Splitting Bricks

[BadgerBadger]

Our external brickwork needs around 2000 snap headers for flemish bond.  Our bricks being delivered standard 215mm long, so I need to cut each one (ideally twice, as opposed to just in half) to give two headers.

 

Options are:

 - Divert a couple of pallets to external brick cutters and pay to have them cut off-site.

 - Or try and cut them myself on-site...

 

I think the noise and mess of using a brick saw on-site would quickly use up any goodwill with the neighbours.  But wondering about those manual brick splitters?  They look fairly quick and quiet too, but never used one.

 

What would you do?

 

[PeterW]

Why do you want to muck about to take 2-3mm off a half …?? Just split and be done with it ..?

 

Lever block splitter is ok but depends on the brick type / frogs etc.What bricks are they ..??

 

And has the bricky not priced in doing Flemish already or is he on day rate ..??

[Onoff]

Halved my bricks using an Evolution Rage 3 chop saw with and Evolution 255mm diamond blade:

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

You just cut in half, you don’t remove the amount that would be the mortar joint. 

[Roundtuit]

I did ours with a lump hammer and bolster.  Hours of fun!  English Garden Wall bond though, so not quite so many required.

[Marvin]

If i wanted to cut so many bricks so carefully, IMHO I would hire a masonry saw bench or get them cut off site. But I guess 2000 bricks double cut would take about a week to do on site. It would also depend on the brick type as to the alternatives, and if you require 4 clean sides on each half. 

Using my block splitter works well when splitting a brick in half but depends on the type of brick. The holed engineering bricks that @Onoff pictured are tricky and snap all over the place, and I cannot take less than about 20mm of the end of any brick cleanly using the splitter. 

 

Good luck

 

M

[Onoff]

3 minutes ago, Marvin said:

The holed engineering bricks that @Onoff pictured

 

The ones with the round holes in are not actually engineering bricks. Just the bottom 4 courses are, the ones with the slotted holes:

 

 

The round hole ones were basically these though a slightly different design with no small holes in like now:

 

https://www.selcobw.com/65mm-tuscan-red-brick

 

The Evo saw / diamond blade cut them like a knife through butter. I do have to cut some slips shortly, so lengthways which will be fun. This to dress around the control boxes. Clamps will very much be the order of the day! 

[Onoff]

The dust produced is incredible and just as likely to pi$$ neighbours off when it covers their cars/exacerbates little Johnny's asthma etc. A water fed saw is great but you still have the coloured run off / resultant spoil to deal with. 

 

Luckily I have no near neighbours 😉

[Marvin]

Yes. But 2000? Plus wastage. Cutting them is only half the fun, stacking and cleaning and sorting and so on takes time.

I once did 3 radial steps and cut each face of a brick to make 400 wedges using a water bench....

[Onoff]

1 minute ago, Marvin said:

Yes. But 2000? Plus wastage. Cutting them is only half the fun, stacking and cleaning and sorting and so on takes time.

I once did 3 radial steps and cut each face of a brick to make 400 wedges using a water bench....

 

Best he starts now! 😂

[Marvin]

Just now, Onoff said:

 

Best he starts now! 😂

Yes the wind is calmer at 5.30 in the morning....

[BadgerBadger]

  Good stuff, thank you all.

 

17 hours ago, PeterW said:

Why do you want to muck about to take 2-3mm off a half …?? Just split and be done with it ..?

 

Lever block splitter is ok but depends on the brick type / frogs etc.What bricks are they ..??

 

And has the bricky not priced in doing Flemish already or is he on day rate ..??

 

Splitting just in half leaves 5-10mm sticking into the cavity. We're on rigid full-fill insulation with a very small residual cavity, so having the header bricks poking out is going to make a tricky job even trickier, and clash with insulation spacers etc.  So the plan by cutting twice is we get much closer to 100mm so the headers are left flush with the rest of the brickwork.

 

Bricky is priced in on meterage rate for laying the bond, but someone's still got to split the bricks.  So we either pay for their labour, do it ourselves, or get it done off-site.

 

7 hours ago, Marvin said:

I cannot take less than about 20mm of the end of any brick cleanly using the splitter. 

 

Good advice and might be the decider.  Pretty sure the mess and noise of water cutting is a non-starter on our site, we're working hard to keep neighbours onside as it is.  Might try and find a splitter to have a go at a few bricks, if not that just leaves having them done off-site.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by BadgerBadger

[PeterW]

1 hour ago, BadgerBadger said:

We're on rigid full-fill insulation with a very small residual cavity

you ideally need to leave 15-20mm cavity as there is very little wriggle room with full fill rigid and it can be 5mm oversize on all dimension. 

[BadgerBadger]

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

you ideally need to leave 15-20mm cavity as there is very little wriggle room with full fill rigid and it can be 5mm oversize on all dimension. 

 

Yep, we've got nominal 15mm but my thinking is this disappears very quickly if we leave the headers protruding into it at all - and they'd clash with insulation retaining clips - so I'm thinking it might end up being more efficient all round if we can get the headers down to 100mm, hence the faff off the double-cut!

[PeterW]

Make the cavity bigger ……??? How much insulation have you got in there anyway ..? Moving up a size in ties will be pennies, it may add 5% to lintels but tbh the cost of cutting 2000 headers is going to be north of £6-800 so it’s easily offset. 

[Simplysimon]

go to your local college, if they do trades. see the brickwork technician and bung him a few quid to cut them