I've seen it all now! :-((

[Jerry]

I know that some skill is involved in bricklaying but is this tool really needed?...

[dom]

It does look a bit "shopping channel", but I did see a good demonstration. It probably only works on straight, accessable runs though.

[Bill]

In message , Jerry writes

Talking of bricks does anyone know of a web site that has a list of patterns for bricks? I'm trying to match a small wavy lined, sand, rough, coated brick to replace a couple from around an old boiler exhaust pipe that has been removed from a 1960s house and cannot seem to find anything similar in the local sheds. It would be handy to know what to call it.

[Huge]

What you need is a "brick library". Yes, really ...

Google yields a number, including

[John Rumm]

[dom]

Rustic flattens?

[mo]

Looks fairly good - as soemone who has no experience of brickalying i oculd considering.

[Guy King]

The message from "Jerry" contains these words:

Yes. It's absolutely bloody fantastic. Provided you can get the first course down straight it's far faster and much much neater than doing it the other day. Particularly for a duffer like me. I wish I'd had one years ago.

[john2]

Good pics of bricks here:

[adder1969]

To take d-i-y to another level, I made something similar out of pieces of wood when I first started building a wall and it worked well although I stopped using it after a while.

[Archroy]

Does this tool properly compress the joints when pointing? I remember the trend for raked out joints a few years ago...the joints weren't ironed in, the frost got in and the pointers earned bundles.

[Guy King]

The message from "Archroy" contains these words:

I guess it'd depend on how hard you packed the mortar into the tool before lifting it. If you were bothered you could run a stick along after the block's in place.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

I think it does? as when you put a layer of bricks on the mortar the template pulls up and off the bricks bringing the excess mortar with it as is the same process with the side template.

[John Rumm]

IIRC when you buy the tool from the web site they bundle a multi faced pointing tool with it...

[Bill]

In message , Bill writes

Thanks to all who replied, I'd tried google but couldn't sort the wheat from the chaff. Memory is a terrible thing, I'll go around to the house later in the week and photograph a brick to compare with those you've pointed out.

[somebody]

In message , Jerry writes

I'm ready for the mickey takes, but yes I bought one :-)

Some of you may remember my foray into hiring a crusher, the following photos may help understand the reasoning and also show my results with the "Brickytool".

my experience of the tool.....

1: It gave me the confidence to "have a go". That alone was worth the money. 2: After three or so courses, I realised the shortcomings and went to traditional brick stringline brick laying. 3: People look at that wall and any untrained eye says "cracking". Any trained eye says "you can see where you got the hang of it". (It's about where I put away "the tool" and went "manual"). [1]

Yep, it cost me 40 ish quid, I doubt I'll ever use it again, but for giving me the confidence to try bricklaying without any expert guidance around, yes it was money well spent - oh yes, and the results aren't actually that bad[2].

Hth

[1] It looks a lot more out of square in the photos than it actually is. [2] SWMBO and I are now right nerds when it comes to spotting other brickwork. It's generally graded as better or worse then my attempt :-) Someone

[PeTe33]

They're all padd.. Irish builders! :¬)

I quite fancy it myself. well, I would if I had some fairly large walls to build which I don't.

[Weatherlawyer]

The video showed the builders hitting the bricks with bare hands. I believe the bricks need shap metallic raps to bed them. Also the problem of running a line along the course seemed to be ignored.

More desperate was the need to get the wall plumb.

How did the tool get to slide the way the clips repeated showed?

I magine if I should ever get into bricklaying (Only when I come into quite a lot of money and buy a plot of building land!) I'd get one just to try it. The biggest problem with building walls is getting the corners right.

Wedging or otherwise balancing steel bars the length of the various walls would be a better bet I am sure. And work out about the same price I imagine. Come to think of it, I imagine a method of making profiles for building corners would be possible.

Anyone any ideas how?

[Guy King]

The message from "Weatherlawyer" contains these words:

Slides all right for me. I've used one, and all I can say is that it turned by blockwork from slow, ugly but useable to rather neat and much faster.