# Mixing bricks



## JBM (Mar 31, 2011)

In the upcoming months I will be on a house and the owner is looking to recreate something antique without using a used brick. He isnt biting on the Cambridge tumbled that I showed him (my all time favorite brick) and he didnt bite on the morins. 

He has come back to Old Virginia twice now so he sees something he likes. His latest is he is looking to mix the red's found here http://www.oldvirginiabrick.com/brick/wood_moulded.html

Anyone have any input, what would be a good mix do you think? Were talking about 3k brick for the 2 chimneys and fireplaces going up through the inside of the house. One fireplace will have a woodbox and bread oven so needless to say were looking for an old or antique look.


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## brickhook (May 8, 2012)

I've laid a bunch of Old Virginia. Old Williamsburg is some beautiful brick. I think no matter what you choose with Old Virginia, you can't go wrong. :thumbsup:


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

brickhook said:


> I've laid a bunch of Old Virginia. Old Williamsburg is some beautiful brick. I think no matter what you choose with Old Virginia, you can't go wrong. :thumbsup:





I could not agree with John more !

Another of my all time favorites are the Shenandoah and Victorian #104 from Cushwa Brick in Williamsport Md.:thumbsup:


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## dom-mas (Nov 26, 2011)

I'd do a 1/3:2/3's or even 25% 75%. Not sure If I'd do the lighter one or darker one more prominent. Probably the lighter one. Mock up time I guess.

Does look like nice brick


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

Old Va. is literally in John's backyard. I definitely have laid a gazillion of them myself. I can vouch for them,in hot weather just dampen them a tad,in winter they lay up great also.They do not float and you can strike up nicely without camping out at quitting time to strike the last of the days work. 


I love the look of the "Jefferson" size. 2.3/4 height.! Oh by the way,they are NOT brittle,you can actually cut them with a good sharp brick hammer without them shattering. IMHO,they are what a brick should be.


And no,I do not have shares in the company.:laughing:


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## dom-mas (Nov 26, 2011)

ohh, 2 3/4" in height? is that with a joint? How long are they? Over 9" if they bond with 3 courses to a soldier


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## Fancis Casini (Jan 31, 2013)

JBM said:


> In the upcoming months I will be on a house and the owner is looking to recreate something antique without using a used brick. He isnt biting on the Cambridge tumbled that I showed him (my all time favorite brick) and he didnt bite on the morins.
> 
> He has come back to Old Virginia twice now so he sees something he likes. His latest is he is looking to mix the red's found here http://www.oldvirginiabrick.com/brick/wood_moulded.html
> 
> Anyone have any input, what would be a good mix do you think? Were talking about 3k brick for the 2 chimneys and fireplaces going up through the inside of the house. One fireplace will have a woodbox and bread oven so needless to say were looking for an old or antique look.


My whole house is old virginia brk...the fp face and dining rm are a nice discontinued brk [vermont brk] which I made trowel lines in the mud...very tedious but a ultra nice colonial effect, in fact at the brick yard they have a display with old v's and a line joint made with a jointer.....nice but not like the thin trowel line...

one thing about the old v's they have alot of heat cracks and if you lay to an 8'' they can run small making for a larger bed joint. in a fireplace it wont matter...if you want I'll take a close up of the v's tomorrow as I have to put a wheel bearing hub in the truck so I'll be home.


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## dom-mas (Nov 26, 2011)

That's a nice brick, but yes a fairly big joint


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## Fancis Casini (Jan 31, 2013)

dom-mas said:


> That's a nice brick, but yes a fairly big joint


if you mean the dining rm they are all 3/8s a few heads may be 1/2 ....in fact I just went over and looked because the pic makes them look big? The thing is too, with the trowel lines you want it to look like a farmer did it! I'll see if I can get a close up tomorrow


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## dom-mas (Nov 26, 2011)

I think the joints are probably very normal. Just all the new brick I work with are oversize (3 1/8" in height) and the old brick I work with all have very tight joints (3/16" on average but sometime as tight as virtually 0 and up to 3/8"). Also because the bricks are slightly irregular and the joint is very light that adds to the look of bigger joints than they are. 

I did some work with a rough new brick. All the joints were laid on either 6's or 7's. When I stood back the joints looked huge. My eye was seeing the largest areas but was skipping over the tight areas


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## dakzaag (Jan 6, 2009)

I have to recreate an old school house and the joints were 6.5 on average on the old building. They looked huge, and raked back at least 3/8 inch. 

Restoration committee salvaged about 10,000 brick before demo and I am laying up a memorial sign for posterity.


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

Fancis Casini said:


> one thing about the old v's they have alot of heat cracks and if you lay to an 8'' they can run small making for a larger bed joint. in a fireplace it wont matter...




