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Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 8:33 pm
by bigchasbroon
Well saturday I screeded and laid all 110m of my drive (with a little help from my friends) Just the cuts and jointing to go.
So one last question. I have used concrete flat top edges which arent all that square or parrallel to each other. I have been told to use cement with dye to take up gaps rather than cutting thin slithers of block (30mm and less) but I fear that the cement will break up when I whack it.
So will the cement work? if not what is the maximum joint size that I could get away with?
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 8:34 pm
by bigchasbroon
PS Photos and diary to come.
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 10:36 pm
by Tony McC
Well, there should certainly NOT be any slithers (we call 'em "slips") of blocks in the cutting-in. The BS covering block laying requires pieces to be not less than a quarter of a brick (50mm) and that's sound advice to follow.
The problem of making-up with bits and pieces of mortar is not so much that these mortar fillets will crack and fall out when compacted, but that they suffer from "sore thumb syndrome". Despite 109.95m² of perfect paving, all your eye will ever see are those few places where you 'cheated' with a mortar fillet. They stand out like the proverbial!
What's need is the trick known as "Inboard Cutting". This is explained to some degree on the Cutting-in page, but, to paraphrase, where you have a gap of, say 230mm, instead of using a 200mm block and a 30mm slip, what you do is reduce the size of the full block so that the 'slip' size is increased to more than 50mm. In most cases, a 230mm gap would be filled with a 100mm and a 130mm piece, but it could be done with, say, a 180mm piece and a 50mm piece.
Have a read of the cutting-in page, and if it doesn't make sense, come back, preferably with a photo that I can 'doctor' to show you what's needed.
Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 7:33 pm
by bigchasbroon
Thanks tony, Its kind of done now. I got some wide jointing compound which is expensive (£40 for 20 kg) and mixed in some red dye and it seems ok although not aesthtetically pleasing as I would have liked.
The problem with the edges was that I had a border pattern with a border of soldiers so If I had two blocks where a soldier would be it wouldnt look right either so i went for the lesser of the two evils.
Overall I am pleased with the job it was 50% messy drive and 50% demolition site before so it is a big improvement and its cost me just over 2 grand as oppossed to 5 or 6 from a contractor 
There are a few things that I would have done differently with hindsight, like make sure my edges were parrallel and square to ech other. I know that its a basic mistake but I didnt even think about it I just took a line from the nearest wall, fence or road.
i think i over wacked the first bit as well, the blocks look a bit scuffed. The sand seemed to disapear as i wacked it but i think that the stuff near the top just jumped out.
anyway a big thank you to Tony for the site, I couldnt have done it with out the site.
Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 7:41 pm
by Tony McC
So: when can we expect the BCB Photie album?
Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 1:03 pm
by bigchasbroon
photie album on line now http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~ctbrown/Index.html
somehow the thumbnails dont work but you can click where the thumbnail should be and view the photo. Maybe some techie could tewllme what i have done wrong. I made it in frontpage.
I havent had much time so the photos are the original size about 1meg each so dial up users would be better not to bother sorry.
Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 2:41 pm
by InfAddict
Well done mate! Looks like you've done a great job 
.
Looks like your thumbnail links are like this : "http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/photogal ... CF0508.JPG" and those images don't seem to exist, hence the silly red cross.
Your fullsize images are like this : "http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~ctbrown/DSCF0508.JPG" and they display fine.
If you want to fix them, try and find out a) if the thumbnails are linking the correct place and if so b) why they aren't in that folder. Otherwise you could change the links to text only.
