Part of the Plan: CEB Press

I have a house design in mind that borrows somewhat from the Earthship design but I will not be using the rammed earth tyres because of the huge amount of labour involved.  I am planning to make it out of compressed earth bricks because of the great thermal mass and free price of them, they are also considered structural masonry so there's a strength factor too.  There will only be 2 - 3 of us building the house so it will be a long process, we may have to make the bricks one year and put it up the next depending how long it takes us.

I have seen a few press designs and I don't think it will be a problem building a press from them, I am probably going to go with a CINVA type ram, perhaps slightly modified.  The hard part will be making it flexible enough to be able to make 2 - 3 kinds of bricks as well as roofing tiles (I hope).

I am planning to mount the press to a bracket of some kind that will be mounted on the front of the digger, It should provide a very solid base for it as well as keeping it mobile enough to move to where the dirt is.  I will mount it with linchpins or something for easy removal.  If we decide we cant cope with the pressing of the bricks we will also have the capacity for using the hydraulics off the digger to power the mechanics of the press

I am planning to have a go at making the press this summer if I can find enough scrap to put one together.  I have some of the parts already but I will need to find some decent steel plate before I can make too much progress, I will see what I can come up with when summer rolls around.  I would really like to get the press done before we find a property if possible so I can work out what kind of labour will be involved.  If we get the house plan sorted out somewhat we should also be able to estimate the number of bricks needed and extrapolate how long it will take to make everything.  We should also be able to work out how much cement will be required for the CEB bricks so that will help us to get a more accurate idea of price.