Loading…
3
Thought I could eyeball a curved garden wall, ended up taking three days
Had a job for a curved brick planter in a backyard, maybe a 15 foot run. Figured I could just set the line and bend it by feel, no big deal. Wrong. Getting the curve smooth and the courses level took forever, I kept having to pull bricks and redo sections. What should have been a one day job turned into three full days of fussing with it. Next time I'm building a proper plywood form before I even mix the mortar. Anyone have a good method for setting out a clean curve without a ton of hassle?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
zara_hill466mo ago
Yeah the chalk line and wood strip trick is solid for the base. But keeping it true going up is the real killer. I use a cheap garden hose to lay out the curve first, spray paint over it. Then cut a plywood template for each course. Sounds like extra work but it's faster than redoing bricks for three days.
8
diana_king6mo ago
Love that hose trick, saved my butt on a curved patio last year.
9
wyatt_shah856mo ago
What kind of curve were you trying to build, like a gentle arc or a tight circle? I've tried the freehand method before and it's a total trap for making things look wobbly. For something that size, I would have snapped a chalk line on the ground for the base and used a long, flexible strip of wood as a guide to check the curve as I went up. Even that can be a pain though, which is why your form idea is probably the right move.
5