The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Fri Mar 30, 2007 3:44 pm**

Hi,

I'm in the design process for my new patio. One of the elements will be a small circular planter - a circlular raised block wall about 50cm tall.

I plan to use some Bradstone Milldale Mountain Block Walling for another area and obviously want the planter to match. The blocks are 300 x 225 x 100mm (LWH).

Obviously if I'm building a circular wall with these, a tighter radius will result in a greater gap between each of the blocks at the outside edge.

My question is what is considered the minimum radius for circular walls using rectangular blocks? Are there ways of achieving a smaller radius? Is is realistic to cut the blocks to make the radius tighter?

Thanks for you help in advance.

Posted: **Sat Mar 31, 2007 2:20 pm**

You'll need to taper cut the blocks to achieve a tight radius. Some walls are "styled" with wide joints that can be packed with soil and then some tanacious alpine plant is rotted into the gap to make it look authentic, but, if you want tight joints, you need to keep them to 12mm or less.

However, the "Mountain" block is trapezoidal (proper British/Irish definition, not the silly US-ian defintion) and its tapered shape enables it to be laid to quite fast radii. Not sure just what the min rad would be, as I don't have that data in my design file, but I'm guessing it's somewhere around 600-750mm.

Posted: **Sun Apr 01, 2007 10:14 am**

Bradstone has an excellent site with helpful info on these blocks.

"Mountain Blocks are wedge shaped to allow different effects to be achieved. Create internal and external curves of variable radii by adjusting the alignment of adjacent blocks. The minimum internal diameter that can be achieved is 1.4 metres and you will need to allow for the â€˜set-backâ€™ when building a circle with a number of courses. Where tight curves are required, you can easily reduce the length of the nib with a club hammer. Try and avoid creating straight lines with the false joints from one block to the next both horizontally and vertically by selecting your blocks carefully when laying."

See http://www.bradstones.co.uk/garden....ck.aspx

Bob

The Brew Cabin

Minimum radius on planter