# Brick shelves



## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Today I built a brick shelf. I laid up three piers 8" by 24" tall 16" deep. Spaced 5' apart. I then built a wood shelf 16" deep flush with the top of the piers and braced with 2 X 4. 

Then I laid two rows of brick across the piers and wood in double soldier fashon except the soldiers are sleeping. I hope this is making sense. My goal is to span the piers with brick and remove the wood. 

To hold the brick together, I ran 3/8" all thread through the outside holes of each row of brick and tightened until I saw movement in the joints. 

CJ Carl did a chimney cap this way and it is his avatar pic. 

So my question is, did I try to span too much? the rod should prevent the brick from spreading and folding down on the floor. I could have put an arch in the bench, but then it wouldn't function as a shelf and the customer definately needs a shelf. 

Pictures to come tomorrow. I will leave the wood bracing in place til at least Friday and maybe Monday. This is inside so it will set up mostly tonight. 

The customer is an engineer guy and he is really excited to see if this works. He loves stuff in his office that makes people say "how did you do that?"


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## lukachuki (Feb 11, 2005)

dakzaag said:


> Today I built a brick shelf. I laid up three piers 8" by 24" tall 16" deep. Spaced 5' apart. I then built a wood shelf 16" deep flush with the top of the piers and braced with 2 X 4.
> 
> Then I laid two rows of brick across the piers and wood in double soldier fashon except the soldiers are sleeping. I hope this is making sense. My goal is to span the piers with brick and remove the wood.
> 
> ...


Can't wait for the pictures as i'm right brained and not visualizing your description very well. If you have problems uploading your pics just ask stacker how to do it!


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Im still waiting to see the pics of his broken concrete retaining wall. No problem posting pics, but worked til after 7 tonight and was in too big a hurry to snap pics. Will tomorrow, might add a second shelf if the first one looks stable. 

I really really hope this works. 75 percent of my best customers are in this guys shop several times a year. 

I hope they all want one just like it.:thumbsup:


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

In 5' I would probably have put 1/2" to 3/8" arch with the falsework.


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

I used 1 X 12 so a little tricky getting an arch in 5 feet. 

Pride may have gotten the best of me. I was bragging to one of the sons of the operation that there would be no support under the brick. 

Then I added, he would be able to see the back side of the brick from underneath. So when I laid the shelf I didn't bed in mortar which made a few of the brick proud from little bumps and raised corners. Looks fine, but I can pick out the high spots pretty quick. 

Should have kept my mouth shut.

TS since your not laughing at me I take it you think it may be functional.


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## artisanstone (Nov 27, 2007)

Once the mortar sets up, tighten the all thread some more. Like a post-tensioned foundation. It should work fine.:thumbsup:


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## CJKarl (Nov 21, 2006)

Still waiting for pics. I'm glad my idea worked...I hope.


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Ok here are some pictures. 
Today went pretty well, but I was planning on putting another shelf above the first one, but the customer decided it would just become another shelf filled with stuff. This is what the place looks like all the time.









Now I was brought in to fix the brick outside the door that has been falling down since 10 minutes after the guy put down his trowel some twenty years ago. I had to open the wall up and push it back to the original place as the door had slowly moved the wall in over 4 inches or so. I suggested some brick shelves to help organize the office. Ron (the owner) was in a good mood and said go ahead, I'm leaving for 2 days.:thumbup:

Here are the bolts 









artisanstone was exactly right. When I left the night before, I had the all thread pretty tight and I thought all was good. This morning the rod was loose and wiggled easily. :w00t: I thought I was in trouble, but went ahead and snugged the rod up again good and tight. Not a mechanic, but just before grunt with a 9/16 box end wrench. 

This is just before I put the brick over the bolts.









This is how I capped the end. 1 end is tight to a pillar so just a corner exposed.









This is the big picture.









I came in this morning and a guy was getting his laser serviced and put the control box on the shelf... this is going to get more use than most peoples kitchen table.

So I have it all buttoned up, a few more brick over the door and tuck point a bunch around outside and we will be done for now.

I want to strip the forms tomorrow and see what happens. Should I wait?


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

A few more Pics

This is outside where we took all the brick out between the door and window. Not a single wall tie. As the door beat the wall into the building, mortar chunks fell down between the brick and wall and the brick was slowly falling into the building.










Once we got the brick out of the way.










I opened up the wall on the inside and discovered the "plate" (just a common 2 X 4 with nary a nail or anchor bolt. No wonder the door was pushing the wall in. 









I put 4 tapcons in the plate and closed it back up.

this is adding the brick back in. 









We could still see the marks the mason made on the door frame all those years ago. He wasn't a mason, he was an inventor/engineer but he had these bricks, you see and his dad had been a mason so he figured if dad could do it so could he. 

Well, he did stuff no one else ever thought of, but masonry stopped with the dad. Today this shop sells a two wheel car for parades and shows that the mason/inventor designed in the 60's. With an operator sitting in the seat, a person can stand on the bumper front or back and the car will still balance on just two wheels. Pretty cool to see at a parade. 

Here we are putting it back together


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## lukachuki (Feb 11, 2005)

argh!!!! the best pics are missing!!!


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Crap! I went back to organize the photobucket, I didn't realize the links were active. Here they are again.

the bolts









more bolts









The middle...









one end finished.










The big picture










Sorry about that. 

Hey what about stripping the forms? I gotta get to bed, someone chime in about pulling the bracing tomorrow.


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## Tinstaafl (Jan 6, 2008)

dakzaag said:


> The big picture


Oh, man. Allthread or not, sooner or later someone's going to sit on that. And the mortar _will_ crack.

I'd really like to be wrong...


