New 36" Pompeii build in Norfolk, now comes the hard part

[wolvisfamily]

Will you be wetting your bricks? and if so how soaked should they be? The dust sounds dangerous.

[crammy]

I Lightly wet them every now and again last night. i didnt soak them but i had a mask and full face shield on. It started out easy and they were cutting like butter with the grinder. Well the first couple did. Some seemed to have so much aluminium in the were not cutting at all. I have just bought a new diamond blade and bolster chisels from screw fix. I will be just cutting a groove around them, then breaking them in half. there is no way i can cut that many with just a grinder. I wont be worrying with the saw.
I also have got some 1mm slitting discs for a small grinder at work so i will try those on the hard bits. they are for cutting steel but they seem to cut through concrete and brick quite well when i accidently hit it at work using them.

[wolvisfamily]

Will you be wetting your bricks? and if so how soaked should they be? The dust sounds dangerous.

[crammy]

Jul 20, 2017 17:46:08 GMT wolvisfamily said:

Will you be wetting your bricks? and if so how soaked should they be? The dust sounds dangerous.

Hi Mate. I did answer your previous post when you asked if i wet them. I did say i lightly wet them, but perhaps you never saw the post. they were still hard to cut though, especially cutting curves.

Since then i thought i would try to wet them when cutting in half. I have dropped them in a bucket of water for 30-45 seconds and they cut with a 9" grinder and a diamond blade like butter. I wish i had tried this sooner. 

I purchased a face mask from screwfix and used a full face grinding shield

[indy]

is like to come in on this and give some advice.
Steep.the brick in water for a couple of minutes. Start cutting the brick with your diamond saw but only go through a couple of millimetres. Turn brick over and do the same.
Put some sand in a wee pie on a hard surface, like slabs. Place a bolster on the cut part and using a heavy hammer hit the bolster hard once or twice. The brick should split in two along the scribes line quite easily.
You are probably working the diamond saw too hard, If using to get done cuts, take it easy, cutting a dry brick whilst pushing down too hard on the saw will at best Mess up the blade (there is an easy fix) or at worst burn out the motor.
I can post pics of this process if you like. This is my build (I'm just about complete with mine now) showing the half bricks.

[jagnut]

Jul 29, 2017 19:24:11 GMT indy said:

is like to come in on this and give some advice.
Steep.the brick in water for a couple of minutes. Start cutting the brick with your diamond saw but only go through a couple of millimetres. Turn brick over and do the same.
Put some sand in a wee pie on a hard surface, like slabs. Place a bolster on the cut part and using a heavy hammer hit the bolster hard once or twice. The brick should split in two along the scribes line quite easily.
You are probably working the diamond saw too hard, If using to get done cuts, take it easy, cutting a dry brick whilst pushing down too hard on the saw will at best Mess up the blade (there is an easy fix) or at worst burn out the motor.
I can post pics of this process if you like. This is my build (I'm just about complete with mine now) showing the half bricks.   

[jagnut]

Jul 29, 2017 22:08:52 GMT jagnut said:

Jul 29, 2017 19:24:11 GMT indy said:

is like to come in on this and give some advice.
Steep.the brick in water for a couple of minutes. Start cutting the brick with your diamond saw but only go through a couple of millimetres. Turn brick over and do the same.
Put some sand in a wee pie on a hard surface, like slabs. Place a bolster on the cut part and using a heavy hammer hit the bolster hard once or twice. The brick should split in two along the scribes line quite easily.
You are probably working the diamond saw too hard, If using to get done cuts, take it easy, cutting a dry brick whilst pushing down too hard on the saw will at best Mess up the blade (there is an easy fix) or at worst burn out the motor.
I can post pics of this process if you like. This is my build (I'm just about complete with mine now) showing the half bricks.   

Hi  guys advise on cutting fire bricks  best blade to use is as follows screwfix erbauer segmented diamond blade page 845  code 71137 230mm i used one of these on my complete build and i built a very large pizza oven 1m dia  first thing  place the fire bricks in water apart so the water soaks the  bricks around 1/2 hr   cut a day before and lay out in the sun . then use when i built my dome i new how many bricks per course . i than built a trim cutter for very fine cuts from a tile cutter which i built . If  you would like to see i will post pics cheers jagnut hope this helps you on your way .By the way as your course rises you will have to trim the inner brick as the angel will change slight.

[wolvisfamily]

Thanks everyone, Yes indeed indy, I'd be interested in seeing the trim cutter in action, and the stages of your build. It seems that there is a whole spectrum of possibilities, from those who are basically going to fashion what they can with half-bricks and lashings of mortar and those, often on the FB forum who seem able to custom trim every brick. I'm wondering about the territory in between.

A question I have: is it obvious, I mean, can you tell by lining up the bricks as you go up and up in the courses, higher up the dome, what the trim you should make is? Do you work it out by eye or are people calculating it using CAD software or similar (keithwiley.com in US seems to have done this), or just a better understanding of geometry than I have. I think I am ok about how to split the bricks in half, even if it's a slow process with the technology at hand, but can you really get all the way up just using half brick blocks?

Sorry to be overthinking this, but I'm away from the build for a week, so all I can do is ponder.

[oblertone]

See my build thread below; I went the freehand half-brick route because I had the materials and it suited me to do so. Others have gone the decreasing trapezoid route, for just the same reasons. Both cook pizza really well.