Brick Spacing (A solution - I think!)

[shaggy]

Not very good pics but HERE
(Nothing wrong with trying to get rich; why do you think I buy a lottery ticket every week?)

 

[cemesphere]

Hi Shaggy,
thanks for that, I think I can see how they work.
Is there anyone out there that has no bricklaying experience at all and would like to make a comment?
Cheers
Al

 

[P.J.]

Yes.
Considering all the comments made, I still think they're a great idea for the DIYer. I can see how a seasoned brickie would guffaw at the idea, but they're not your target market.
Depending on the tolerance of a brick's dimensions, you may need to address the issue of gauge running out of sync. If the tolerance is small enough you may just need to lay one manually spaced course in every ten or so, which will still be a great saving. I have a DIYer friendly idea for this, let me have your email address if you want to discuss.
I think the mixing in of the spacers with the mortar mix is a bad idea because of the random distribution of the spacers through the mix. I would propose laying your mortar bed and manually poking a couple of spacers into the mortar wher the ends of the next brick will sit so you have no wasted spacers (extra spacers will also weaken the mortar by the 'swiss cheese' effect!) and ensure at the same time that there are enough to support each brick.
Coming from someone who usually ends up pushing mortar into gaps with his fingers, I would defintiely buy a pack if I attempted a barbeque or dwarf wall.
I would watch out for the effect on the strength of a wall due to the addition of the spacers and set some sort of top limit for type and height of wall where these spacers can safely be used, with the help of a good structural engineer / government department.
Still get a thumbs up from me. Hurry up, cos I'm building a barbeque next spring !
Cheers,
P.J

 

[cemesphere]

Hi P.J.,
Thanks for the comments, I thought I was the only one who used the 'Finger-pointing' method when making a brick wall! you can contact me on [email protected], and I will see what I can do before next spring!
Cheers
Al

 

[legs-akimbo]

How could this work with a brick that is frogged or three holed even?

 

[JerryD]

I don't want to be a party pooper but this idea is nonsense! I have been bricklaying since the 1970's and I have never come across bricks of a tolerance that would allow this idea to work.

The initial skills of bricklaying start long before a brick is laid.

1) You have to get the mortar mix right. How often have I seen DIY guys with crumbly old mixes or sopping wet soup, trying to build a garden wall!

2) How to start the wall? You will have to compensate for foundation unevenness, bedding up or grinding down to get to gauge.

3) You will still have to build a corner each end, if you can build a corner ok then you can run the line between them surely.

4) If you can't build a corner properly, then these balls will not help you at all!

5) Bricks can vary by 5mm (or more) in height and 10mm (or more) in length. Imagine the compound error if every bed joint and perp joint was dead on 10mm!! The mortar joints HAVE to vary all along the wall to compensate for the brick irregularity.

6) To say this is OK for diy is nonsense, why would a diy'er want a wall looking like the Himalayas?

7) We use Blakes, they are excellent, but not designed for diy really unless you intend to do loads of brickwork due to cost and the fact that you still need to build a minimum three course corner in EXACTLY the right place for the Blakes to start.

8) There are no shortcuts to neat brickwork, it is a time learnt skill, no amount of gadgets or gismos can replace human skill on this particular craft.

 

[P.J.]

Another pro miffed at the thought of someone needing help to build a wall. I think we've already established that the pros do not need this.

Sure there's much more than spacing to get right, but cemesphere has found that spacing can be an issue and that his proposed solution works for him - chances are it will work for others.

5mm height variation ? Surely the tolerances on a brick's height, for one type of brick, is tighter than that, just looking at my house I can see the variation is only a couple of mm over hundreds of bricks. Even so, there's a solution which can't be discussed just yet.

For frogged bricks, I'm thinking you still have a small outside face at each end of the frog where you could position the spacers. For half bats where the frog runs out of the end of the brick, you'd have to grin and bear it, but I guess they would count for a small percentage of the bricks laid.

Cemesphere, you've probably thought of this, but can I suggest carrying out a filmed trial with 2 DIYers building the same sample wall next to each other. One can use the spacers, the other can't. Time each one to completion, then tear the walls down, swap over so the other guy uses the spacers and rebuild the walls again. Then check your times and quality of finished walls. That could form a good basis for your sales pitch to the distributors.
Best of luck.
P.J.

 

[JerryD]

If you try and use a ball on the edge of a frogged brick, it will show on the joint, especially when rubbed up.

I'm not miffed at all, but when you know that an idea just cannot work then surely it is better to try something else rather than plough money and time into a pointless exercise.

I can't understand what's so difficult about laying a brick to a line anyway, that's the correct way to do it.

You'd be better going to evening classes for a few weeks to be shown how to do it, than spending time on this. It's not that difficult after a bit of practice.

However, what can ruin a wall is the method of pointing. If this is done badly then no matter how well the bricks are laid, it will look dreadful.

These balls won't help the bricklaying and won't help the pointing.!!

Anyway, good luck with your invention.

