Sunday, October 25, 2009

No pics today - or yesterday. It was a frustrating weekend for kiln-building.
I did grind the edges of all the skewback bricks that the brick saw missed. And the extra skewbacks, a total of 40 that had their edges trimmed.

I started to mortar the chimney bricks that I had taken down in order. After I mortared the base of the chimney - which had never been done - I found that my measurements were off.
What I found was that in my haste to mock up the chimney and cut bricks last Monday, I had not measured accurately. In fact, the cut bricks for the chimney varied from front to back of the chimney on most every row. A real bricklayer would have noticed this discrepancy immediately, and gone back and remeasured until it was correct. But not me! My amateurish bricklaying techniques had to show through with flying colors.

When I restacked the chimney - this weekend - I found 15 - 20 bricks that have to be recut. I suppose this is a postive aspect of my bonehead bricklaying: the bricks need to be cut more rather than being too small. Since one cannot glue on another 3/4" or so if a brick was cut too short.
I would like to cut a few more hard bricks to use as posts when stacking the kiln. Assuming there are extra hard bricks after the chimney is done. The quantity of bricks is going down very fast, and I sure hope I don't have to put out a call for the last 20 or so bricks...

My frustration came from the fact that I cannot lift the brickcutting machine. I need a strong, able-bodied person to help lift & set-up the brick cutter from my rig. Then I need the same individual to assist in lifting the brick cutter back into my truck. I was able to get ahold of my hired kid to help out last Monday, but I need enough work to keep him occupied while I keep him here. You don't just call someone out to work for 10 minutes, then let them go until 7 hours later. Frustration. It will work out in a week or so, I will have someone here to help me lift such heavy items.

Tomorrow, Howard is coming over early to set the angle iron on the corners and start the arch.
Progress will step up in pace - I expect...

No comments:

Post a Comment