How to cut many bricks in half very efficiently?

EllaGnu said:

kazuya said:

yea for 700 bricks, that's only 350 cuts, last facing bricks I used cut with one tap, they don't make em like they used to

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No, that's 700 bricks, 700 cuts!

I have 22 year old employed to do the cuts. I worry that the trowel method will see him a few fingers short by the end of the first day, and ill not end up with many accurate cuts.

I'm looking at one of these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/belle-minipave-spliter/121448171682

Anyone used one?

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yes ive used one on block paving, never on bricks, but ill hazard a guess that if you use bricks with holes your gunna end up with a lot of shattered bricks and its a slow process, so how accurate do you need to be?, as long as you put the cut towards the cavity every half will be perfect, honestly you seem to worrying over nothing

If you are going to try to cut them with a bolster (less dust), try putting a rod UNDER the brick at the cut line. This effectively cuts both top and bottom of the brick at the same time. So get a robust plank, fix a bit of wood across it and at 1/2 the bricks length a bit of rod or any piece of metal with a sharp edge at the correct distance. Lay your brick up against the end stop and hit the bolster. Brush of dust from jig, repeat. . .
Frank

We did a job in the spring using bricks with four perf' holes in them.

Yes four!

This meant that the cental part of the brick fell on a solid bit and they were impossible to cut cleanly in half with a trowel or brick hammer.

We soon had the boy on the grinder.

A lot depends upon the type of brick. On our current job, a smart smack with edge of the trowel will yield good results as they are a well behaved brick and break uniformly.

Forget special order bricks they'll take weeks to arrive & cost a fortune.

Cutting with a grinder will take ages, and cause loads of dust & noise.

Hold one in the palm of one hand, a sharp tap in the middle of the brick with a brick hammer will break most bricks cleanly down the middle.

Lay the cut end facing the cavity, maybe increase the size of the cavity slightly to compensate for the two halves being wider than a 102mm stretcher.

Four a minute, 240 an hour, soon be done

Butch and Kevin the brickies have said the block splitters don't work well and the bricks tend to crumble. They've also said with that many bricks a diamond tipped angle grinder is the only way to go. I'm thinking of rigging up the Black and Decker Workmate to hold the bricks, such that 8 or 10 can be cut at a time.

I have a block paving cutter fron lidl that works well that only cast around £10. I also got a angle grinder holder that works like a chop saw.
If you could bolt on a piece of wood to hold the brick in the right spot... Just place the brick in the jig and pull the handle down.
When the dust clears , you should have the perfect cut.

noseall said:

We did a job in the spring using bricks with four perf' holes in them.

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What kind of sadistic cretin would design bricks with four through holes?

Out of interest, why don't brick manufacturers build their bricks with a clean weak point on the top and bottom faces (and down the frog too)? It would make breaking into clean halves them as simple as tapping one edge on something firm. For the time and waste saving I'd pay 10-20% more for them like that. If you need lots then you could just drop an entire pack onto something hard and you'd break the lot into clean halves!

Dry disc-cutting 700 bricks in half will create an unreal amount of dust. Sitting down with a bolster and club hammer could get through 700 easily in a fun packed day. When I last did it I batched them up on a heavy board and ran across them with a bolster in lines, then rotated and repeated until a firm whack broken them cleanly. They were engineering bricks with three through holes so software facing bricks might even break on their first hit.

When batching lots in rows it is easy to wander off centre without noticing so use a string or chalk line to keep them accurate.

EllaGnu said:

Butch and Kevin the brickies have said the block splitters don't work well and the bricks tend to crumble. They've also said with that many bricks a diamond tipped angle grinder is the only way to go. I'm thinking of rigging up the Black and Decker Workmate to hold the bricks, such that 8 or 10 can be cut at a time.

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Butch and Kev!! Any self respecting brickie I know would just do these with a hammer and bolster, divide the number of bricks by the 2 brickies, and then half the number again as they will use either end, its not really a great deal mate - honestly......

On another note I wish I had a brickie called butch!

xdave said:

Out of interest, why don't brick manufacturers build their bricks with a clean weak point on the top and bottom faces (and down the frog too)? It would make breaking into clean halves them as simple as tapping one edge on something firm.

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It would put a weak point in the brick just where it bridges the mortar joint between bricks in the rows above and below. Whether that would make a practical difference I don't know, but in theory it would result in a slightly weaker wall.