Mix your own
cement
Mix your own cement
Perhaps we could
have called this article, “mix our own concrete”, because that is the real name
that we use in the building trade, but for the people that are not in the
building trade, when they think about concrete and other cement products, the
first word that comes to their mind is cement.
Anyhow here we are going to mix other building things as well,
and the name mix your own cement covers them all. So, here we are inviting you
to learn how to use and recognize the most basic concrete building materials
and other materials that are used together with Portland cement, so that you
might be able to do many cement (concrete) things yourself.
The reason why we are writing this article here about how to
mix your own cement (concrete), it is because we would like to pass our
knowledge of how these things were done in the past and even today; we would
also aim this article to those people that are willing to do some building
themselves and they need just a bit more knowledge to give them the courage to
do it; and last but not least to those people that live in poor countries,
where building skills and material are scarce and therefore they need a bit
more knowledge to do some building themselves, as long as they can buy some
Portland cement and/or lime to mix it with; so in a way this article is a D.I.Y
article.
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This article “mix your own cement” (concrete) is going to be
a long and detailed way of how to make concrete from scratch using Portland
cement and the other basic materials required, we will also describe how to mix
mortar for the bricklayer and cement plaster, just by using the most basic
building materials and mixing them with Portland cement and/or lime. We will
describe how this is done today and most of all we will be describing how these
things were done in the recent times, because we believe that it could be helpful
even today to know that. We believe that in the world there are places that
could use the old procedure and we can even use it ourselves, when the modern
ways are not readily available or they are too expensive to use, because of
where you happen to be, or for other reasons.
We have to say that today building anything has become a lot
easier, because most things that we need are ready made for us to use, provided
we are living in a city or large town in the western world and also in many
other parts of the world. In our case we are talking about how to use cement
and the many things that we could do with it: Now let us suppose we need some
concrete, we can order it and have it delivered whenever we want it, it is this
simple, and many other things we can buy or order as long as we are in the
right places and have money to pay for it.
But these things were not so in the past, in the past people
that were building had to have their own skills how to mix their own concrete,
how to mix their own mortar and many other things, and sometimes they had even
to find the building materials themselves, before they could even start to
build anything, they were not easy times and people in the know tried to keep
their knowledge for themselves. But today it is completely different some of
the knowledge they had and kept to themselves has become completely
insignificant compared to the things that we know and do today; so to keep any
knowledge for your own self might be the wrong thing to do, because it is not
going to help you, but it could help some people if it becomes common
knowledge.
You see, what we are talking about here is not like a secret
recipe to make something special and you are the only person that knows it and
you believe that one day you could make money from it, no it is not like that
at all; what we are talking here is common knowledge that lots of people know
already, but because things are changing this knowledge does not mean much to
those that know it anymore, but it could be very useful for those people that
don’t know yet, because they might happen to be in a different part of the
world or they just don’t know and would like to know.
Therefore, today we are afraid that some of those personal
skills that the average building bloke needed in the past are becoming things
of the past, so, one day all these known skills could be lost and/or only a
very small amount of people will know them, so we would like to write these
building skills down, so that some people may still use them if and when the need
arises.
So, this article here is being written in the hope that our
article could help those poor people that are not aware that they could be able
to build a better place for themselves, if they are be able to learn and
recognize the very basic materials they need to use for building this better
place for themselves. Most of the building materials that we are talking about
here are available anywhere in the world, because they occur in the natural
state as they are part of this great planet earth, so what are those building
materials you may ask? And also how we
mix them you would like to know, so here under is a link from YouTube that
shows you how to mix concrete;
How to Mix Concrete by Hand - YouTube
We would like also to point out with these photos here under
what is available in Brisbane Australia, and then we will talk about those
building materials that occur anywhere in the world.
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What are
these building materials?
We are going to talk about those building materials that the
average building bloke could easily use, if he knows how to use them. Now since
one of my best knowledge about building materials is about how to mix cement,
since I have mixed it by hand and with a mixer hundreds of times, so let us
talk about these building materials and how to use them.
