I am including an arched window in my design, and will use an arched lintel and cavity tray such as from Harvey Lintels. Arch may be full semi-circle or a segmental arch, i.e. not a full semi. Anyone done such a thing. Where's the best place to get tapered bricks for this ? Simon.
Very much doubt if you can obtain taperd bricks for a brick arch, maybe you might be able to get them from a reclaim yard. The normal way to brick a arch is by standing the brick vertical on end or vertical end on, making the taper with a slightly wider joint at the top of the vertical joint
That's the cheaper way of doing it. Gauged arches have the bricks cut to fit.
See
just cut them ... hire a wet diamond saw and cut them as you fit ... it's easy enough.
The traditional way was to use 'rubbers' - these are soft bricks that can be shaped by rubbing them against a coarse surface. If you look at most arches .. the amount of rubbing down requiredis quite small apart form the centre key brick (or stone)
If you put the lintel above the arch, the arch need only support itself, or if its steep, plus a few rows.
Really the requirement for lintels with arches makes not a lot of sense, since an arch does the job of the lintel anyway. (The exception being very shallow arches.) Millions of houses have supporting arches with no lintel.
NT
You would use normal bricks and design the arch at such a segment that the bricks can go around it in one or two rings without the need for special shaped voussoir bricks.
Most of the arch formers available from the merchants are of limited rise and so you can form the arch in normal bricks
Most brick suppliers will make voussoirs to order, but the cost is prohibitive for one-offs. Some may be able to supply ready made ones if they are already making some for another client and could make one extra from the mould.
The talk of soft bricks for sanding or rubbing is from the 1950s' and these are rarely available in todays market.
dg
Really, it wasn't the issue of the lintel alone, as my original idea was to have a normal lintel above the arch. It's that if I have an arched lintel, the brickwork does not have to be self-supporting and BCO much happier, since I am a novice brick-layer. Also, if you have a straight lintel above, how and where do you close the cavity, as usually the lintel would close the cavity and frame the opening ? And although the infill area is small, is this solid / have a cavity itself etc. ? The arched lintels I was looking at also have a square cavity tray, so they do the whole lot and again happy BCO (that's important !). I still wonder about having, um, *another* straight lintel above ... Simon.
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