The Brew Cabin

Hi,

We're redoing our garden, and we've chosen to have some short paths with 10-30mm slate chippings and a few small stepping stone features. Now ideally, we'd like these features to be 450-500mm circles of silver-grey granite cubes, but I've got a few worries about how I would go about creating these.

First of all, how would I support the edges of the circles? I don't really want any edge support to show above the level of the surrounding gravel, so I was thinking of putting sloping concrete haunches that stopped some way below the top of the cubes around the edge... Would this work, and would it be enough to withstand very light pedestrian traffic?

The second thing was that I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about how one might lay the cubes to make such a small circle. I've looked all over for 50mm cubes, and the only place that I've found that does them will only deliver in 1 tonne quantities, which is far too much! 100mm cubes are going to be pretty awkward - that's only 4 across the circle, so I would imagine there would be huge joints. Or do I have to look at shaping the blocks into a more tapered shape? I know very little about all this, but that strikes me as something that's going to be pretty difficult to do well.... Am I just crazy to even think about trying to create these sorts of circle? :)

Many thanks (and for the website - extremely helpful!)

Lucian

Sounds like an interesting project, Lucian. I take it you're the sort of bod that enjoys a challenge! ;)

The idea of creating circlular stepping stones from granite cuibes is basically sound. The cubes would need to be bedded on 75-100mm of concrete and then haunched up the sides, as you guessed. You also need to consider just how you would joint the cubes.

50mm cubes in granite are available, but I don't carry a list of which merchant stocks what sizes. However, I'm sure you should be able to get hold of a s,aller quantity if you try someone such as Tony Huntbach at Rock Unique (who turns up in the Brew Cabin occasionally) or Global Stone Imports in Colchester.

Using 100mm cubes wouldn't make for very circular circles. You could make a reasonable octagon using 100mm cubes, or you could try dressing them to a tapered shape to minimise joint width, but dressing granite is not for the faint-hearted. A professional contractor would use a rock splitter (v. similar to a block splitter, but much bigger, beefier and usually with a hydraulic pump) to crop the cubes to the required shape, but even then, it's a time consuming process.

Would 'diamonds' not be an acceptable alternative to circles for these stepping stones?

Many thanks for your advice. As far as jointing is concerned, I was just thinking of a standard 6:1 mortar mix - would this cause any problems?

There are a lot of other circles in the overall design of the garden, so diamonds wouldn't really be that ideal, but octagons might work quite well... I've had a bit of play with some scale drawings and I'm not really clear how one would make a c.450-500mm octagon with 100mm cubes without dressing the granite - is there a picture/design you could point me at?

Many thanks,

Lucian

A 6:1 mortar should be fine for 'standard' pointing.

It's slow, laborious work pointing setts, but you can speed up matters by using a slurry, which is a very wet mix of mortar (a 3:1 mortar is best for this method) and then pour it into the joints from an old watering can. It ensures a good seal and finds its own level, thereby reducing the need to tool all the joints. Remember that you'll need to 'dam up' the ends of open joints to prevent the 'slurry' flowing out of the joints.

To make a simple octagonal step-stone feature using setts, you could do summat like....



...which only requires you to diagonally split 4 setts (or 2 if you are lucky!!)

Bear in mind that, as the grass or garden grows and softens the edges of such a feature, it will look more circular than octagonal, and is a lot less work than cropping a whole heap of setts to create "true" circles.

That's fantastic - many thanks again. I've found some 75mm setts from Global Stone Imports, and I think I'm probably going to use these as they will fit better with other things we're doing in the garden... I think I'll still go for octagons, because 75 mm setts still doen't really lend themselves to small circles; it'll just mean slightly more splitting :(.

For the splitting, I was thinking of hiring a diamond wheel cutter, and cutting the blocks about a third of the way through with this, and then inserting a bolster and giving it a really good whack :). Hopefully I would then have one edge that looked split rather than sawn, but I wouldn't have quite such a task on my hands to split them evenly... Does this sound reasonable?

Thanks again for all your help!

The 75mm setts aren't all that difficult to split. I'd certainly try a few before going to the expense of hiring-in a diamond-bladed cut-off saw.

However, if you do elect to use a saw, then it's probably best to saw through to half, or even two-thirds, depth, as granite doesn't always split in a predictable way. As with most things in the stone-splitting game, it's a matter of trial and error.

I'd be really interested to see the finished results.

Thanks (again!) for the advice - I'll have a go at splitting them before looking to hire a saw... Foundations are now laid - I just have to find the time over the next few weeks to actually lay the setts :)

If I don't make a total hash of it, I'd be happy to post a picture or two; just don't hold your breath - I'm not exactly Mr Speedy when it comes to these things ;)