First of all let us see what these materials are and then we
will take you through how to mix and use them. Today you can buy these building
materials ready to mix, and all you need to do is to add the right amount of
water and mix them, but we are not talking about these materials ether, because
we want to start everything from scratch:
In building anything with cement there are four main sort of
material that we need to recognize well before we start mixing our batches of
whatever we want to mix, they are; bricklayers’ loam, plaster sand, river sand
and gravel, and of course Portland cement; with these materials you can build
just about anything, some of these materials sometimes are called with
different names and for different reasons, but that would become a bit hard to
explain all of them here, but let us just go over and describe what these
material are like:
Bricklayers’ loams is a very fine sand, some of these fine
sands could be a tiny bit sticky and when it is wet enough you can almost make
a small ball in your hand, but it will always collapse as there is not enough
sticky material in it, but if you add the right quantity of cement and water
and perhaps something else if required it is easy to lay bricks.
Plaster sand is very fine sand too but not as much as
bricklayer’s loams it does not stick together by itself and therefore it would
stick together only when you add cement and water to it, this type of sand
would be hard to lay bricks with it, but when you have to lay concrete blocks
it would be ideal to use this sand provided it is very fine, in this part of
the world we call this besser sand.
River sand, or washed river sand is a type of sand coarser
or if you want thicker than plaster sand, as the name suggests it comes from
the river, in this parts of the world because Brisbane river is salty water it
is washed and sieved, but it is possible to find deposit of this sand in some
rivers that can be used straight away,
sometimes this sand can be used by itself to lay a top layer on a fresh
laid concrete, but its use is mainly indented to mix it with gravels to make
concrete.
Gravel or gravels are small stones again these small stones
can be found in or near the rivers; in most places if there is proper supplier,
gravels are graded so one can order them as they are required, and this is what
we need to make good concrete, but at the same time if you happen to be in the
middle of nowhere they don’t need to be graded properly to use them for
concrete and one could use a mix of different size provided you know what you
are doing.
Today of course building people rely more and more from the
specialized suppliers, and they order through these suppliers what they need,
in fact there are so many things to choose from that it is even hard to know
what would be the best thing to use; you see you could even buy bags of ready
mixed materials that you can use just by adding water. These materials are very
good to use if you have a small job to do, but they would become very expansive
to use if you have a large job; I hope you see what I am trying to convey
here.
What we have described above are the main materials required
to build most cement things, of course you have to know how to use them, and
that is what we are going to write next:
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(PHOTO MISSING)
Since there is not enough room to describe
the cement properties under the photo above, let us describe it here; cement is
like the glue that when mixed with sand, gravels and other aggregates makes
these materials stick together. The word “cement” can be traced back to the
Romans, who called this “opus caementicum” to describe masonry that resembles
concrete. We dare say that the Romans used burned limestone which when you add
water turns into hydrated lime and also they used something called pumice that
was collected from some part on Vesuvius it was a sort of cement that when you
added water would become harder than if you just used lime, this is more or
less how I have been told. As you can see there are two main bonding materials
that can be used to make concrete and mortar, about this we are going to say a
bit more later on.
In this retailer supply shed above there are
several sorts of ready to use cement product, so beside bags Portland cement
there are bags of hydrated lime, ready bags of concrete blend already mixed
with cement, this is very handy if you have to do just a small job, there is
read to mix mortar and ready to mix plaster and other things. These ready mixed
materials are good, but they become very costly when you have to use a lot of
it.
So the cheapest and best way is to mix your
own, unless the job is very big, but when the job is big then the best way is
to order premixed concrete that is if you have to concrete. If you need mortar
or plaster you have to mix your own from scratch, or pay the price of the
bagged premixed materials.
Mixing your
own concrete from scratch
Let us start to tell you a story from the beginning about
mixing concrete, because sometimes this has really happened, as I was asked a
few times the following.
Here we are asking for help, because we want to mix some
concrete to make a small slab, or some foundation for a barbeque or something
similar; we have never done this before, so we would like to be explained in a
very detailed way how we can do that. We don’t even have a mixer and we want to
learn how to do that just using a few tools that we have; we have a couple of
shovels and buckets a wooden float and some other small tools. We are a couple
of strong blokes and we don’t mind to do some hard physical work, it will be a
pleasure to do some useful exercise, so could you help us by telling us how to
mix our own concrete.
