Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => OT Knowledge => Topic started by: Tim Hall on 16 March, 2020, 02:07:38 pm
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Down my way there's the beginnings of a new housing development. As part of the prepartory work verges have been cleared, Heras fencing been erected and the odd digger has been spotted. This has resulted in a Big Concrete Drain Thing being uncovered by the side of the road. It's a concrete disc around 3m in diameter sitting on top of a brick structure which presumably descends several metres into the ground. Sitting on top of it was what looks like a brick built chimmney around a metre tall with a brick laying trowel poking out of the top. I haven't looked at it closely but the base of it appeared to be a busteed lump of concrete. All this suggesting it was found in the ditrch or elsewhere on the site.
Go forward a couple of weeks and a second one, complete with brick laying trowel, appeared. This was freshly constructed, bedded in mortar onto the concrete slab. Then last week the first one disappeared.
I'm at a loss as to what they are. Some kind of memorial to a dead brickie? A topping out ceremony thing? Any ideas?
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It's a landing site. The diamond-shaped metal of the trowels acts as a beacon for the spacecraft. On board are the aliens who have the cure for coronavirus. The universe loves us and we don't even know it.
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It's a landing site. The diamond-shaped metal of the trowels acts as a beacon for the spacecraft. On board are the aliens who have the cure for coronavirus. The universe loves us and we don't even know it.
I, for one, welcome our mortar spattered over lords.
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Practice for apprentices?
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With apologies to Thomas Malory...
"Whoso pulleth out this trowel of this chimney and slabbe, is rightwise king born."
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Concrete disk is known as a Biscuit and is used where a manhole needs to change size. Sounds like you have a line of chambers which reduce down for the last 600mm or so which goes upto the manhole cover and frame.
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The remaining chimney thing has now been enhanced by a Marigold rubber glove, fitting, like, umm, a glove, on to the handle of the trowel, one finger pointing to the sky. This gives more weight to Cudzo's alien beacon theory.
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Do tell us which finger...
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TTIUWP!
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TTIUWP!
This thread is useless without pointing.
Well it's got that, in both senses.
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Pictures!
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/gj70ixxl1a90tmv/IMG_20200317_132812188.jpg?raw=1)
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkk8dtvuyzdlhtw/IMG_20200317_132844224.jpg?raw=1)
Things to note:
1. It's not a chimney top, as it's solid all the way through.
2. Hurrah for the finger positioing.
3. My bike is dirty.
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I'm thinking theodolites...
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I'm thinking theodolites...
I recon you're on the money...
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I'm thinking theodolites...
I recon you're on the money...
There's a survey mark on the concrete biscuit a foot or so away, marked by the orange/red triangle in the second photo. If it were for theodolites the brickies trowel, now covered by the glove, would get in the way. And why was the first one put there?
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All will be revealed in 15 days?
My money is on someone with too much time on their hands (and a need to practice their bricklaying skills).
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Nah, not theodolites, and I was in the business 40 years and electronic surveying was coming in when I started. These days it's all differential gps and they only need a marker point on a level surface - so a nail in a concrete slab or similar.
I can't think of any engineering reason for those brick pillars on top of those concrete biscuits, I think they are a leg pull of some sort.
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It could be a test piece , to show planers the colour of bricks proposed for the site . Normally its a larger panel 2m x 2m and done by a good tradesman . With my bricklayers woolly hat on I would not trust that fecker with Lego . He has hopefully being given the bullet ( Sacked ) and some one taken the trowel off him . The one finger salute might be to him , or his former employer .
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A new site on a nondescript road, could it just be a marker for deliveries?
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Further research, including talking to someone who inhabits the local Facebook Group, for local people, reveals that the pillars were built by "Dave". Just because he could.
Here's a photo of both of Dave's Pillars.
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/pna5n8w4quyigd3/WhatsApp%20Image%202020-03-17%20at%2019.50.30.jpeg?raw=1)
canny colin, can you elecidate? What's wrong, from a Proper Bricklayer's poi8nt of view?
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It could be a test piece , to show planers the colour of bricks proposed for the site . Normally its a larger panel 2m x 2m and done by a good tradesman . With my bricklayers woolly hat on I would not trust that fecker with Lego . He has hopefully being given the bullet ( Sacked ) and some one taken the trowel off him . The one finger salute might be to him , or his former employer .
+1
I can do better than that. Even.
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My view as a time served city & guilds advanced trade bricklayer .
Bricks vary in size.
A good tradesmen would only build a minimum of a one & a half or two brick wide pillar , if all sides ( faces) were on display . This allows you a mortar perpendicular (perps) joint between all the bricks & batts ( cut bricks ) ,so you can increase or decreases the width of the joint slightly and keep all arris ( corner of bricks ) vertical so all face can be easily kept what we like to say is " spot on plumb " .
If you build a one brick wide pillar you can only plumb one corner of a full brick . The arris of the bricks on opposite end will never be in line or plumb . looks shoddy.
When mixing bricks you need to check they are the same dimensions . The red bricks are smaller than the whites so the perps are increased .
