Subject: [Homestead] Home manufacturing business recent post #3
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 20:30:03 -0700
Home Manufacturing Business, recent post #3.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/index.php?page=arc&id=5472 (Mother Earth
News on he busineses in small Emporia, Kansas, notation of rural
manufacturing on the rise---almost no homesteaders relies on ag-related
income, though it is a good one if you set up a PYO near a town of ten
thousand or more---no more than fifteen miles from the city limits.)
http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=294 (Appalachian manufacturing
startups---my down-the-road machinist buddy, has almost no overhead and
an unbeatable electric power rate---he can kill any Northeastern or
Mid-Atlantic job shop on job bids, while still maintaining a very
profitable margin of profit. The only trouble he has had recently has
been American Electric Power bumping up the voltage with no notice
whatsoever---kicked off the machine switches and caused him to spend
$1200 to have a local electrician build him a new supplementary
transformer to drop the voltage back where it should be.)
http://www.alliedfoamtech.com/Appconc.htm (if I could look forward to a
few more productive years one of the products I would manufacture is
BBTBB (better than Butler buildings). K-D two-foot wide foamed and
fibered lightweight sections to bolt together at the building
site---pre-assemble them if they are fairly small, like for storing
lawnmowers, lawn tractors, tools, and take them to the building site on
a tilting flatbed trailer.)
Sell them to flea market dealers at a larger-than-normal discount---and
put them on a rretractable-wheel trailer to haul in and out on a
towbar. They can use the foam-concrete structure both as a display
booth for their other wares, and as a highly visible model passers-by
can look at and buy---have some literature printed for handouts, print
the dealer's name and address on it---you must assure them they will be
paid for their efforts and you will not steal the sales commission from
them. For a small startup manufacturer, honest is not just the best
policy---it is the ONLY policy.
Make fiberglass molds and spray the foam in them with a cheap Tirolessa
hopper-sprayer to start, shift to higher-capacity foam-sprayer after a
couple months in business.
If cheaper and better than Butler, this is a hell of a
business---year-around sales and a huge market. Fiberglass molds would
be your chief investment to kick up production. You first make a "plug"
(wood or molding plaster) pattern, hand layup glass fabric and polyester
resin on it (use a parting compound on plug surface), when cured lift
the mold off the plug. If it is hard to hand-strip, leave some tiny
holes in the plug and use compressed air to blow the mold away from the
plug. Do the same thing with the molds when pulling lipped-foam
concrete sections out of the molds.The purpose of the lips, beside
creating rigidity ane more strength is to seal out rain---you use either
a commercially-available flexible plastic cap-strip or buy a cheap metal
mold you can take to a plastic extrusion shop and extrude a UV-resistant
plastic cap-strip.
Again, can speed up fiberglass mold-making by using a fiberglass/resin
and catalyst-spraying chopper gun---we used to have one, think it was a
Binks, but can't remember what we did with it when making fiberglass
tanks lost its charm.)
You should use hand-retractable waxed wooden pins inserted in the
lip-mold---locate them accurately and pull them when the foam concrete
is pretty well set. You can drill (or better, use a hot piece of metal
rod (propane torch insert) to melt holes through the cap-strip through
which assembly bolts are thrust.
Figure out the cubic feet of foam fiber, the weight factor. Ideally the
individual sections would be light enough for one man to sdt them up and
bolt them together, but in any event don't build them so heavy two men
can't easily handle them.
http://www.baustoffchemie.de/en/db/concrete.htm (chemistry of foamed
concrete)
Don't think it is the above, but be sure to incorporate pozzolans in the
concrete mix if it is available. Pretty cheap stuff from a coal power
plant ash residue. Also incorporate acrylic for stronger, tougher, more
shock-resistant polymer-concrete. Lots of fiber additives, aramid,
polypropylene, alkali-resistant glass---just be sure it is
alkali-resistant for long life.
Mearle was the first foam chemical supplier in the U.S.---forgot who
bought them out. Was pretty pricey, so I analyzed the foam chemical
once, mostly cheap hide glue. I presume there are equally cheap foam
ingredients now. Had a five horsepower gasoline engine foamer made in
Waukesha, retailing for $800 that worked fine, but they couldn't sell
dollar bills for fifty cents, so sold out to a Canadian firm which did
nothing with it either. such units at quite low prices now come from
Europe---Czechoslovakia if my memory is correct.
http://home.att.net/~gallgosp/architec.htm (FINE third world cheap
housing website---most concrete small home manufacturing prodects in the
U.s. would be better classified as third world projects, third world
tooling and manufacturing techniques coupled with the limited capital
available to most homesteaders.)
[Homestead] Home manufacturing business recent post #3,
Tvoivozhd, 09/19/2004