Okay, since you don’t mind to work hard, I will be glad to
tell you how to go about mixing your concrete by hand, after all I am writing
this article because I would like people to know how to do this sort of work;
you see we can easily help you mix your own concrete by writing this article,
and also you never know if this article could be read one day in a faraway
place, where they would like to know how to mix concrete and this article could
help them just as it helps you today.
And now, let us assume that you have already the material on site, and
that you are ready to mix your concrete.
First of all you need to understand that you need a flat
platform where you can mix your concrete, this platform does not need to be
made on purpose, all it is needed is a hard surface, perhaps a slab of existing
concrete or a concrete path could be helpful or anything at all, as long as
this surface is not loose, because you don’t want to mix the soil with your
concrete.
For this time we will
assume that for easiness sake the bloke that sold you the building material,
has sold and delivered some concrete blend. Now what is concrete blend some of
you are wondering; so let us explain, concrete blend is gravel and river sand
mixed together approximately two part of gravel and one part river sand, so you
don’t have to mix them anymore, it is ready to use.
To make just normal concrete you need to mix by volume six
containers of concrete blend to one container of Portland cement, depending on
the quality of the concrete blend this may vary a bit, so what we do next; we
know that we need a lot of concrete, so we measure say twelve bucket of
concrete blend and put that on our platform, then we measure two bucket of
cement ready to mix with the blend, you know that you need at least twice as
much, but because you are not so sure and your platform is small you prefer to
start with a small batch. But wait just a minute before you mix your cement
with your blend; make sure that everything is ready, because once you start this
process you have to continue until you finish.
Since everything is ready you can spread the cement on the
concrete blend, after doing that you take your shovel fill it up and start
turning your mixture around, just by pushing the shovel under and turning it
over, you need to turn your mixture a couple of time; say first from A to B and
then from B to A, so that everything is approximately in the same place, after
doing that and you are satisfied that your mixture is more or less even, you
can make a hole or well in the middle of it and add a bucket of water, if the
water is absorbed quickly, then you know that you have to add more water, if a
fair bit of water remains in the centre then you can start folding the outside
mixture in the middle, you can add some water as required, but don’t get
carried away with adding too much water, because you need to add water bit by
bit, you see this is one of those things that you learn as you do it and not
before.
You have done all that and now you have a heap of this
mixture half mixed; here again you take your shovel and turn your mixture from
A to B while sprinkling some water on it, you may need to do this a few times
sprinkling water and turning your concrete mixture from B to A and from A to B,
you need to do this until you have an even mixture that it is well mixed. Now
you have your concrete ready to place wherever you need to place it. I hope
that I have been able to describe this procedure clear enough for you to follow
easily.
This is how mixing concrete was done in the old days, it was
a hard job and it was not as accurate as it is today with the ready mixed
concrete truck that could deliver concrete to your job whenever you need it,
and all you have to do is to lay your concrete slab, or whatever you need to
do.
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The art of
mixing cement
Learn to recognize and use the building materials when we
use to mix cement;
Now, that we have written what are the building materials
you need to make many cement things, we have also explained above how to mix
concrete by hand and other things, this procedure could also be applied to mix
mortar and plaster etc. We have also explained how you could recognize the raw
building materials; then we have taken you through with this procedure of how
to mix concrete the old ways; and we believe that it can still be useful today,
if you happen to be far away from anywhere that can supply ready mixed
concrete.
You see, let us just imagine that you happen to need
concrete, you live in the middle of nowhere and you have only a few tools, but
you now a faraway place where you can go and buy some Portland cement; you are
not going to buy anything else at that place, because it is too far and
therefore too costly to bring it in, so the rest of the concrete materials you
are going to find near the river banks. I know it is like going back in time a
hundred years ago, but there are some part of the world that are still that far
back and perhaps even more. Therefore learning how to recognize the basic
building materials for making concrete, and then mixing concrete by hand can
still be useful today.
