Re-levelling sand

[gricerdave]

Last Tuesday, after weeks of preparation, we finally took delivery of bricks (Top-pave 60mm in Autumn Sunset) and sand. We spread the sand. wackered lightly and levelled and with a sigh of relief began the "easy bit" - laying the bricks. To cut a long story short, after 3 days of laying, lifting up different sections and removing bricks that seemed to be causing problems with keeping the pattern true, by the time we tried to cut-in, we just couldn't close the gaps. At the time we thought it our amateurish attempts, but eventually it dawned on us that the bricks we removed were all very similar. One of palettes appears to have been a reject lot, with many garish yellow bricks, some up to 70mm thick, some only 55mm, some wider and longer than they should be. The builders merchants we had them from have visited and agreed they are unacceptable, and supplied us with new bricks to replace them. They have all now been lifted and re-stacked ready to start again.
My question is, after being down for so long and being with the bricks on top, and being walked and rained on for most of the week, do we have to fork or rake up the sand and re-wacker, or would we get away with topping up and re-levelling. I think I can guess the answer, but is there any hope? There are a lot of creaking aching joints around our house!
Also, do you think treading the sand is enough for the light compaction, as we has real trouble turning the wacker without it digging a "heel" mark, however carefully we tried to turn it around. Any tips?

[alan ditchfield]

I think you would be better loosening and relevelling all the sand. Alan:(

[James C]

Hello Dave,
Sorry to see your having problems with yer TopPave blocks,
its not uncommon for the thicknesses to vary quite a bit from block to block. (see my reply to your thread on page 3)
I was told by my toppave sales manager its only a problem with blocks from their poole factory, summat to do with their knackered plastic boards they make the blocks on.These are gonna be replaced at christmas along with the way they mix the coloured concrete so instead of having different colours in each pack like yer pack of yellow, each block will have a good mix to help prevent stripes of one colour. (more like marshalls) Should make laying the em easier.

I'd follow Alans advice for relevelling.

Are you able to post pics sometime?

James

[gricerdave]

Thank you both for your replies. I suspected that's what it might be. Ah well, back to square 1.
At the time you posted the reply to Fuzzy Ha Ha's question, James, we hadn't come across Top pave, and the name meant nothing to us. When we found them at another merchants a couple of weeks later, following Tony's advice to go for the colour we liked best, we didn't connect the brand we had found with the one you had mentioned, more's the pity, we would have certainly taken notice.
As I mentioned in another posting, I, and most of my helpers are nearly 70 years old, and we could have done without all this extra work, especially as we had been really ambitious and tried 45 degree herring-bone and already started the cutting in - but that's another long tale that belongs on another thread. When I have more time I will tell the tale, but for now we are using the mini-clipper, which is very useful, but has a few draw-backs. I can take some pictures, but I am not sure how to post them, but I will try.
Many thanks again,

[gricerdave]

Hello John,
Firstly, the hire centre that we had the machine from hadn't got one in their shop and didn't even know of it's existence, even though it was in their catalogue. They persuaded us to try the break-your-back cutters, but being inexperienced, we just couldn't manage accurate cuts. They located a mini clipper at another of their branches about 15 miles away and had it sent over (it took 2 days), fitted it with a blade and said they didn't know how to work it as they had never seen one. It is extremely easy to use, even for us complete numbskulls, and makes good clean accurate cuts across the bricks. As I said, we attempted 45 degree herring-bone, and the first problem we came across was that the blade only cut right through the brick in the centre, leaving an uncut piece about a cm thick on either side when we tried to cut diagonally. The hire centres advice was to chop through the rest with a bolster chisel. Another way around it was to turn the brick upside down and cut through from the bottom, or cut through one side and then re-position the brick to cut through the other. We are managing nicely this way, but if this is the only way, it seems a shame that it hasn't been perfected. We attach a Vacuum cleaner pipe to the outlet at the back, and this stops most of dust flying around. The second problem, which probably isn't anything to do with the actual machine, is the rate at which the blades became blunt. The hire centre fitted the first, which became blunt after a few hours. Another was fitted and lasted a day or so. We don't know if these blades were new ones, so can't really judge anything on this. We now have a third one (new in it's box on Saturday), but the hire centre said that the one they have on order will arrive on Tuesday as it has to be specially made. This blade is more suited to cutting material with a high flint content and is apparently very expensive. Jewsons have the machines in their catalogue and charge £30 plus vat per millimetre wear on the blade plus the weekly hire charge.
As I said, we are complete beginners, and with no advice from the hire centre, we had to find our own way, but I hate to think what we would have done without it.
Another hire centre catalogue reckons it can cut through in 5 seconds, but ours have taken considerably longer than that, but that could also be that we have had the wrong blades.
The hire centre advised against a block splitter as it may have fractured the brick through a hair line crack instead of where we wanted it. After the second phone call to tell them the blade was blunt again, I rather got the impression that they wished they hadn't!
Hope that has been of help.

[gricerdave]

Looking forward to seeing the pictures. Did you do any diagonal cuts? Is it possible to do it in one cut?
How do you compact the loose sand without the wacker digging in, would be very grateful for any advice. We are waiting for the weather to settle again before we have another go, as we are not very quick and don't want to have to re-start yet again.
Best wishes,

[danensis]

I would recommend munging that e-mail address, or the spam harvesters will have it.

[gricerdave]

When you spread the loose sand and run the wacker over it to compact before screeding. When you get to the end of a run and try to turn to come back, like mowing a lawn, the wacker digs in a heel. What should we be doing?

[alan ditchfield]

This does happen and is not really much of a problem. Bar turning the wacker off at the end of the run then lifting redirecting and re starting there is not a lot you can do when in the corners, in the middle you do noy usually need to turn as sharply avoiding the furrows. Personally i would not worry unless you are creating deep tracks. Alan

[gricerdave]

Thank you Alan, we thought the "heels" may be more compacted than the rest and cause problems.

[gricerdave]

We discovered today, a catch on the mini clipper that allows the blade assembly to slide backwards and forwards to make longer cuts!!! We have very red faces, almost as red as when we asked the tiler who was doing next doors bathroom if he knew anything about wackers, as we couldn't start ours. His first question was "have you switched it on?" - whoops.
It would have helped, though, if the Hire Station had at least provided an instruction book even if they hadn't used one before. We only found out when we saw one in another catalogue which stated it had a "dual action" and investigated to see what it was. We should be quicker now we don't have to do all the cuts twice.