I was rebuilding a little corner brick garden today. I think I built this garden about 20 years ago. The bricks are just stacked one on top of another with no mortar in the joints. That works OK for about 5 years, but after then roots have grown in between the joints and moved the bricks and they are are tilted not stable anymore. So every 5 years I have to take down the top 2 or three courses of bricks out, cut the roots and put the little wall back together. So I need to cut some bricks to make them fit at the edges - I use a heavy chisel called a "Brick Set" and you hit it with a sledge hammer, and break the end of the brick off to make it the right size. And this is what some of the really old bricks look like inside. I am interested in the subtle change of color. I wonder if this is because when the bricks were fired in a kiln, that the heat on the outside was greater than on the inside, thus the difference in color.
2 comments:
Why do you need to cut the bricks if you are just cleaning up old roots and resetting the bricks? Do they change in size over 5 years and moved by the roots?
Joan
I took down three courses of brick, and then after cleaning out the roots, rebuilt the wall. I decided to replace some of the really old bricks with newer bricks from the brick walkway that I took up when the new back room was built. So I had to cut some of the new bricks. But I was using some of the old bricks as well, which is why I was cutting some of them.
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