Larro goes underground

[Eric Salop]

Well, whatever the use, i'd like to have one too. Hunting or hidden storage of some sort. As long as I can keep the critters out including brown recluse & black widow spiders. When I was a kid, we had a nice under ground camp"fort". I think it must have been a old cement cistern or something. 10'x10'. Also made what I called soddies. Branch frames covered with sod. I've got a bunch of left over cement #10 blocks to do something with.

As a kid, we often used soddies too to cover our dens. The best one I can remember was inspired by finding a rusty bed frame that someone had dumped. We dug a hole and used the earth to build up the walls a couple of feet, with the bed on top, covered in old carpet, with grass sods over it all. Another flap of carpet, trapped under the sods, folded down to make a door.

Looking forward to hear how you get on with the rest of the construction Larro.

 

[Larro Darro]

I spent most of the day here around the house. But I did get down to the camp right before dark and got in a little shoveling, including harvesting some clay for making cob. If all goes well, I might use it to make a chimney for my fox stove tomorrow.

 

[dragoneggs]

Hey Larro, I know you aren't wanting to dump a bunch of money into this project but one thing to consider for your pond floor if you are wanting to retain water is the use of sodium bentonite. It's kind of expensive so it might not be a great option but depending on what you are trying to do... ??? Something to research though. I know golf courses use it in forming ponds and it is a natural material.

 

[Larro Darro]

Hey Larro, I know you aren't wanting to dump a bunch of money into this project but one thing to consider for your pond floor if you are wanting to retain water is the use of sodium bentonite. It's kind of expensive so it might not be a great option but depending on what you are trying to do... ??? Something to research though. I know golf courses use it in forming ponds and it is a natural material.

My dug ponds have clay bottoms and they hold water pretty good, not to mention they get water piped in to them. The natural pond is 3-5 acres, so it has to come and go with the water table.

 

[dragoneggs]

My dug ponds have clay bottoms and they hold water pretty good, not to mention they get water piped in to them. The natural pond is 3-5 acres, so it has to come and go with the water table.

My pond will be small and will be fed naturally as well as I will have retaining wall base run off pipe from our terraced garden (live on a steep hill), and a well water connection. Ideally I will have some kind of aeration via a simple fountain or ???. I don't want stagnant water.

Following along... keep us up to date with your progress! :thumbsup:

 

[Larro Darro]

Today I turned my fire hole into a Fox stove. {or Badger stove, according to where you're at} I guess I could call it a Gopher stove

This was my first time working with cob. I used 3 parts {surprisingly good looking} clay, 2 parts sand, 1 1/2 parts water and a certain amount of straw to make the mud. I lined the bottom and sides of the hole, then mounded up a "chimney". The hole is bigger than the stove-top I had planned {used mower blades}, so I'm going to have to come up with another plan. I covered it with an old tarp so it can dry out slow. A few day's time will tell how good a job I did.

 

[hunt4570]

View attachment 445528View attachment 445531View attachment 445534View attachment 445543

Today I turned my fire hole into a Fox stove. {or Badger stove, according to where you're at} I guess I could call it a Gopher stove

This was my first time working with cob. I used 3 parts {surprisingly good looking} clay, 2 parts sand, 1 1/2 parts water and a certain amount of straw to make the mud. I lined the bottom and sides of the hole, then mounded up a "chimney". The hole is bigger than the stove-top I had planned {used mower blades}, so I'm going to have to come up with another plan. I covered it with an old tarp so it can dry out slow. A few day's time will tell how good a job I did.

Do you have a hole or something to the bottom to feed it air?

 

[Larro Darro]

Do you have a hole or something to the bottom to feed it air?

I used hole diggers and a trenching shovel to dig the air hole. This is a nighttime picture, but you can see the fire at the end of the air hole. {the broken block is to keep me from having a broken ankle} The times I had a fire in it, it drew really well. The higher up I go with the chimney, the better it will draw.

 

[hunt4570]

I used hole diggers and a trenching shovel to dig the air hole. This is a nighttime picture, but you can see the fire at the end of the air hole. {the broken block is to keep me from having a broken ankle} The times I had a fire in it, it drew really well. The higher up I go with the chimney, the better it will draw.

AH HA! I didn't see that before.

 

[Duwop]

Nice Larro, last year I built a fire pit now I want to build on of yours. I remember as a lad I was in boys home in south Ga. and we built hunting shelters 3 to 4 ft into the ground maybe 8x8 ft square and used tin for two foot walls above grade with tin roofs and also a fire hole/ place below grade to cook and heat space. Thanks havnt had that memory for some time.

