Back on the Patio

Today I re-started building the dwarf wall around our patio area in the same brick type as I built the Conservatory with. When I built the Conservatory, I bought something called a "Bricky Tool" which was basically a long plastic trough which you slot over a single course of bricks to give you an even mortar bed. The Garden wall is a double skin wall so rather fart about with the standard Bricky Tool, (like I had to with the Conservatory) I made my own to span both courses at the same time, it has a 12mm height to allow a 2mm bed down to give a 10mm mortar gap.
I might Patent it.

Re: Back on the Patio

Plantman will know what I'm on about.

Re: Back on the Patio

Clever Spittie

Re: Back on the Patio

Good, perhaps he will be kind enough to explain what you are up to Paul

Re: Back on the Patio

Here's the link that explains all, but to a professional of course the whole thing is a joke.....

http://bricky.com

Re: Back on the Patio

Couldn't agree more Plantman, I am building 2 L shaped retaining walls, each side of the L is seven and a half bricks long, my custom Bricky tool is the same length as each 7 1/2 brick run, I do one mix (4 to 1) which is sufficient to bed each course of bricks, then I do another mix to fill in all the Frog Holes. My Bricky Tool is superior to the manufactured one in that it allows the mortar to go right to the edges of the bricks meaning that pointing is not necessary, also it is exactly one brick wide, so I only need to work to a line on one side cos when the Tool is placed on it is a snug fit, and when I get to the cross bonds on the top, it will be purrfect.

Re: Back on the Patio

Sounds good and definitely a useful 'boy's toy'

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When I built the extension onto my hall, I thought I had considered every thing, I managed to source (what I thought) were matching imperial bricks so I set about Laying out the foundations, it wasn't till the bricks arrived that I realized that they were imperial in height only (75mm not 67) what I did not realize was the length of a new imperial brick is the same as a metric (215 not 210mm) as such I had to close up the perpendiculars to 8mm, most annoying.

Re: Back on the Patio

The variation in sizes of bricks can be a great problem to the amateur. The variation is mainly caused by the uneven shrinkage of the clay during firing in the kiln, and therefore the only type of brick you can use with the "Bricky" without making any adjustment to joint sizes would be a machine made concrete based brick, that has a controlled shrinkage during curing.

Of course the ability to make continual adjustments to the joint size with any type of brick is part of the art of bricklaying and after a while becomes second nature to a bricklayer, thereby rendering such contraptions as the Bricky useless.

Re: Back on the Patio

Fair play to you Spitty, you know your stuff when it comes to building and brickwork, there's nothing as satisfying to the eye as a job well done.