Mortar & Bricks

Well, the mortar & bricks went less well than I had hoped. I was in hurry at the end of the day to get this done. I dug out a ditch at the end of the last course about 4 - 5 inches below the bottom of the bricks. I mixed up the mortar and it was a little wet. Filled the ditch with the mortar up to the bottom of the bricks and a little more. Then the first course of bricks got set in that. Since it was wet it was "squishy".

The second course got a little harder. Since the mortar was wet and the first course was moving around, things got even harder to keep straight. So, what I tried to do was just get it all assembled and then tweak it to be straight. It was only 6 or 7 bricks, two high.

Once the mortar started to set up it could be cleaned up a little and things could be straightened out and it stayed put.

So, the lesson is make the mortar dry.

Later,
John

From London

So, we are in London. The weather has been pretty rainy. Go figure... Anyway, it's somewhat the same as I recal from 10 years ago and somewhat different. We are getting out to areas I did not get to experience last time too, so that accounts for some of the differences in perception.

We went to south London. It apparently has a reputation os being abit rougher. Why is the south of everything always like that? It's true in L.A., Chicago, San Francisco, Cheyenne Wyo., London, and several other places I've been. Odd.

However, I did not notice anything overtly "bad". Yes, it was lower income. You could tell the people walking around did not have as many material things. There was one totally drunk guy walking the street, can of beer in hand, singing. But, I suppose you could have run into that anywhere in the world. No one approached us in a threatening manner, several people were helpful in giving us directions, and we did not feel unsafe at any time. It's kind of like South Sanfrancisco maybe. It has a bit of a bad rep, but I would move there. You would have to be selective about where, but there are plenty of places within reason. South Central L.A., no.

The Tubes have been cleaned up a lot. Subway stations are always gritty, but these are better than I remember them being. Certainly better than New York and just as heavily used. Culturally it's tremendous. We are here looking at art colleges and I believe the ones we've seen are better than the ones we've seen in the U.S. The facilities are maintained better, and the philosophy is more about getting work done rather than art for arts sake or as a purely academic exercise. But there is clearly an academic flavor about what they are doing.

Well, more later. We are going to start seeing the sites tomorrow. We plan to see a number of museums and such.

John

Patio Bricks Part Three

So the DIY home improvement adventure continued yesterday. Started off leveling the sand. Normally I would use a screed to do this. A screed is any flat rod, piece of wood or whatever you have that is used to straighten sand, dirt, cement, or concrete. The defining part of a screed arrangement is that the rod rides on some kind of a guide on one or both ends.

Typically this guide is a 2 x 4 attached to some stakes driven in the ground. The best way to do this is with metal stakes and a bracket that holds the 2x4. But you can just nail the 2x4 to a wood stake.

Example here: http://www.deeconcrete.com/screedbarholderwood.html

They have these or similar items at Home Depot, Lowes or masonary supply yards.

But I didn't do any of that. This was 32 square feet. Barely big enough to even work with a screed. So, I snapped a chalk line on the building foundation on one side and used the existing patio as a guide on the other. Then I used a 24 in level to check my progress as I went. So this was an eyeball job to be sure.

Here are the short steps:

1.) Put the sand in the hole and "walk it in" by basically stomping it down with you feet. Get it close to the level it should be.

2.) Put in some additional sand and rod it off with a piece of wood or a concrete trowel.

3.) Starting near the existing bricks start setting the bricks.

4.) Sprinkle some additional sand where the brick is going to go and set the first brick. It should be higher than it's neighbor.

5.) Pound it down with a plastic mallet until it is at the right height. Repeat and check with the level every 3 - 4 bricks.

The first row is hard and you will end up taking bricks out, putting in sand or removing sand to get it right. It gets easier as you go. If this is your first time. The entire job may be a challenge.

Also after two rows stand back and be sure it looks like it is sloped the way you want it. Rarely is a patio dead flat. It should have a 1% or better grade so the water runs away from the building. Keep checking it as you go. I had little hump in the center that I had to deal with. A couple bricks had to be removed, but I was able to pound them down for the most part.

Oh, I had to rent a brick saw / block saw to make some cuts around the edges. The layout worked really well. The guys who did the first install did a good job I gotta say. I just had to follow their pattern and it fit.

The next post will be on mixing some mortar and building my first ever brick wall. All two courses of it.

Pictures to follow.

Best,
John