Garnet
Well-Known Member
My sister and I gave our Dad one of the heavy duty manure brick makers for Christmas 2012. Dad has been as happy as a pig in manure ever since, perfecting his poo brick making technique! Here is the photographic story so far . . .
Firstly, the evidence of his industry around 300 poo bricks, drying happily on purpose-built shelving, four shelves deep, with five or six bricks per shelf, resting on two lengths of bamboo cane. Initially Mum lost all the bamboo canes from her vegetable patch, but the brick-making industry quickly outgrew that supply, so Dad has been keeping a local garden centre in business supplying canes!
Next equipment and modifications. Dad has replaced the original lever handle with a longer one to reduce the amount of effort required to squeeze the bricks. In the photo, he is holding up the original handle supplied, to show the length of the modified handle. Note the concrete mixer a brick-making industry requires industrial quantities of poo mixture! Mums pony is bedded on Megasorb and rubber matting, so there is not much fibre in the manure, and the bricks were too crumbly when made of this alone. Dad has therefore experimented with additives, starting with shredded paper, but discarded that idea as too labour intensive after he had shredded most of the contents of his study and my sisters office! His current preferred additive is woodshavings, so he bought one bale of the largest flake shavings available, which is used a double handful at a time in the concrete mixer, and he is part-way through the first bale.
Brick handling technique. Dads production line has evolved into a slick procedure, with tools adapted to improve brick handling, reduce dropped bricks, and reduce general cursings and swearings to save the neighbours blushes!
Dad has created a carrying board for wet bricks, with grooves to stop the bamboo canes from rolling off. This enables him easily to transfer wet bricks in batches of five on their bamboo canes onto the drying racks, with no breakages simples!
Uniform for brick manufacture includes full overalls, wellingtons, heavy duty rubber gloves and waterproof gaiters worn on the arms to avoid soggy-sleeve incidents.
Dad is now burning the first batches of bricks he made and is pleased with the results. There is no smell verified by Mum! Transporting the bricks into the house has been the latest process to benefit from Dads ingenuity. He has purchased a couple of brick carriers from a builders merchant ta-dah!
Dad places a row of poo bricks on top of the wood and the effect he has observed is that the wood seems to burn hotter with the bricks, which has been handy in this cold weather!
Overall Dad is tickled pink with his new toy, and at the age of 73, has been pottering about outside in the garage, tool shed and woodshed for the last three months, gainfully employed in both mind and body, finding out that there is fuel for free in that muck heap!
Hopefully this will inspire others to great industry too - if you have any questions, I will relay them to Dad!
Firstly, the evidence of his industry around 300 poo bricks, drying happily on purpose-built shelving, four shelves deep, with five or six bricks per shelf, resting on two lengths of bamboo cane. Initially Mum lost all the bamboo canes from her vegetable patch, but the brick-making industry quickly outgrew that supply, so Dad has been keeping a local garden centre in business supplying canes!
Next equipment and modifications. Dad has replaced the original lever handle with a longer one to reduce the amount of effort required to squeeze the bricks. In the photo, he is holding up the original handle supplied, to show the length of the modified handle. Note the concrete mixer a brick-making industry requires industrial quantities of poo mixture! Mums pony is bedded on Megasorb and rubber matting, so there is not much fibre in the manure, and the bricks were too crumbly when made of this alone. Dad has therefore experimented with additives, starting with shredded paper, but discarded that idea as too labour intensive after he had shredded most of the contents of his study and my sisters office! His current preferred additive is woodshavings, so he bought one bale of the largest flake shavings available, which is used a double handful at a time in the concrete mixer, and he is part-way through the first bale.
Brick handling technique. Dads production line has evolved into a slick procedure, with tools adapted to improve brick handling, reduce dropped bricks, and reduce general cursings and swearings to save the neighbours blushes!
Dad has created a carrying board for wet bricks, with grooves to stop the bamboo canes from rolling off. This enables him easily to transfer wet bricks in batches of five on their bamboo canes onto the drying racks, with no breakages simples!
Uniform for brick manufacture includes full overalls, wellingtons, heavy duty rubber gloves and waterproof gaiters worn on the arms to avoid soggy-sleeve incidents.
Dad is now burning the first batches of bricks he made and is pleased with the results. There is no smell verified by Mum! Transporting the bricks into the house has been the latest process to benefit from Dads ingenuity. He has purchased a couple of brick carriers from a builders merchant ta-dah!
Dad places a row of poo bricks on top of the wood and the effect he has observed is that the wood seems to burn hotter with the bricks, which has been handy in this cold weather!
Overall Dad is tickled pink with his new toy, and at the age of 73, has been pottering about outside in the garage, tool shed and woodshed for the last three months, gainfully employed in both mind and body, finding out that there is fuel for free in that muck heap!
Hopefully this will inspire others to great industry too - if you have any questions, I will relay them to Dad!
Even beats the Christmas pressie my friend's dad got a couple of years ago- a log chopper.
