Edging to use for a gravel path - Are standard 50mm pavers ok to use?

[lutonlagerlout]

head down,arse up Mike
dig it by hand !
LLL :laugh:

[seanandruby]

Depends how many your installing. A lot of expense for a small project.

[dominoman]

Thanks. Head down arse up it is then.

Luton - I just looked at the portfolio on your link. Wow! Some beautiful work there. It's like a case study in good quality. Nice to see such pride taken in the details of the brickwork.

[dominoman]

One question on materials, as I'm ordering now.

For the edging I was going to use Lean Mix, by buying ballast and following the quantities recommended on this site. But the ballast I've seen has some very large stones in it, so instead can I use just sharp sand and cement 10:1 mix for the edging?

[lutonlagerlout]

20mm ballast is fine as long as you have at least 100mm under the edgings
LLL

cheers for the praise

[dominoman]

Would 10:1 sharp sand / concrete mix work as well as ballast? The price of sand and ballast seems about the same.

I'm just thinking that when laying the edging I will be doing 100mm bedding, plus the haunching and "buttering" (is that the right word) as I go, so if there are larger stones in the ballast I can't use that for buttering?

Once it's all set I would then finish off with the resin jointing compound.

Or am I worrying over nothing?

Apologies for all the questions. I'm just a newbie that wants to try and get it right first time...

[seanandruby]

Use a lean mix as prescribed. You'll bed the edgings straight on to the concrete and tap down with a mallet. The concrete haunching will stop the edgings migrating. Use sbr in the mix to aid adhesion. If you follow the guidelines then you won't have to worry about it failing.

[Tony McC]

You could use a mix of sharp sand with cement, omitting the coarse aggregate, as long as this is a light use or pedestrian-only project.

All-in ballast always worries me. It seems to be a mix of any owld shite they have lying around, with no control over how much fine or coarse agg is included.

[lutonlagerlout]

the ballast round here is very good
they quarry it down the road in st albans
we had some in that london the other week and it was very *loomy* lots of soft sand in it I reckon
LLL

[Tony McC]

We have proper aggregates up here in t'north.....no need to use the scrapings-up from old river beds: we have proper quarries with real stone and genuine graded sand!

And the ale is better!!!