 

[cemesphere]

Hi All,
Thanks for the comments, I like the video idea, I will have to find some willing volunteers! JerryD thanks for the comments, I have used this method, and it really is very simple to do, Ok so you dont get a perfect wall, but the finished results really are 'acceptable' for a DIY wall constructed with mortar mixed in a bucket, and laid with only a pointing trowel!
As I have said before it is a quick and dirty fix for a problem that I encountered, hopefully it will help others who just want to build a 3 metre wall six courses high to surround a raised flower bed or something. Its much easier to buy some spacers from B&Q than spend 3-4 weeks going to evening classes, especially if after you have been to the classes you find you are useless at bricklaying anyway and although you know the basics you need a little help so you go and buy some of those new fangled brick spacers from Homebase! I am under no delusions that this is the ultimate method of laying bricks, its not, and a pro bricklayer could destroy an experienced DIY ball layer in accuracy and speed, but it really does work for me.
As for the frogged brick problem, simple don't use frogged bricks! or sell the spacers as part of a Kit in which you get everything you need to build a brick BBQ (high tolerance bricks +-0.5mm should do it pre mixed mortar - just add water, plop your first course on a level surface and away you go)
Cheers
Al

 

[TexMex]

This thread has got to be a wind up surely

Their are so many factors to look at when laying a brick. 90% of the art of laying bricks is just putting your eye in the right place at the right time.

First you offer up the brick behind the line with the loose end kicked back, a bit high and the front face angled top away from the line.

Next you draw the loose end forwards and eye down the joint to ensure that the jointed end of the brick is maintaining the bond of previous courses. To do this you want to look down the face of the wall with your eye directly above the joints of previous courses of the same bond.

This could mean that your new vertical joint is going to be oversize or undersize. It doesn't matter, you shouldn't be looking at that, you just want to make sure that the end of your brick is on the right line. The thickness of the joint will just turn out, whatever thickness it needs to be.

Once the vertical joint is the right thickness you ensure that the bottom arris (bottom edge of the front face) is plumb with the front face of the wall. To do this you put your eye above the face of the wall so that the top arris of the previous course just about obscures the bottom of the wall. You then draw the bottom edge of your current brick forward so that it comes onto this line.

Next you tilt the top of the brick towards you so that the top arris is also on this plane. All things being equall you will find that it is automatically about 1mm behind the brick line.

Next you check that the height of the brick on the jointed end is the right height against the brick line. For this, you obviously have to view it from the front.

Finally, you press the loose end down so that it is also the right height.

Although this may sound like a long drawn out process just to lay one brick, You don't need to do this too often before it becomes one seamless movement.

You don't actually need to give a monkeys about the rest of the brick. Just the front face. The object of the excercise is to get the front face flat with respect to the face of the wall, the top edge (of this face) level with the rest of the course, and at least one end, plumb with the other vertical joints of the same bond. So you don't lay the brick, you just lay the front face and let the rest of the brick end up wherever it needs to be.

If you lay bricks like this you will find the face side of the wall can look practically perfect, even though, the bricks themselves are quite often twisted, bent, out of square, and varying enormously in size.

If you need any confirmation of the variability of bricks, just look at the non face side of any half brick wall. It generally looks a pile of cak. Keeping the bed joint even removes all of the corrections that are ESSENTIAL to getting a reasonable face to the wall.

Instead of the non face side looking a pile of cak, you will end up with both faces looking semi cak. Looking at the non face side of any cavity wall before the blockwork has been put up. you will see bed joints as tight as 2mm going up to 20mm. Bricks that seem to be laid at angles as high as ten degrees off level, and even the odd brick here and there that are projecting (or sunken) by upto 10mm.

This is why you don't notice the variability of the bricks. All the inconsistencies have been ironed out by the brick layer.

Sorry, but from my experience, the thickness of the bed joint is about the least important factor when laying a brick. Furthermore, forcing it to be a standard thickness will totally obliterate the quality of the finished wall.

As I say, it's all about getting your eye in the right place at the right time. If you've ever tried taking a long shot in snooker without getting your eye over the cue, you'll understand how misleading your eye can be when it is looking at lines from the wrong vantage point.

If you want to pick up bricklaying by watching an experienced brickie, don't just watch his hands, watch where he is putting his eye. I think you'll find most brickies follow a similar ritual. Most don't even realise that they're doing it!

 

[JerryD]

TexMex, at last, someone here who knows how it's done!!

These DIY guys just won't listen though. They're determined to invent some silly system which is doomed from the outset.

They just don't know enough about the techniques to know that they're talking rubbish with this 'ball' system.

I've tried to tell them but they got shirty and said I was 'miffed'

 

[brumylad]

I found this topic after a search for the brickie tool which I was thinking about buying to help me build an extension.

However, because I am reusing some bricks from the 1920's which are very irregular I realise, after reading TexMex's explanation of how to achieve neat brickwork, the device is not going to be very usefull.

I have only ever built a BBQ previously and this took me ages because I was trying to lay the bricks with the top surface level in both planes. I now realise that I was lucky the bricks were modern facing bricks so reasonably square and equaly sized