We bought a 4-in-1 Paper Log Maker from Amazon to make paper bricks which will be used as insulation for the inside wall of our house.  Right now, we are experimenting with different materials in order to find the best material combination for our purposes.  Our first go just consisted of scrap bits of paper, cardboard and newspaper; we basically stuffed a 5 gallon bucket full of paper and filled it with water up to the top.  After 24 hours, the paper was soft enough to be shredded coarsely by hand.  On searching through the Internet, we found that some people actually purchased paper shredders for this purpose and put shredded paper into buckets of water.  Our method is preferred because it doesn’t involve the need to purchase another piece of machinery.  As an interesting aside, the main use of this contraption is to produce paper logs for burning.  I have not found any one else trying to construct with it.

After 72 hours the paper was getting gummy and sticky.  Next, we buzzed the paper with a paint stirrer for about 3-5 minutes to get a uniform paste of paper and water.  The mixture was then packed into the brick log maker and then the handle was pushed down to squeeze water out of the bricks.  We noted that the mechanism did not entirely squeeze all the water out of the bricks and it required the adequate drying time after to remove all the water.  If you push the log-maker too hard down, the handles bend.

We made our first 4 bricks about one week ago; so far, they are still drying.  The weather down here in Toledo, Belize has been partially sunny but still interspersed with rains.  Our aim is to make the paper bricks in the dry season here so that the bricks will dry faster in the hot-baking sun.

In our next experiment, we will try more card-board (since this material is actually easier to find down here from all the Chinese grocery shops) and a bit of lime (calcium hydroxide) to act as a binder.