First workshop and update.

We have hosted our first workshop and it went very well, more progress was made on the building than expected and everyone was satisfied with the work and the learning experience.

We managed to give everyone the opportunity of a hands-on experience of all the main aspects of the project, building, setting windows, using glass, first and second plaster coat and  and we had time to discuss all the construction basics, foundation, roofing, plumbing, electrics, etc.

section with first plaster

section with final plaster

making good progress

The next two workshops start on Aug 11 and Aug 25, we hope to have all the walls done to a finish by the end of September.

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Foolproof method for cutting glass bottles.

We are getting ready for the workshop, preparing all the materials that we want to use.

Glass bottles are often used as decoration in adobe building, in the right position they can also produce some neat light effects at certain times of the day. We also use them, even though we are nowhere near as creative and polished as more experienced builders. I also tend to prefer a more streamlined style and simple designs, which are not so time consuming, my focus here tends to be the garden much more.

Preparing the bottles for use as in the examples above is very simple. We score the bottles using a standard diamond tipped glass cutter, we fix the cutter to a work bench and make a cradle for the bottle, so that we always cut the same size. In this case  we are using two bottles to make the width of one standard brick, so we cut them 10cm.

We heat the glass using a candle at the point where we scored it, once the glass is hot, we dunk it into a pot of cold water for a few seconds, after which with a gentle tap the bottle will crack at the desired spot.

The bottles are then washed and dried thoroughly to make sure there will be no moisture once we tape them together. Only the ends need to be clean, the rest of the bottle is not visible, so no need to scrape off the left over bits of label.

That’s it, ready to go.