Experimentation

The past two weeks have been spent experimenting with mostly rice straw and sugarcane waste. The results have been pretty interesting.

Initially, I soaked the materials in water. It didn't change the structure of the rice straw, bagasse or rice hull as much as I thought it would. The rice straw, however, was more bendable, as was the sugarcane waste.

Next, I tried creating wheat paste. Wheat paste is a natural adhesive that is commonly used in crafts such as paper mache-making. To do this, I mixed cold water and flour. Separately, I boiled a couple cups of water. Once the water boil, I quickly poured the mixture in, stirring for about an hour. I let the whole batch cool for another 3 hours, stirring consistently every ten minutes. Once it completely cooled, I added sugar and stirred more to mix it in. I then refrigerated this, which turned it into a jello-like substance. This was then applied to ricestraw and sugarcane waste.

Once the wheat paste completely dried, which took a couple of days, the rice straw stuck together pretty well. It's hardened quite nicely. I'm trying to see if sugarcane waste will accept it the same way.

I took a lot of rice straw back to my room and separated the core of the stem from the sheath, which is the outer protective covering that expresses a leaf-like quality.

I asked myself, if I didn't apply any adhesive to the material-making process, what would I do with it. The first instinct was to tie it and use the fiber's vertical strength as a textile or rope. I eventually found that it would have a lot easier to tie them if I had done the entire process while the rice straw was completely soaked. Maybe weaving is easier this way too.

I also worked on specifically compressing the rice straw sheath with wood glue as an adhesive. This is rice straw compressed:

This is sugarcane waste compressed:

Compressed bagasse:

Compressed rice hull - which failed, because it's surface rejects bonding. The fibers are nonlinear and have a glossy coating.

I'm currently layering compressed pieces in hopes that I can create a stiff fiberboard from them. The sugarcane waste has a lot of promise in this direction. It has a relatively high sugar content which allows it to adhere well, and its fibers want to bond to each other, unlike rice hulls.