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

Possibly if it had been built as a separate unit, fully grouted, slightly arched, and severely tensioned it might last, but I don't think it will as built. Wait a week for the falsework, and try to grout it with a groutbag.


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## CJKarl (Nov 21, 2006)

I should put a disclaimer on my shade tree engineering projects. As a shade tree wannabe engineer, my unprofessional opinion is that it is not robust enough to support itself and any imposed loads.


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## Joasis (Mar 28, 2006)

I am not a mason, and IMHO, it won't last a week. How about cast concrete stained to a brick color? Just a thought.


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## lukachuki (Feb 11, 2005)

joasis said:


> I am not a mason, and IMHO, it won't last a week. How about cast concrete stained to a brick color? Just a thought.


Or a couple of brick arches underneath for support.


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Well, thanks for all the encouragement. I think it will be there til they tear the building down.

I managed to get a small arch in one of the spans. It used to be said a broken watch is right twice a day. Well, they don't make stuff like they used to... so I might have been right once.










As you can see they are already using it. 

This is what the rest of the office looks like. The yellow cases have lasers in them, they will be stored under the shelf, and whatever on top.









In the owners office, a note on the wall...









Anyone who measures earth curvature in feet is a big picture type of person in my book.


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

A few more comments. I should have completely filled the holes as I laid the brick. I also think the slight arch is a good suggestion. It appears that drawing the allthread up caused an arch which is a good thing, but probably could be more arched and still function as a shelf or bench. 

It probably wouldn't hurt to leave the ends open for several days and check tension before enclosing so if the rod stretches or the mortar shrinks any slack could be taken up. I retightened the next day then sealed it in. Waiting another day would not hurt anything. 

Here is the look from below.









You can see the rod in a few places. Since the rod is at the bottom of the hole, I guess that puts the stress lower on the brick which is where I think it should be. If the ends hold, I don't see this going anywhere. Now if they try to use the bench as an anvil then all bets are off. 

The good news is every shelf in this place has stuff on it, so it won't be long til there wont be any place for someone to sit or set something down.

How would you like it if your desk looked like this?


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

You should tuck those joints, and shoot a slurry up the holes. 

Why would the curvature of the Earth matter in surveying, unless you were setting grade on skyscrapers?


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## SLSTech (Sep 13, 2008)

...


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

Guns shoot in an arc, surveying instruments, theoretically, shoot in straight lines.


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Tscarborough said:


> surveying instruments, theoretically, shoot in straight lines.


When using GPS for surveying very high accuracy the units have to adjust for earth curvature I am told. It starts to play out in long distant water drainage and farmers using GPS to steer their tractor in the field.:thumbsup:


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

Yeah, I am old school LOS surveying, don't have a clue about modern GPS surveying.


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

> Tscarborough; You should tuck those joints, and shoot a slurry up the holes.


 
Why do you think a slurry and pointing the joints underneath would help? The big risk now is the bottom spreading and I don't see mortar working very well as a glue. 

Getting the holes filled more completely while building would have been smarter, but now filling the cavities just seems like a pain that probably won't have a big effect on long term stability. JMHO


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## lukachuki (Feb 11, 2005)

dakzaag said:


> Why do you think a slurry and pointing the joints underneath would help? The big risk now is the bottom spreading and I don't see mortar working very well as a glue.
> 
> Getting the holes filled more completely while building would have been smarter, but now filling the cavities just seems like a pain that probably won't have a big effect on long term stability. JMHO


if it were mine i would think long an hard about epoxy-impregnated carbon fiber/Kevlar mesh not much thicker than paper but with a tensile strength superior to steel. So they say.

This article outlines the idea:
http://www.concretenetwork.com/anne_balogh/fortress.htm

Companies that sell the epoxy and Kevlar:
http://www.compositeswest.com/CWselection.html
http://www.fortressstabilization.com/products.php

Technical Paper that explains the process (chapter 4)
http://www.concrete.org/COMMITTEES/p....XR_to_TAC.pdf


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## lukachuki (Feb 11, 2005)

dakzaag said:


> Why do you think a slurry and pointing the joints underneath would help? The big risk now is the bottom spreading and I don't see mortar working very well as a glue.
> 
> Getting the holes filled more completely while building would have been smarter, but now filling the cavities just seems like a pain that probably won't have a big effect on long term stability. JMHO


if it were mine i would think long an hard about epoxy-impregnated carbon fiber/Kevlar mesh not much thicker than paper but with a tensile strength superior to steel. So they say! It might do the trick of helping these pretty shelves "magically" stand the test of time.

This article outlines the idea:
http://www.concretenetwork.com/anne_balogh/fortress.htm

Companies that sell the epoxy and Kevlar:
http://www.compositeswest.com/CWselection.html
http://www.fortressstabilization.com/products.php

Technical Paper that explains the process (chapter 4)
http://www.concrete.org/COMMITTEES/p....XR_to_TAC.pdf


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Luj,
that stuff looks interesting and it is made just up the road. I would be more inclined to use that after a failure. By allowing the shelves to stand as is I have an idea what my stability is under less than optimal conditions. 

If this was a one shot deal in a high end house, I would look for any insurance I could get. Here the project is 5 miles from home in a shop that is admittedly going to get buried under boxes and stuff. If it fails, I will redue on my dime and put in the noted improvements. 

I would use your fiber reinforcement under extreme conditions or where failure would be a reputation buster. 

Thanks for the input.


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## artisanstone (Nov 27, 2007)

I think it will be fine. If it fails, it will be at the washers, and you could replace those with a plate without tearing the whole thing apart.


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

Bill,
I had thought the same thing after looking at the pictures. It would be easy to put a plate across the whole brick instead of a few washers. Thanks for an excellent observation.


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