This lad has let the red bricks over hang the white , so i think he can try and keep it plumb . But it means the perps are massive . Good brick work should have 10 mm joints not some 10 mm ,12 or 14 mm .
The arris of the bricks should all be in line not going in and out on alternative courses. In the trade we call it burglar bond . Because the burglars can climb up it .
Good brickwork has all the bricks laid to gauge .IE the mortar ( bed ) joint is very close to 10 mm ( remember bricks vary slightly ) not 12mm /14mm and increasing
The very top bricks ( brick on edge ) are not plumb . known in the trade as " pissed " .
The faces of the bricks are smeared with mortar, big joint all ways look bad if you use a jointer . it leaves a concave joint witch increase the visual joint . When dealing with big joint in old brickwork say in the back of a fireplace beside a wood burning stove . I use struck weather pointing . You can disguise large joints and the rain is shed away from the face of the brickwork .
After you have used a jointer on brickwork you should clean the edges of the joint with a trowel or wait a bit and clean off the brickwork with a very soft brush , to remove the snots ( little bits of mortar) .
The pillar is covered in snots . It saddens me that some one would even own up to doing such shoddy work .
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I must learn how to down load pictures . I built a miniaturise steam engine shed at Beamish museum for four and quarter gauge locos . Its got a proper plinth , bands of Staffordshire blue bricks for the damp proof course ,three arches each side in voussoirs , proper springers and key stones . A bulls eye window each end and its only about six feet long and two feet wide . Proper job !!!
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I must learn how to down load pictures . I built a miniaturise steam engine shed at Beamish museum for four and quarter gauge locos . Its got a proper plinth , bands of Staffordshire blue bricks for the damp proof course ,three arches each side in voussoirs , proper springers and key stones . A bulls eye window each end and its only about six feet long and two feet wide . Proper job !!!
You could use this?
https://imgbb.com/upload (https://imgbb.com/upload)
WRT brickwork, when out walking I was fascinated to encounter one of the first skew-arch viaducts. I guess few people take much notice of the brickwork on these extraordinary bridges!
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Skew_Arch_at_Cowley_Bridge_Junction.jpg)
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You've got me going, now!
A question for Canny Colin; how on earth does a bricklayer build a skew arch?
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Until CC returns with his experience - the simple answer is build some timber centring, lay the bricks, remove the centring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skew_arch
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I was actually going to say with great difficulty . When I was serving my time I actually helped repair a tunnel with a skew back arch, in refractory brick work . Refactor brickwork is wear you lay firebricks (high heat resistant bricks) by spreading fire clay on the bricks like butter then rub the brick together so you get a Tight 3mm to 4mm & full joints ( no holes ) . The tunnel was used to take smoke from beehive kilns, underground to a tall chimney . We had numbered all the bricks and taken Polaroid snaps of the tunnel before we dismantled a section . Just as well as there was all shapes of bricks in it , would have been like a jigsaw puzzle with out a reference . Just After I served my time I worked on an tunnel at Carlisle shopping centre . It was designed so a fire engine could go through it , turned out the wrong size was given to the architect . Talk about tight !!! . The arch was a simple double rough ring arch normal bricks (not voussioirs bricks think dairylee triangles ) . As we got in to the swing of it we were really flying . Dead easy this arch building we thought. . The health and safety boffin had insisted on a solid plywood top to the arch centre , in case we dropped any thing . But traditional you use timber laths . laths are great you can gauge were you are by using the side of the lath and they have gaps between them so it is easy to pop underneath and look up and keep the brickwork nice and straight . The hard bit with arch building is the face side of the brick is hidden from you and on a elliptical rough ring arch you have to increase or decrease the thickness of the perp joint of mortar on the rear of the brick while keeping the face side at 10 mm . When the arch centre formwork was dropped. We could see a tiny bit of the brick work had a slight wave to the face . No one else noticed . It did look bloody impressive to me once pointed . But we were a bit deflated . Till we noticed another squad of bricklayers who were building an arch above a 4.5 m wide window in voussioirs . One side of the arch had started one course of bricks lower than the other side . Some plonker had forgotten to put the gods truth ( a stabila spirit level ) on to the bottom of the timber formwork to check it for level. . A simple mistake , but its not being past on to the next generation of bricklayers . NVQ ( not very qualified) bricklayers don't even learn how to build chimneys now a days .
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I must learn how to down load pictures . I built a miniaturise steam engine shed at Beamish museum for four and quarter gauge locos . Its got a proper plinth , bands of Staffordshire blue bricks for the damp proof course ,three arches each side in voussoirs , proper springers and key stones . A bulls eye window each end and its only about six feet long and two feet wide . Proper job !!!
I learned a little about Staffordshire blues from a riding companion on an Audax. Namely that they are very hard and dense, and are (or were) often used in parapets of railway bridges. Even now I seldom ride over a railway bridge without checking the colour of the brick, and remarking to anyone who's listening: "nice Staffordshire blues there" and they wonder why I'm mumbling about what they imagine is some sort of sheep or cheese. I also remember said audax companion telling me he had slipped a couple into his brother-in-law's suitcase before giving him a lift to the airport.