Best posts made by pappythesailor

It is now the next morning and my test block is still not set hard. I can poke my finger right into it. I am thinking I used too much foam. I am going to give it another day to set. This morning I gently poured water on it and covered it with plastic sheeting to help with the cure process. Hopefully it is not the foaming agent that is retarding the cement. As for the bubbles collapsing I did not observe any. And it is surprising because it stayed wet a very long time. I have a picture to upload but I am not sure how to do it.
Safe voyages,
Pappy the sailor
PS. my apologies for the previous post that published in mixed colors and dark background. Not sure how that happened and I have not been able to remedy it.

 Okay, I'm finished making my very first test block of AirCrete!
 First I measured 1/2 gal US of water from my rain barrel in plastic pitcher I use for iced tea. After weighing it on my kitchen scale just to be sure it was about 4 lbs I poured it into a 5 gal bucket.
 At this point I would like to apologize to those readers who are on the metric system. I can and do use metric, but all my utensils are imperial.
 Next I weighed out 8 lbs of type I-II portland cement from the 94 lb. bag I bought yesterday from a local Home Depot store for $9.20 and put it aside. 
 Then I measured another 1/2 gal of water from my rain barrel and mixed 1 Tbs (tablespoon US) of Drexel F.M.-160 foam / marker concentrate I purchased from local Rural King store. 1 gallon cost me $22. The directions said mix 1 gallon with 160 gallons of water. Apparently it is used in large sprayers for pesticides on crop fields to mark where the spray has been dispensed. The container does not say what the active ingredients are. Only that they are exempt under CFR-40 (code of federal regulation). However, because it will be stabilized in the cement when it sets I feel it is not an environmental issue. And more over it is used on crop fields so hopefully our government is making sure it is not toxic.
 Next I mixed the cement into 5 gallon bucket with the ½ gallon of water using an electric drill with a joint compound type paddle mixer.
 After that I started my compressor and poured the foam concentrate mixture into my foam generator and connected the air hose and started shooting the foam into the bucket of cement slurry, all the while using my other hand to run the drill and mix the foam into the slurry. It was awkward but I managed.
 I added foam until the bucket was almost completely full and then continued mixing it with the drill until it was uniform texture.
 At this point I should mention that I have been doing construction for over 40 years and 30 years of it included building concrete forms and tying rebar and pouring and finishing concrete. So when the Aircrete mix was finished I braced myself and grabbed the bucket. I couldn’t believe how light it was!
 Previously I had built a 16 in. square form from wood and I now filled it up which took the whole bucket.
 So now I am just waiting for it to set up.
 I didn’t caulk the formwork but only screwed it down to a piece of plywood I had in the yard for a base. It looked pretty tight. But as I was admiring my work I saw some but not a lot of the cement leaking out. 
 My whole purpose of doing this is to prepare for making preformed slabs about 4 inches thick and 2 feet wide and 6 or 8 feet long to use in setting up a raised-bed garden. Instead of stacking blocks I will just set these on edge and fill them with mulch and compost.
 Good luck everyone and safe voyages!

PS. I'll give an update later when it is set and hard and try to upload some pictures also.

Hello again!
I'm happy to report my second aircrete pour went pretty good and I am quite happy with results.
Here is how it happened:
I built a new 18" x 72" form using nominal 1x4x8' on top of a scrap piece of plywood. I laid a piece of plastic on the plywood. Then I screwed my 4 pieces of the edge form together and set the form on the plastic, squared it up, and screwed it to the plywood base. Then caulked the bottom of edge form to the plastic.
Next day after the caulk had time to dry I set up my tools and materials. Doing my calculations I figured I needed 20 gallons of aircrete so I just cut Domegaia's recipe in half.
So I put 3 gallons of rain water into a 20 gallon galvanized trash can I bought for $20. Then I mixed up my foaming agent using the Drexel F/M 160. Using a bathroom scale I weighed out my portland to approximately 48 lbs. (1 gal. H2O = 8 lbs. X 3 = 24 lbs. With 1:2 ratio cement weighed 2 x 24 = 48 lbs.)
When I bought my 1x4s I also purchased some bamboo tomato stakes. There were (6) 6 ft each in a pack and I bought 2 for $3.17 ea. I wanted to use them for reinforcement instead of steel rebar. So I cut them to length where they would fit into the form both transverse and longitudinal.
Having everything set up poured the 3 gallons of rain water into the trash can and added the 48 lbs of portland cement while mixing them together. The trash can leaked some but not enough to make a difference. Next I started my compressor and made the aircrete, mixing and adding foam and mixing and adding foam. It is a little tough when you do not have a helper. But I managed.
Having everything mixed I filled my form up. I ran a little short so the panel ended up only 2 1/2 inches thick. I put my bamboo reinforcement in and troweled the surface. And cleaned up.
Next morning it was set and pretty hard. I could not poke my finger into it like the first test block. I poured water on it several times that day and also the next three.
Fourth day I unscrewed my form boards and tilted the panel up and lifted it and took it out to my garden where it is going to be the walls of my raised beds.
I think it was a great success and I want to thank everyone here for the knowledge and expertise shared to help make this a better world to live in.
Safe voyages!
PS. I have a cousin who lives about an hour away and earlier this year she offered to give me some bamboo plants out of her yard. So I think I am going to take her up on the offer! :- D

I made my first post yesterday after joining the forum. But when I made my second post about my first aircrete test block it came out with black background and mixed colors in the text body. What is the reason for that and how do I fix it so it looks normal? The post is under Aircrete topic, heading is Aircrete is collapsing.

Greetings all,

I'm just about to make my very first test block.
Came here looking for how much foam to add to cement slurry.
I made my own foam generator and tested it using Dawn Ultra.
However, I too have a well water here in Florida, USA.
My first foam test made lots of foam but it did seem to collapse rapidly.
But here at my house I harvest rain water off my roof!
Rain should be free of any hardness and minerals.
And it is free and readily available to me. I generally use it for my garden and greenhouse.
So I'm about to go out to my garage and try the cement slurry and the foam mix with rain water.
Seems to me easier than going to buy distilled water.
Thanks for the discussion.
Pappy the Sailor Man