In this article we are going to continue to describe most of
the procedures that we have used during our lives when we were/are building
with cement and we will do that in a few different ways, so that a record in
writing exists for anyone that wishes to have an idea what it is all about. So
we are going to add many articles every now and then hoping to be able to help
any would be do it yourself small owner builders.
Now, we have to add that what we are writing here is only
how we have done these things, and we know they work, however it is only our
view and they work well in all minor jobs, but if you have important work, you
should consult the local experts.
Now let us see how we should mix concrete with a mixer.
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Mixing
concrete with a mixer
Now that we have seen how concrete was made
the very old ways, let us see how concrete can be made using a mixer, and what
the differences in the procedure are.
Okay, let us make this clear, there may be
several ways how to mix you own concrete; you can mix it on the ground as we
have done in one of the above description, you can mix concrete in a
wheelbarrow, if you have a modern wheelbarrow with a good tray, or you can mix
it with a mixer which would be very helpful to have, but what are the different
procedures when you mix, in order to achieve the best result with the least
amount of time and work:
The greatest difference for mixing concrete
and also other cement materials is mainly this: when you mix by hand you can
achieve the best result by mixing the materials with the cement before you add
water, as this helps to make a more even mixture quicker: But when you use the
mixer you don’t need to do that, in fact you can have better and quicker result
by following this procedure here under:
Start the mixer and put in the mixer some
water, approximately the proper amount to mix the whole batch, you know how
much water to use once you have made a few batches. (Let us explain first)
Now before we proceed to mix, let us talk
about the water amount, on building sites and in most other places, it is near
impossible to tell you how much water you need exactly to start with, due to
the fact that the material you are using contains an unknown quantity of water
themselves, and therefore the quantity of water varies, you see the wetter the
materials are, the less water you need and vice verse if they are dry.
Now, let us assume that because you are new
at doing this you are using a dry small bucket to measure the quantities of the
building materials; in this case you have gravel and river sand in separate
heaps, you know that this concrete is going to be mixed 6 to 1, but overall
this batch you are going to mix 8 small buckets of gravel four of river sand
and two of Portland cement:
Now the quantities above is how the best and strongest
cement can be achieved, with a minimum of Portland cement used, as these are
the quantities that would very likely be written in the specifications, if you
have any specification written, and perhaps the ready mix people would use
those amounts and have a perfect concrete, because the concrete mixer will mix
it well and as dry as possible, just look at one of the photos that we have in
this article to see what I mean. But by
experience on building sites usually we would be using a bit more river sand
and a bit less gravel, as this makes it easier to work with overall.
But let me explain, the strongest cement is
achieved by using the least amount of sand and water; however this sometimes
becomes hard for the tradesman on site to use properly, since it is harder for
him to compact it to the stage where there are no air bubble in it, unless he
uses a vibrator, therefore the extra strength in the concrete could easily be
lost and also to finish the top layer smooth becomes harder, because the concrete
does not flow easily in place and there is not enough fine stuff at the top to
finish it.
Now let us go back to mix our concrete:
So, after you have poured the water into the
mixer, you put one single bucket of gravel and while the mixer turns put the
two small bucket of cement into the mixer, the cement in the mixer will
immediately mix in the water and the first bucket of gravel will make sure that
it does not stick to the mixer, because it will cut though any lumps easily,
now you add four buckets of river sand, and this again will mix very quickly
and become like a thick cream, all you have to do next is to add the other
seven bucket of gravel, once you have done that you only need to wait a little
bit for the mixer to mix it properly and your concrete is ready. Now all you
have to do is to tip your concrete in a wheelbarrow and take it to the place
you need to concrete.
This is the quickest and best way to mix
concrete in a mixer, as I have done it for thousands of times, but I need to
say also that on building sites, where there is plenty of cement to mix and the
workers have to try not to injury themselves, by lifting hundreds of bucket
full of material all day long, they use to measure the materials by the
shovelful, but you have to be an expert at doing that and get everything
measured right.
I hope this description of how to mix
concrete is clear enough for our readers to understand what we have described.
Before we leave this concrete discussions we
would like to add a bit more information; you see concrete in itself is very
strong in compression, but is lacks some strength under tension, so to make
concrete very strong and last a very long time you need to use steel in the
concrete; here is a link that will help to understand some of these issues.
