Brick floor patterns: Basket weave, Herring Bone

[Marcel]

(M) I looked at the 3 most common brick patterns: Running Bond, Basket Weave, and Herring Bone.

(M) Although I prefer the look of Basket weave for a patio, I need to choose a pattern for the FLOOR of our dome which has the shortest length of parallel bricks. The herring bone has only 1-1/2 bricks parallel; the other two have full courses.

Perhaps what I wrote is unclear. Here is the Approx. length of 1-1/2 bricks from below:



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(M) See the first picture below

But if we turn the Herring Bone 45 degrees, we get NO lines perpendicular to the handle of our peel! That looks like the next image; the above just turned 45 degrees:


(M) See the second picture below

If I've missed something important, let me know as the brick floor is my next step now that my Insulating Hearth has been poured.

Ciao,

m

[Robert Musa]

i have nothing but admiration for those who are able to create a perfectly flat foundation for their hearth bricks. however, my base was more similar to the rocky mountains. i would highly recommend that after laying the brick, take an angle grinder with a masonry wheel and "touch up" any of the little ledges. i did this and i've never had a peel catch on a brick.

[paulages]

i did the same thing, though it caused the bricks to pit a little bit.

[dmun]

Basket weave?

All those little squares? Sounds like a pizza peel nightmare to me.
But maybe if they are a contrasting color firebrick...

[Marcel]

L.o.l.

It's not all that difficult, but you need the floor of your hearth to be made of rattan, or cane.

Ciao,

Marcel

[ColonelCorn76]

i have nothing but admiration for those who are able to create a perfectly flat foundation for their hearth bricks. however, my base was more similar to the rocky mountains. i would highly recommend that after laying the brick, take an angle grinder with a masonry wheel and "touch up" any of the little ledges. i did this and i've never had a peel catch on a brick.

I didn't have to do anything to the hearth bricks but I was doing another project this summer & came across a tool that would make flattening it a breeze for anyone with bumps in theirs. It's a concrete surface grinding wheel. It fit in my angle grinder & is usually used to smooth concrete floors.

It's a thick disk -- 1/2" or more(?) with 3 or 4 large lugs welded onto the bottom. Each lug is probably 1/2" thick by 1/2" wide & 1 maybe 1 1/2" long (I'm not at home now so I can't be precise). The surface of the lugs have a diamond coating embedded. The neat thing is that it's flat so whatever it grinds is flat. One of the problems of trying to do that with a standard masonry wheel in an angle grinder is that it's designed to cut so you end up tilting the grinder and dragging or pushing the edge of the wheel on the surface of the brick to knock down the bumps. This can get out of hand and you can dish out the brick. The concrete surface wheel is resting flat on the surface & cuts with the flat side not the edge.

I think it cost me about $40 and I got it at Lowes. I believe mine is 4" in diameter. They have bigger ones (you can also buy a purpose built grinder for $$$) but the price went up in a hurry. A bigger one fits on the same angle grinder if you've taken the guard off (which I have) and would go faster. But I was able to grind the mortar off my kitchen floor after removing the tiles in only an hour or two so for an oven anything bigger than the 4" wheel is overkill. (BTW, when you grind mortar it turns back into the powdery dust it was when you took it out of the bag & mixed it with water to make the thinset for tiling...so grinding a whole floor of it is kind of like throwing a couple of 50lb bags up in the air. )

Jim

[paulages]

i used a similar disc, and i was definitely "overdoing it" as i didn't really have any bumps worth worrying about, but i had the disc and used it. the "pitting" was a result of the bricks being cast, and therefore having smooth faces where the wet material touched the forms. once you get just beneath the brick is more porous, which is why mine looked a bit pitted.

this does absolutely nothing but make my cooking surface look like there's ash or burnt flour on the surface while cooking, when in fact it's scraped and there is nothing there.