Paver bullnose radius cutting - Paver bullnose radius cutting

[Tim Brennan]

Are there any tricks of the trade to radius cutting bull nose coping pavers for around an oval in ground pool. I would like to place the pavers next to each other without grout between the pavers.
The Pavers are 6 inch by 12inch , 2 3/4 in thick.

[Pablo]

Hi Tim, What you're planning on doing here is possibly the hardest most time consuming job there is. Being an oval technically no 2 cuts would have the same angle. If you don't get the cuts perfectly straight then the bricks and top and side joints would be visually poor to look at. I used to build pools in Australia in my travelling days and what they did was form concrete with a nice aggregate around the pool. The concrete would be finished by a skilled finisher and treated when curing to expose the aggregate and give a really good look to it. However if you are game then the first thing you need is a masonary bench saw so you can get a perfect cut. Next place coping front edge flush to the pool side. Do only 2 at a time. With a level and various other bits of varying thickness bits of timber or metal place them over the joint. Make sure the marker is exactly lined up so that it touching both rear corners of the coping. It must then be moved around so the point where the front of the copings meet is in the middle of the marker. Then mark down both sides and cut them. This ensures you're cutting the same amount off both sides and not cutting differing angles which won't site well together. You'll need to adjust the saw each time so you cut the line exactly. You're also going to need a sh#t load more than you think. Personally I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than attempt this good luck. Depending how deep the pool is it's better to do the cutting in it because it's easier to see whats going on and no bending down.

[Tony McC]

It's a variation of the method we use to cut a ring or fan radius from flagstones: you have an undefined radius and you need to taper cut one (or both) perpend edges of the flagstone to create a sweet arc with accurate joints.

For the flagstones, we use a timber tri-square, as shown on this page, and so to cut the copings for your pool, it's going to be something similar. I'm not sure of the scale of the pool or the copings, but you could adjust the scale of the tri-square to something that is appropriate.