How to Make Concrete Even Stronger: 6 Steps (with Pictures)
And now let us talk about, mixing mortar,
plaster or cement topping.
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Mixing mortar, plaster or cement topping.
Now that we have described how to mix
concrete by hand the old ways and also by using a mixer, the same ways can be
used to mix mortar and/or hard plaster or cement topping etc. So now, we do not
need to explain step by step how to mix them, but we will just describe only
the different amount of things that are used; but try to remember that when you
mix by hand, it is a lot easier to mix the dry materials first and then add
water, but when you use the mixer it usually is better and quicker to start
with the water first.
To mix mortar for the bricklayer;
Just by using brickies loams and Portland
cement, this mixture by volume is most likely 4 part brickies loams to one part
Portland cement, but it could vary from (3 to 1) to (6 to 1) the aim here is to
give the bricklayers what is easy to work with, and at the same time you don’t
want to make the mortar a lot stronger than the bricks when it dries, and you
don’t want to make it too weak for the job you are doing, so it would make
sense to see what the bricklayer reckons is good enough for the job; sometimes
when making mortar you can replace part of the Portland cement with hydrated
lime, plus other things to make the mortar easy to work with.
Mortar for cement blocks
The mortar for cement block is usually three
parts fine plaster sand and one part cement, it is a bit different from the
brickies loams, as it is thicker and stronger and very close to the blocks
colours when dry.
To mix cement plaster to plaster walls;
This mixture is usually 3 part plaster sand
and 1 part Portland cement, in some countries where lime is easier to have than
cement it can be made by using a mixture of lime and cement for the interior,
we believe that there are a lot of old places that they have used lime only,
the cement mixture is used wherever it is too wet.
Cement topping;
This mixture is usually 3 parts river sand to
1 part Portland cement; it can be used straight on the cement if it is still
green, but when the cement is dry you need to make sure it is clean and a bit
rough for the cement to bond, you may have to use tools to indent the existing
concrete, then you have to wet the cement and also you may need to use some
cement bounding agent and/or paint to concrete with this cement glue called
Weldbond or Bondcrete or whatever and
place the topping cement according to the instruction supplied, if these
concrete glues are not available, you have to wet the concrete that you have to
lay the topping on, then make some slur of water and cement and somehow work it
in with a brush as if you paint the concrete, and before this starts drying lay
your topping on it.
These three mixtures plus the concrete are
the main things that are required when we build with cement, of course for
those people that do not know how the different materials look like, is still
hard to understand the hole procedure easily, but if they read a few times what
we have already said they should have a fair idea of what we are talking about.
Anyhow I have already described several things already, but I think that I need
still to describe how to mix mortar with lime only, as it was done in the old
day and here I am not talking just hydrated lime that you can buy at the
hardware store, but I am talking about quick-lime as it comes from the kiln and
slacked lime.
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Lime use in building
Quick-Lime and slacked or hydrated lime
Let us talk about lime,
Today when we talk about lime we
see a bag of white powder that we buy at the hardware store, we know that we
can use this powder to replace some cement in some cases when we make mortar,
but we don’t seem to know much more than that, But lime is a lot more than just
a white powder in a bag, because lime is one of those materials that has been
and is being used a lot in many ways, its’ largest use is in making mortar for
the master builders, but it has many other uses also. So first of all let us
talk about lime and where it comes from, so that we would be able to understand
a few things about lime process and its several uses, of course here we are
mainly interested about its use in the building industry for making mortar etc.
But there is a lot more to say about lime, but before we do that let us check
out how the Wikipedia explains quick-lime etc. Where you can find a lot of
information about lime if you care to know all you need to do is click on the
links therein.
And then we will say something
about how in the old times quick-lime was turned into slacked lime for the
builders and other people to use.
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From the Wikipedia:
Calcium oxide (CaO),
commonly known as quicklime or burnt
lime, is a widely usedchemical
compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at
room temperature. The broadly used term "lime"
connotes calcium-containing inorganic materials, which include carbonates,
oxides and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron
predominate, such as limestone. By
contrast, "quicklime" specifically applies to a single chemical
compound.
