Twin seams

Brickwork is always in plain sight. Brick has a regular geometric shape, and against its background, uneven mortar joints are very noticeable and look unsightly.

Maintaining the same thickness of joints between all rows of bricks is not easy even for an experienced professional mason, let alone a beginner or “self-builder”.

However, there is a solution. To do this, you need to make a simple device, which I saw in some foreign magazine and slightly improved. The main difficulty in its manufacture is welding the parts, which are very simple in themselves — these are steel strips with a cross-section of 2.5×15 mm, so the design is clear from the drawing and does not require special explanations.

I deliberately do not indicate the connection lines (welds) of the device parts — they can be drawn by anyone who wants to make it as they see fit (as it will be easier for them to divide into separate parts).

The dimensions of the device are taken for a standard brick with dimensions of 250x125x100 mm (length x width x height) and for a mortar layer thickness of 15 mm. If a stone with a height of 65 mm is used (for example, silicate), then the height of the vertical parts of the tool must be reduced accordingly.

This device helps maintain the evenness of rows even without a string, as it orients the laying of mortar relative to the previous brick — you just need to carefully orient the next stone along the mortar line.

«Modelist-Konstruktor» № 5’2010, M. GLUKHOV