about water proofing.  We talked about materials.

I felt like I had met a star.

Groined vault house update

Some months ago we started again on the finishing work.  I have posted about the catalan vaulted stairs and ceiling in bath, but here are some more.

First Timbrel/catalan Vaulted ceiling / roof.

After the success with Timbrel vaulted stairs I was itching for a roof.  We added a bath on the terrace and so roofed with .....
timbrel or cohesive tile, or catalan vaulted roof.

This is the bath on the terrace.

 We used hand made floor tiles for the first layer.  they are not so square and it would be better if they were longer than wide but they look great.

 Then another two layers of our rough "tiles" in cement.

amazing how much stronger it feels.

some pic showing top of first layer and beginning second layer

Sawing lumber by hand in Tanzania

Making handmade bricks (part II)

Never got around to posting these. And I will be brief. Someday i will put it all together.
Digging the "clay" .  Truth be known it is more silty than clay.  It is what we have.  Willifred digging the clay and pounding into fine clumps.

We mix with about 40% volcanic sand.  Sifting out stones. 

What gets sifted out.  A stone in a raw brick will cause the brick to burst during  firing.

Stacking the bricks.  Black bricks are charcoal dust 'brickettes", our fuel source. 

more brickettes and you can see the sprinkling of the dust.

Close up of the sand.

The kiln is built up with measured charcoal dust between layers.  Kiln  is started  by firewood in the opening like in the old days.  using a pipe to push firewood way in on the second day.

After a few hours doors are closed up until folowing day.  then more firewood added.  sometimes air vents are left and sometimes it is closed up completely.

The first part is getting the moisture out of the bricks.  Above picture it is mostly steam rising out of the bricks.  It takes about 48 hours or more for the moisture to get out of the 28,000 bricks.  Then the heat needs to rise slowly up to 1300F

Look closely and you notice the heat waves on top.  this is about 3 meters high

Me standing on the wall looking down when the burnign has reached top