Jim Sandford on sat 22 nov 97
Just finished building a 5 foot catenary arch for my wood kiln, and
discovered a trick
I don't think I've read about. Got the bricks up both sides of the
form, and wound up
with a gap of about a half inch--not wide enough for a final course to
fit in. I didn't want
to use a castable. After trying to figure out all kinds of fancy
solutions for a machine
to pry apart the two sides wide enough (was thinking of rigging
something with a car jack
or something) I took a half inch by 3 inch by 2 foot piece of wood,
jammed it in, and pulled
sideways to pry apart the two sides. It worked well enough to get a
brick in between.
Then just worked my way along the top. A few bricks shifted along the
way, so I was
left with sort of an uneven arch top, but then was able to tap bricks
into pretty good
alignment. The final result looks perfect. The simplest is often the
best solution.
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