Joint width

[1funtimefrankie]

can anyone give me some tips to ensure i keep my indian paving square with consistant pointing gaps and lines using tudor pattern.

[Tony McC]

Impossible to do so - too much variation the flags themselves. You just have to 'juggle them' as best you can to achiueve a sort-of consistent joint width.

[1funtimefrankie]

I am always finding that occasionally i have to cut the 300x300 flag down 10mm variations in size can change by 10mm. Does this happen using any pattern or even doing it random?
Thanks in anticipation..

[lutonlagerlout]

same here frankie
them injuns have got a lot to answer for
i have had supposed 300 by 300's that measured 320 by 310
i actually think they should be 290 by 290 to work better with 600 by 600's and 900 by whatever
no matter how good you do it you will always get the odd 25 mm joint and the odd 5 mm joint
its a natural material say the suppiers
heh
LLL

[Jason Herring]

It's true to say that sizes of natural stone aren't accurate but your problem frankie might be the amount of joints and not the size variances in the stone.
Look at the pic here..


Along the right hand side are two big flags, say 900x600mm. Along the left hand side are 4 other flags bordering the larger ones. Say two 300mm squares, one 300x600 and one 600 square. Although the total of both rows of stone comes to 1800mm there's only one joint on the right compared to three on the left to fit into the same space. Look how the left hand side sticks up beyond the two big pieces even though they have the same width joint.
You can't lay the same size joints for accurately cut and even inaccurately cut flags.

There's two easy rules to follow to get round this and to not end up running up a huge pile of cuts.
Firstly, make the joints for bigger pieces of stone bigger proportionately than those surrounding smaller pieces.
Secondly, when you draw your layout take into account that mixing up each size throughout the design evenly will also make the amount of joints more or less even from area to area and in each direction.
The picture above exaggerates the problem as you probably wouldn't have such an area in your layout. However, just making bigger joints for bigger pieces will mean your small pieces will always fit.

I just googled tudor pattern and stole the first image I found to illustrate.


Both A & B are 900mm distances to pave but there are two joints in A and only one in B. To make both total lengths the same make the joint on the top and bottom of the 300mm square piece half that of the single joint needed along line b.

[lutonlagerlout]

nicely illustrated jason ,but i still stand by my assertion that a lot of the smaller units of I.S. are inaccurately sized,which is a pain in the neck
regards LLL

[Rich H]

Most of the ones I've been getting recently are 900x600, 600x600, 600x295 & 295x295. That helps but doesn't solve it. You've just got to use your eye.

[matt h]

the ayes have it!:D

[Tony McC]

This "joint balancing" problem is touched upon here but it's covered in far more detail in some of the training courses I present. If I get time, I'll upload the drawings I use.