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http://manneedsgod.co.uk,http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,
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Saturday, February 13, 2021

Learning a trade can help you

Dear readers, we are writing these posts, because we want to write some D.I.Y. Brickwork and building posts, so that you can learn something about how to built something yourself, at least in
theory. But in this blog we are also trying to get you interested to become a tradesman. So, keep reading please. 
You are here, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

Anyhow, you can see our entire articles at this addresses, DIY brickwork  

 and,  http://diybrickwork.com


Welcome to our blog, learning a trade can help. You see it helped me. So, it can help you also to achieve a higher standard of living.  

Dear readers, I believe that most people must work to earn their living, unless you are born lucky and your families are rich enough, that you can live on their properties earnings; or you are have studied and have university degrees and a good job. But if you are not one of them, then  the best other thing to do is to learn a trade. To learn a building trade takes a few years, but it is worth having a qualification, in the building industry, there are several qualifications to choose from, but because here we are talking about brickwork, we invite young people to become bricklayers. Now that I have said that, let me take you through how I learned my trade. To do that, I am going to start from when I was a building labor, because a building labor is already a Semi-qualified tradesman. 

Anyhow, when I came to Australia in the sixties I ended up working in the building industry, we were extending or fixing old houses, or building new houses from scratch, I started as a bricklayer labor, and after a few years I became a bricklayer, and have worked most of my life as a bricklayer. 

But let me start to show you some types of brickwork, because today we are writing this extra article to talk about the various ways we lay bricks, because we want to show that we are serious to talk about how to lay bricks. because we want to help people know how to lay bricks. But by reading and studying this D.I.Y brickwork blog only, you cannot become a bricklayer, to become a bricklayer, it takes a few years of practice, but you can do a small job yourself, and if you like it then you can continue and by practicing it for a long time, you become a bricklayer yourself. 

Anyhow, let me show you a few photos, of different bonds, of how the bricks can be laid.   


Now, let me show you some photos of bricklayers, while they are working on a wall.  


Above is a bricklayer working on a wall and laying the bricks in stretcher bond. Note all the joints in the brickwork are even, note also the set up of the compo-board and the stack of bricks, well withing the bricklayers reach. 



This bricklayer here is building an arch in his wall. To build an arch is not as hard as it seems, if you have an arch form template, but you need to mark all the space of the bricks on the template, so that the closer brick on the top fits well. The hardest part in the case of a face-brick wall, is to cut the brick around the arch to make an even joint.  


This bricklayer here, is laying this type of old bricks with their frogs up. W
ell that is the way they tell you it is done, but most bricklayers find it harder to lay bricks frogs up, to they lay them frogs down. Really in the end there is no much difference, except it is harder to do. You can lay them whichever way you like. 


This bricklayer here has built his corner in stretcher bond on concrete floor, this is an easy corner to built, since the concrete floor is level. Now he needs to build the other corner and use his bricklayer string line to lay the bricks in between. 
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There is a lot more to learn, and you can use these links hereunder to learn a few things.  

The Art of Laying Brick - YouTube

Images for bricklaying 

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Now that I have done that, let me go back to tell you that Learning a trade can help, by starting to tell you the way that I have started myself. 

Dear readers, I believe that the knowledge you have acquired during your life must be used in full. So, today that I cannot use my knowledge much, because I am getting old and my physical strength does not allow me to use it enough, I have thought to write and publish my know-how D.I.Y brickwork site, hoping it can help somebody that reads my blogs. 

But before I can do that, I must write many blogs. It will be like telling you, how I learned bricklaying myself during my life, and I will be telling you how many things are done on the building sites. 

So, first of all, I need to explain to our readers, how I did acquirer this building knowledge that I am going to use to write this D.I.Y. brickwork blog, and hopefully teach them something useful. You see, knowledge is not easy to pass to other people, but I am going to try anyhow.  

Now let me tell you who I am and where I come from; I am an Italian Australian bloke that has worked most of my life building or fixing house building. I am known in Australia as Frank Menchise, even if in this blog my name has changed, because on the internet one is forced to use a different name for safety reasons.

Now that I have told you that, I can tell you how I learned building things. Anyhow, in Italy when I was young, I worked mostly in the farm and a little in building things for the farm, it was not much but enough to know what you need to know to build something.

When I came to Australia I was ready to do any work to earn money, because in the sixties there were a lot of standalone new house being built in Brisbane, I ended up to work with a small builder that built, or partly built these houses. I worked first as a building labor, because this is what these people needed; they needed a strong bloke to do hard physical work and help them build these houses. In the early sixties on small building most things were done by hand, even foundations were dug by hand, so, I was the right bloke to do this job.

Anyhow, for a few years I worked as a building labor, with a few small builders and bricklayers’ gangs. One day the boss was looking for more bricklayers, but he could not find them, so, he asked me if I wanted to be a bricklayer, since he knew that I would work  hard to succeed. He tried me out and found that I could earn my wage if I worked with other brick layers that new more than me. Anyhow, I worked with them for a few years and became as good as any of them. This is how I became A bricklayer.

Anyhow, this is more or less my life story, but I need to tell you this, because when I was working as a bricklayer labor, I was observing how the bricklayer worked, and when I had time, I tried to lay some bricks instead of taking it easy, the boss gave me this chance, because I was trying to learn. So, if you do the right things, one day you may be recompensed and that is what I wanted. 

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Now, let us talk about the Australian building industry, I believe that the Australian building industry  is one of the major employment industries in Australia. It was so in the sixties and even today is much the same. Because Australia is a new country, and it needs more people. Because the population grows steadily also accommodations need to grow steadily, therefore, new houses need to be built to keep a steady balance. So, a lot of people are needed to build these houses. The only problem that you can encounter working with builders, is that your job is a temporary job. When one job is finished, you do not know, if your employer has been able to secure another job to keep you employed.

But then to find another job is easy, so, it works both ways, even though you can be concerned about having this job.

Anyhow, it is a job with good opportunities, because you can learn and improve your building knowledge and built something yourself. So, in those times, if you were a tradesman, most likely you could be the builder as well.

But now let me talk about what I was doing in the early sixties, as a builder labor, so that you can understand how these houses were built. With this builder contractor that I was working with, we did many things, and we also started houses from scratch, when there was some brickwork, concrete work and concrete stumps to make, in those times concrete stumps were made on site, so, let me tell you what we did.

We went to the site and set it up if it was not set up from the builder or carpenter that was building the timber house on top. This setting up required that we should fix some timber frame to the ground with pegs and per the measurement in the plan. These timber frames are called profiles, and they are marked accurately to the measurement on the plan, so that we had the right measurement to go by, to start digging the foundations for the concrete stumps and brick walls. 




How the profiles are set on a near level site. Anyhow, what you need here are a few length of timber fixed to the ground, where you can mark where the walls and the stumps are going to be, then you can use a stretched bricklayers line between the profiles. When laying bricks we could also use the profile to mark our levels.  

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Anyhow, here I want to say that, while I was working, I was also learning how these things were done; and those houses that we were building in the sixties, they were average affordable house that the average family could afford to buy, and therefore, they were sold easily.

Anyhow, there is a lot more to be said, how we built these houses. But let us go back to our previous blog, where we had built our imaginary house brick base, and link it to our next blog, building a veneer house.

See you soon.

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This blog-site is; old man-lifeworks

Blog, Learning a trade can help you  

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

Building a veneer house    

See you soon.

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I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

http://diybrickwork.com  

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

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