The Brew Cabin

Hi Tony,

Back again. The garden is taking shape, must upload some pictures for you. Anyhow, I have a small circular ring to put down in the front garden. I had hoped to use those small sandstone tiles used on the larger Patio. The tiles are 15cm square. With a diameter of 1.6m, my calculations show that the gap would be approx 3.5cm. Do you think this is too much? Cutting the tiles isnt an option as I dont want to do it and it wouldnt look natural.

If I was to lay a single ring of these tiles, should I lay them on a dry or wet cement mix? I'm thinking of wet as its only a single ring

As always thanks for any help

Mick

For me, a 35mm gap is too much - have you tried laying out the circle on the drive or on the lawn so that you can see for yourself what it'd look like?

If the edges were to be taper cut, and fettled to match the uncut edges, I think it would look smart. I know it's a lot of work, but it's one of those touches that can make or break a project such as this.

When it comes to laying them, then a wet, or preferably "moist", bed is the only way to ensure they stay put and are reasonably retained. If you rely on a semi-dry bed, there's too much risk of them slipping or flicking loose.

Hi Tony,

Well I've decided to cut the tiles, though wont be doing anything with the cut edges, as I dont want to do them damage!! Anyhow I'd be grateful if you could double check my measurements so that we are indeed cutting them right:

Circle outside radius = 0.8m
Tile size = 150mm square
Estimated Taper = 5mm outside edge to 20mm inside edge. On both sides
Estimated Gap Between Tiles = approx 10mm
Number of Tiles=34/35.

Does that sound right to you. I wouldnt want to get this wrong with cutting that many titles.

Thanks

Mike

(Edited by madunphy at 12:40 pm on Aug. 19, 2004)

Circle radius = 800mm

Circumference = 2 x PI rad = 2 x 3.142 x 800 = 5026mm

Tiles = 150mm + 10mm joint = 160mm

5026 ÷ 160 = 31.4

....so this would suggest we'd use 31 tiles....



....but as you can see from the following close-up, we've had to spread the joint width on the external edge to 13mm and there's a significant overlap (18mm) on the internal edge of the tiles...



... now, if we construct a line from the external corner of the block/tile, to the centre of the circle, and then back to the other external corner, you can see that we'd need to trim off around 14mm from those sides....



...so, if we trim the blocks/tiles, we end up with this sort of shape...



...and so, cutting all the blocks to this form, and then laying them to the circle gives us....



...How's that?

PS - are you anywhere near Tallaght or Blanchardstown?

Thanks for that Tony,

Unfortunately I had to cut them on Saturday morning, so went with my outside width of 140mm (needed to cut off the rounded corners, because of the inside cut) and the inside width of 110mm. In a rush, forgot abaout agjusting for the partial tile!!, but I'll just test spacing them out, hopefully I wont run into any problems.

I'm about 20-30mins drive from either Tallaght or Blanchardstown. Any particular reason why?

Thanks

Mick


(Edited by madunphy at 3:50 pm on Aug. 25, 2004)

Has the circle worked, then?

The reason I asked about Tallaght is that I've been reseraching a company that claims to be based there, but the address is highly unusual, to say the least. Check the Personal message I've sent.