Quicklime is relatively
inexpensive. Both it and a chemical derivative (calcium hydroxide) are
important commodity chemicals.
Calcium oxide is usually
made by the thermal decomposition of materials such aslimestone, that
contain calcium
carbonate (CaCO3;
mineral calcite) in a lime kiln. This is
accomplished by heating the material to above 825
°C (1,517 °F),[5] a process calledcalcination or lime-burning,
to liberate a molecule of carbon
dioxide (CO2);
leaving quicklime. The quicklime is not stable and, when cooled, will spontaneously react with
CO2 from the air
until, after enough time, it will be completely converted back to calcium
carbonate.
Annual worldwide production of
quicklime is around 283 million metric tons. China is by far the world's
largest producer, with a total of around 170 million metric tons per year. The
United States is the next largest, with around 20 million metric tons per year.[6]
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As we have said above, lime has been used for
a very long time its use could be prehistoric, nobody seems to know when it was
first used in making mortar and plaster for buildings and also for other
things, it was/is used even to disinfect places when there is no much else to
use, and I know that there is a lot more to say about the use of lime even
today; up to the time when I was young it was used even to whitewash the walls
in spring once a year, after a long winter all the walls would be all darkened with
smoke, since then if you wanted to keep warm you needed to light a fire in the
chimney, so some of the smoke of the fire would find the way into the rooms
instead of going all up the chimney, I am pretty sure that even today this
would be the cheapest way of cleaning rustic building, as, it is one of the
cheapest ways to make everything clean. But let us start to tell you it several
uses including as a building material to make mortar when I was young, as it
was done then and how I have witnessed it done and in rare occasions helped to
do it myself, just to bring water to the pit.
--------------------------------
From quick-lime to hydrated lime
From quick-lime to slacked lime the old ways
Here we are going to talk about the late
forties and early fifties, when I was young and learning what was happening
around me, so, here under we will be writing about what I saw and learned at
that time about lime products and its uses.
In the town where I come from in southern
Italy; in the early fifties when there was a new building to be build or some
alterations to existing buildings to be done one of the first things we would
see was that the master builder would get ready a good supply of slacked lime,
because this was one of the most important building materials he would need to
do the job. In those times bagged hydrated lime and cement was very expensive,
and also bagged cement has a short life shelving span, as it reacts when
humidity infiltrate the bags, therefore most people or builders that needed to
build would use lime wherever they could; they would buy quick lime and get it
process immediately on delivery themselves or with the help of the people that
delivered it, of course one needs to know how to do that, because there is some
danger while you are doing it, so let us see how it was done, and then we will
also see where else the lime was used.
So; the master builder would get ready to do
this; if he had some large container or a purpose made pit he could use them,
otherwise he would build a square wall like a box and in this large box he
would process the quick-lime, now the quick lime cannot be held the way it is
for any length of time, because it reacts to humidity and violently to water,
so it is necessary that it is turned into slacked lime as soon as possible
after delivery.
Okay,
the cart or the lorry is on the way, so the master builder gets his worker to
start filling the pit with water, and when the quick lime arrives they start
carefully throwing this burned lime stones into the pit in very small
quantities, as soon as the quick lime comes in contact with the water it reacts
and the water starts boiling, everybody is banned to approach the pit accept
the people that need to work there, and they ware some protective gear, because
it is dangerous to handle quick-lime and around the pit, this process goes on
until all the quick lime is thus treated, once they have done that it is left
to cool down for a few days; after it has cooled down it is a lot less
dangerous, but still you need to be careful near the lime pit. You see the lime
pit is now filled up with slacked lime, which looks like curd when you make
cheese, but it is still very dangerous and it can easily kill you if you fall
in it, its contend must be handled with caution, but anyhow the slacked lime is
now ready to be used, this is how the builders used to get ready the lime to
make mortar. Now to use this lime to make mortar might be a bit different than
using bagged hydrated lime or cement; so we will come back to that soon enough,
as now I would like to talk about some other lime use first.
