Brick cutting services has been around for 1000’s of years, from the Stone Masons of the Incas and Egyptian pyramid builders who cut giant block of stone, to the modern equivalent who cut to bricks to the nearest .5 mm using Diamond tooth saw blades.
From the days where arches were constructed using Keystone, Architects now draw accurate drawings using Computer Aided Design (CAD) programmes, which in turn are sent to the brick cutting companies like AJ Brick Cutters. Bricks are then cut per the drawing and laid our using the drawing as a template. Most often a cut brick – called a slip – is half a brick’s width, that being around 30mm.
Simultaneously to the drawing being sent to the brick cutters, a similar drawing may be sent to a concrete specialist. These Concrete specialists cast the shape of the arch using steel reinforced concrete, running rods of steel through the concrete make for an exceptionally strong material. This is sometimes referred to as the Lintel. This Lintel is made to measure but smaller than the finished product, the size difference is enough to allow for the epoxy glues used to stick the bricks to the concrete plus about 30mm, which is the general width of a slip.
The Lintel is delivered to the Brick Cutting Services company’s premises, who epoxy glue the slips to the Lintel, allowing time for the epoxy resins to cure to maximum strength.
This is then delivered t the site where the Brick Arch is going to used, hoisted and secured in position and when the surrounding brick work is complete, all the brickwork is pointed to match exactly.
Making Brick Arches this way, is lighter, and stronger that conventional brick arched built using Keystones, many thousands of examples are on display in the churches and castles around our country, where you can see the construction method used.
