“Coconut”: Chopping to Size
This article is a supplement to our “Secret of Coconut” article, which describes various ways modern hobbyists have attempted to reproduce a certain kind of fuzzy-looking coating on vintage cardboard Christmas “putz” houses.
Note: These articles are based on notes from a number of putz house builders and restorers who’ve attempted to replicate the original finish to use on their own construction. We’re publishing them because the questions keep coming in. But we did want to point out that none of the people who contributed to the article (including me) have any intention whatsoever to make this stuff to sell commercially - there are a lot of easier ways to make a living, and there’s already a fellow - Pete Oehman, who makes a better product than I ever will. We’ve done our best to give you the information you need to “roll your own,” but if you’d rather finish that structure than learn a new skill, or if you need to match a difficult color, contact Pete through CardboardPutzHouses.com and tell him we sent you.
Turns out that most of these coverings were made with chopped, dyed rice straw. Ironically, unprocessed rice straw is so cheap in rice-producing countries that it is virtually free, but it’s hard to find in most parts of the U.S. Fortunately, wheat straw works as well for most purposes. For more information about potential sources of material, please check out our article on Coconut Raw Materials.
Eventually, you want to get your material down to little bits just a tad larger than black pepper flakes. For many experimenters, the easiest way to do this, relatively speaking, is to use a kitchen blender, food processor, coffee bean “grinder,” etc. Some of these products work better than others, but none is work- or mess- free, so you may want to start your experiments with whatever you have on hand, then decide if you need something better.
For any of these devices to work, you need to get your material down to 1” or less size so it can blow around when the chopper is turned on. Our articles on Coconut Raw Materials and Making a Straw-Cutting Jig should give you some ideas on how to do that without going insane.
After you’ve done the initial “rough cut,” you’ll want to sift to get out dust that created. Some readers have good luck with ordinary kitchen flower sifters. We have several reader tips on choosing or making sifters in our Sifting and Sifters article. While each little batch is in the sifter, it’s also easy to pull out twiggy material or other bits that won’t look right even chopped up.
Once you have your material “rough cut” and sifted, it’s time for the “blender dance.” Unlike cranberries or other things that chop up, and stay out of the way until the rest of the batch is chopped, chopped straw tends to stay around the blades, getting ground to dust while the rest of the straw is untouched. So the “blender dance” is: run for a few seconds (using “pulse” if you have it), turn the thing upside down and shake it, then repeat until you have a consistent texture throughout the batch.
About this time, you’ll be cursing Black and Decker or whoever made your device for that 16” cord they attached, as though you’ll never need to be a foot from the plug when you’re running this thing. You’ll also have noticed a warning that says the warranty will be voided if you use an extension cord. No, you don’t want to shake your device while it’s running, but you would like to have a little bit of breathing space without constantly unplugging and replugging the thing. Please don’t go to your “junk drawer” and pull out one of those home extension cords with 18 gauge wire and three plug-ins on one end. If you’re going to use an extension chord, consider getting an “appliance” extension cord, the kind with one plug-in and 14 or (at the very least) sixteen-gauge wire.
I would recommend doing this somewhere you can sweep up easily. This process generates a lot of dust, whatever kind of chopping device you use.
You’ll also need to sift out the dust. Several readers report that they chop, sift out dust, chop, sift out dust, chop, sift out dust, then use one more sifter with larger holes to sift out any pieces that are too big.
One reader reports:
For me [the problem] is the chopping up of the straw. Electric processing or blending of the straw takes what seems like forever, and then has to be sifted and most of the time the first batch is unusable due to all the little hairs in the straw fiber. Then after it has been sifted once and reprocessed then I get a little on the second and third batches. This whole process has to be repeated a couple times before you get enough for a batch.
It would really help if you could chop it up with knives over and over to cut down on the waste by-product and dust. I haven't seen such a machine. A large granulator would maybe do the trick...but they are several thousand dollars. You would still get too much waste, but you would probably be able to process larger amounts at a time.
What About Blenders With Multiple Blades?
What about those fancy blenders that have several blades, vertically arranged? In theory, the upper blades should catch some of the pieces that haven’t rattled round the lower blades yet. According to reports, this reduces the “blender dancing” a little but not completely.
The “Ninja Master Prep Professional” processor set, available on QVC, includes two blenders, one with six blades and one with four. One reader who has experimented with this set reports finding a process that works reasonably well, although it doesn’t totally eliminate the “blender dance” or radically reduce the number of steps.
According to this reader:
The large 6 blade unit does a nice job reducing the rough cut (>1” lengths) into much smaller pieces. However the straw still requires several trips: chop, sift out the dust (with a flour sifter), chop, sift, etc. It still produces a lot of dust, but the lid helps.
The smaller 4 blade unit is good for chopping pieces from the 6-blade unit into smaller pieces. It seems to do a better job of chopping than the 6-blade unit. The blades are longer with a cutting edge that is more curved. However it still requires several trips through the process: chop, sift out the dust, chop, sift, etc.
The instructions say not to run these for more than 15 seconds at a time. There is only a pulse switch. However, the Ninja’s blades are razor sharp.
After all that, I still ran the batches through my coffee been “grinder” (really a miniature food processor) and sifted again. But if I’d started with that, I’d have spent many more hours just getting a single good batch.
Conclusion
In other words, getting the straw down to appropriate size is going to require a certain amount of “brute” force and a lot of sifting regardless of the tools you use.
On the bright side, the processes described above can give you a batch of consistently-sized, still-shiny, relatively dust-free chopped medium that only needs coloring, drying, and a little more sifting to be ready for application.
If you’re looking for one good proven method that will work for everybody, this may not be what you were looking for. But so far there’s not single “best practice” that works for everybody, regardless of their skills, interests, and resources.
In other words “Do try this at home.” And when you do, feel free to report your results on the Coconut page of our forums.
In the meantime, I look forward to hearing and seeing the results of your experiments, with this or any other aspects of putz collecting, displaying, restoring, or creating.
Paul Race
CardboardChristmas.com
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