--------------------------------
Lime use in farming
As we have seen lime is a very useful
commodity, in fact they are countless places where we could use it, I only
happen to know a few of them but there are a lot more, so, let me just say a
few things about how we were using lime in our small family farm at the time
when I was young, just the way I remember it:
We would use it just like the builders use it
when we had to repair or replace a few stone that were falling apart in the old
stone building, so, instead of using a sort of clay that had been used the
first time, we would mix a small quantity of mortar using lime and sand, but
that is what most of you would already know. We used lime to whitewash the farm
house, the stables, the pig stay, the chicken coop and sheds or other buildings
near the farm house once a year in spring.
We would use it sometimes to disinfect
stagnant water ponds that showed signs of vermin or the water were to dirty, so
we would dilute some lime in water and then pour it in the water ponds, and
next day the ponds would be clean, as the lime would kill the vermin and also
would make the water clear because all the dirt would sink to the bottom of the
pond; you see in our small farm we used to have a kitchen garden, so we would
dig up a few ponds beside the garden that would feel up with water during
winter or when it rained, we used this water to water the plants when the soil
was becoming too dry for the garden plants to grow.
In the farms of those days lime was also used
to spray vines and trees, sometimes there were diseases that could be
controlled by applying a coat of lime to the trunk of those trees; but there is
one thing that always comes to my mind; it is when we where spraying the grape
vines with a copper sulphate and lime, we would have two containers one with
diluted copper sulphate and one with diluted lime, some people used to spray
first with copper sulphate and then with lime, so that they somehow would help
each other to kill the mildew, but my grandma had worked a way how to avoid
this double spraying and it worked thus;
In those times it was not like today and even
the vine spraying pump was a devise that you would put on your back and with a
handle that you would move up and down you would spray your vines and trees as
well; this devise would hold about three gallons of liquid, so every now and
then you needed to fill it up; so as I have said we had two containers one
holding diluted copper sulphate and one with diluted lime; (of course you had
to know how much diluted you had to do your mixtures but that does not mutter
here this time) anyhow when the pump was/is empty you would go to these
containers to fill it up: here is my grandma way to avoid to spray twice, when
filling the pump, first of all you had to make sure than the mixture were well
stirred, then you would put the copper sulphate in the pump and at the last
minute you would add the lime, and immediately start to spray. This was my
grandma way and it worked because the mixture would not have time to settle
down and become stale.
There you are this is just another way of how
lime is useful in the farms. And now we are going to tell you how to make
mortar with slacked lime.
How to make mortar with slacked
lime
This is how I know it was done in the old
time, perhaps for thousands of years, anyhow let me just describe to you the
procedure; We would like to do that so that people that want to try how to do
it yourself, could have a go and also in those parts of the world where are far
behind may come handy to know, since lime being cheaper than cement and having
a longer storage life once it has been hydrated might be more convenient to use
than cement. Now that we have stated the purpose of this article, let describe
how it was done.
Let us suppose that you have the slacked lime
in the pit or in a container; you also have some brickies loams or very fine
sand, so let us start:
First of all make a hip of your sand on a
platform and definitely not on loose soil; now that you have done that, make a
well in the centre and place your slacked lime in it. The quantities in here
may vary a lot more than when we use cement or hydrated bagged lime, because
the slacked lime can be as liquid as thickened cream to as compact as feta
cheese, so you have to learn as you go about the quantities, but if you have
mixed mortar before you soon work it out yourself, or if there is any tradesman
that is going to use the mortar he would be able to tell you just by looking at
the mortar being done, whether you need more lime or more sand and water etc.
Okay, now that you have the lime in the
middle of the sand, with a Larry start pushing this devise up and down through
the lime by adding a bit of water as needed and slowly mixing some sand with
the lime; you need to do this until you have mixed the whole lot evenly. This
is hard work but that is how it was done when there were no mixer and no bagged
hydrated lime around.
Here we need to note that this mixing of
slacked lime to mix mortar is completely different from mixing other mixture,
because the slacked lime is already wet and it is like a paste, and the others
are dry powder, therefore it needs to be used in a different way.
Anyhow this is how I remember it was done.
Now, I think that I might have said enough about how to mix your own cement or
mortar, and also this article has become too long to continue, so see you next
time with a different subject about buildings.
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