 

[Larro Darro]

I got over to the camp yesterday and had a look at the Fox stove. The tarp was holding water in the hole, so it wasn't drying out too fast.



All the cob was still in place.



Here is what I came up with to reduce the size and increase the height of the chimney.



I did mix up a small batch of cob and put on the chimney, but I was running late for work and didn't get a picture.

 

[Larro Darro]

I made a few passes with the dirt slip this afternoon, but the ramp is getting too steep for the 3930. I have a small grader blade that I will try on the B75, and see if I can move some more that way. But for now I'm working around the corners and edges with the shovel.



I did go ahead and replenish my cob supply.

I bought a 4X8 pup tent at the thrift store this week. Last night I pitched it and spent the night down there. Pup tents are designed for younger folks.

 

[dragoneggs]

View attachment 446385View attachment 446386

I made a few passes with the dirt slip this afternoon, but the ramp is getting too steep for the 3930. I have a small grader blade that I will try on the B75, and see if I can move some more that way. But for now I'm working around the corners and edges with the shovel.

View attachment 446387

I did go ahead and replenish my cob supply.

I bought a 4X8 pup tent at the thrift store this week. Last night I pitched it and spent the night down there. Pup tents are designed for younger folks.

Where the heck are your rocks??? I can't imagine working in such conditions... you haven't lived.

 

[Larro Darro]

Where the heck are your rocks??? I can't imagine working in such conditions... you haven't lived.

This morning when I was shoveling, I saw five or six pieces of {what we call} sandstone. It's really just big clumps of clay that looks like rocks. They will break up if you apply enough pressure.

 

[KevT]

Where the heck are your rocks??? I can't imagine working in such conditions... you haven't lived.

The only rocks you find down here is lumps of over spilt concrete.

 

[Larro Darro]

I'm down to five foot in the Northwest corner. Now I just have to get the rest of it down to that level.



I worked on the Fox stove again today. I used some old wire to form a structure to support the cob needed to bring the chimney up. I filled in mud around the base, and brought it on up to the top of the wire. There was some major cracking going on right as I was leaving, but it was too dark and I had run out of mud, so I'll work on that in a week or so. Hard to see in the picture, but I laid two lawnmower blades on edge in the cob at the top of the chimney.

 

[Duwop]

Larro it's been awhile, so how is the camp coming along hopefully you haven't abandoned the campsite?

 

[Larro Darro]

I've been doing lots of camping, but not too much digging. My tarp shelter has grown until it looks like a family of Gypsies could live in it. I hurt my back about a month ago, and that put a hold on shoveling for a while. I have worked on it a little, but I have a cousin with a backhoe who would help me if we could get our days off to line up. What I really need to be working on is getting the rest of the block walls taken down on the old corn crib. But with me right in the middle of Christmas season at work, I don't have much time for anything. That said, I'm camping again tonight if I get off work at a decent hour.

I've made a couple more rocket stoves, one of which I kept. Glad cob can be recycled, because my first cardboard box stove had bad posture. The next one with a lot more bracing held together, but I put too much duct tape on the pipes. By the time I had them pulled loose, my burn chamber and chimney were no longer level, or in the center of the stove. I may add to it to make the burn chamber level and the right length. {Or I may start fresh with bigger pipe for the holes. You can't use very big wood like it is} It burns good, but the coals roll out on the ground. I don't have a recent picture of it, but this is from two weeks ago, right after I got the pipes pulled out.

 

[Larro Darro]

Looking back I see I hadn't posted pictures of my addition to the original Fox stove, or the first cardboard box stove. So here is a picture to rectify that.



I don't have the right dimensions on the original stove, so it isn't as rockety as I would like it. The feed tube, burn chamber and chimney should be 1-2-4, or each one twice as long as the one proceeding it. I can fix it by cutting away part of the base of the chimney to make the burn chamber shorter, but I've been thinking about all the years I will be bending over to tend to my cooking, and I'm leaning toward starting over with an all above ground stove. As much fun as it is to shape cob free hand, building forms to pour into seems to be the smartest way to go.

Edit: sorry for the double picture. My work laptop often gives you twice as much as you ask for. That can't be bad, right?

 

[Larro Darro]

For the first time in weeks, my back let me tear down some block from the old corn crib. I worked at it for an hour this afternoon.

The south wall is about all down.

The north wall doesn't have that much more in it either.

Here is today's stack.