As far as the heat cracks go Old Va. actually produce their brick in several face "textures". Most of their brick is wood molded however they also own a extruded plant.

They produce a wood molded brick made to simulate hand molded that applies less pressure filling the mold. That brick does have more heat cracks,perhaps those are the ones your distributor stocked ?



As far as joint size goes,I use an oversize brick ruler that has letters as opposed to numbers for joint thickness. We usually lay them up on C,s which is around a 3/16"bed joint. If one is building a chimney or a solid masonry building and windows are custom sized,varying joint sizes trying to hit prescribed heights is not an issue.


Large joints,tight joints,the bottom line IMHO ,the most attractive walls have head and bed joints of same size.


I have been on some commercial jobs where the architect was clueless to the concept of a modular system,they speced.utility brick that had a normal bed joint and you needed an ice pick to strike the head joints.:laughing:


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

dom-mas said:


> ohh, 2 3/4" in height? is that with a joint? How long are they? Over 9" if they bond with 3 courses to a soldier




No,that is the actual brick size. Old Va. brick is made to replicate brick sizes prevalent in the "colonial" era. In that day,brick were predominately laid as stretchers and headers. Jack arches used brick laid as soldiers however,they were typically two or three piece bonded arches and heights were not problematic.


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## dom-mas (Nov 26, 2011)

Interesting. I wonder when the courses to a stretcher came about cause Ont size bricks work on that modular and are a relatively old size of brick, mid 1800 certainly and i would guess early 1800's. Soldiers were used as decorative elements in Victorian architecture quite a bit, but not sure about brickwork before Victorian times


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

dom-mas said:


> Interesting. I wonder when the courses to a stretcher came about cause Ont size bricks work on that modular and are a relatively old size of brick, mid 1800 certainly and i would guess early 1800's. Soldiers were used as decorative elements in Victorian architecture quite a bit, but not sure about brickwork before Victorian times





I have a very interesting collection of 16-17 books about the early history of colonial architecture in America. The information was originally published as monthly monographs in the 1920,s and 1930,s . They were issued under the name White Pine Monograph Series. They were reprinted in the early 1980,s titled Architectural Treasures of Early America. They are a wealth of information,comparison of regional materials,sizes details etc. All of the forwards in the series are written by Roy Underhill.He is known as the guy from the Wood wright Shop however,he was the longstanding House wright of Colonial Williamsburg Va. The place legend says the first brick in America was fired in 1608.


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

Here is a connection to that series from Amazon. While they are pricey,IMHO they are worth every penny,especially to anyone interested in early N.American architectural history.

http://www.amazon.com/Architectural...ords=architectural+treasures+of+early+america


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

Wow ! Did I get lucky,here is a posting of my favorite preface in that series by Roy Underhill. I could get dangerous if I ever really figured this computer stuff out ! :laughing:



The title of the preface is The Brickmakers Hand.


Enjoy !

http://pennandink.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/the-brickmakers-hand/


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

Cannot remember if I ever posted this before,anyway,this is a good companion to the preface by Roy Underhill The Brickmakers Hand.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk9Da0BapE0


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## Fancis Casini (Jan 31, 2013)

fjn said:


> As far as the heat cracks go Old Va. actually produce their brick in several face "textures". Most of their brick is wood molded however they also own a extruded plant.
> 
> They produce a wood molded brick made to simulate hand molded that applies less pressure filling the mold. That brick does have more heat cracks,perhaps those are the ones your distributor stocked ?
> 
> ...


Well I certainly did get 25,000 of the hand moulded brick. They drove me nuts as we had many seconds .....some cubes were fantasic then some were barely 2 1/8 high....we managed by opening many and mixing and using the cracked ones for cuts.
I designed the house for 8'' per 3 courses ie 2-11/16 to 2-5/8s....and if If I knew the brick were going to run small I would have squeezed them down to fit another course. Another pain in the but is alot of the edges crumble off when striking that final jointing...making for constant wet brushing and rehitting the beds.

As for trowel lines a minimum bed of 3/8 to 1/2 is needed to get a nice line in fact even then the joints are done nearly every brick after first back parging with the trowel tip then lining it....granite is also done like this making for a ultra colonial farmer done look.
I cant seem to get the camera to show the lines without glare-ing the wall and making the joints look hideous :sad...lol

The dining rm were vermont brick and discontinued....a real nice hard regular brick.....I got a link to them but they all seem to be water struck but nice hard brick with a few that look similar to the o v's.

Took a few close up shots for j of the o v's outside, I'll post them later my computer is blinky....here's the link to the one close to the ov's
http://www.vermontbrick.com/products/wfb/woodstkant


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## dom-mas (Nov 26, 2011)

Have you seen this movie FJN? If not you'll love it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErOHuzHgAvM


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