Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Long gone from this description is any reference to the use of the brick axe
and a separate chopping block. Richards (1901, 49) describes in his contem-
porary definition of 'axed work':
Axed Arches - Axed arches are really roughly cut gauged arches with a
3
⁄
16
[4 mm] mortar, instead of a
1
⁄
32
[0.8 mm] putty joint. Therefore the mode of
obtaining the template and the system adopted for gauged aches generally,
applies equally well to axed ones: the only difference being that when the bricks
are hard, the brick will have to be scribed each side to the template and across
the soffit with a tin scribing saw, and cut off to the scribed lines with a boaster
(sometimes called bolster) and club hammer upon the banker, and the remain-
ing material between the scribed and boastered lines neatly axed off with a scotch
(sometimes term scutch).
One must also remember that not all bricks used for gauged arches were
as soft or cut as easy as rubbers, so the cutting box and wire-bladed bow-saw
method would not always be appropriate for them. Malm cutters and Suffolk
clippers sometimes responded better to fine 'axing' and abrading to achieve
the required precision; though, by the end of this period, their popularity was
waning against the fashion for orange/red-coloured rubbing bricks. The plate
of an Edwardian bricklayer's tools given by Mitchell and Mitchell (1906, 86)
(Fig. 133) shows the scutch, chopping block, wire bow saw, and moulding box,
or 'brick mould' as it is termed in the plate, that allowed for the cutting of
both rubbers and cutters.
Certain brick companies, such as Johnson and Lawrence, produced their
rubbers to larger sizes, as discussed earlier, which made them better suited for
the cutting box and wire-bladed saw method. Oversizing had sometimes been
resorted to historically for certain architectural requirements and cutting cer-
tain moulded returns, possibly when the bricklayer was also the brickmaker
and able to make a positive case for doing so. During the nineteenth century
the reasons were different, as Walker (1885, 62-3) states:
Rubbers are purposely made much larger than the ordinary building bricks to
allow for cutting and gauging them four courses to the foot [305 mm], though
as a rule they will not hold out or bed more than 11½ inches with close joints.
T.L.B.'s as they come from the brickfield measure 10½
4
7
⁄
8
3
1
⁄
8
inches.
They are also obtainable 12 inches long, but this length are only required for
Camber arches, or Gothic arches whose bed joints radiate from the centre…in
which so much of the brick is cut away to form the long bevels on the soffit and
crown, that the ordinary sized bricks will not “hold out” to the required lengths,
and have therefore to be lengthened, where necessary, by forming the long
'stretchers' out of two three-quarter bricks…
