Finally figured out how to cut curved bricks cleanly

I kept chipping edges when cutting radius bricks for a fireplace arch. Tried scoring deeper with a 4" angle grinder before snapping and it worked way better. Anyone else have a trick for curved cuts?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_tessa1mo ago

Honestly I had the exact same problem with some brick veneer for a curved garden wall. I tried the scoring method with a diamond blade on my grinder and it helped a lot, but I still got some breakage. What really worked was taking a wet brick saw and making a series of relief cuts perpendicular to the curve line about every half inch or so. Then I just used a chisel to carefully break away the small sections one at a time. It's slower but I ended up with almost zero chipped edges. Also using a rubbing stone to smooth the final cut made it look way cleaner. Tbh the prep work is annoying but worth it if you want a tight fit on the arch.

sean_green441mo ago

Wait, are you sure about using a wet brick saw for relief cuts on brick veneer? I mean, most brick veneer is like 1/2 inch thick at most and that seems like youd be wasting a ton of material with that thick of a blade. Plus wet saws can be a pain for just a few cuts on a curve, you gotta drag out the whole setup. What about just using a good carbide tipped blade in a grinder and taking it real slow? I've done a few curved arches with regular clay bricks and a 4-1/2 inch grinder with a masonry blade, and I just score both sides deep, then tap with a hammer on the waste side. You get some dust but no water mess and way faster than relief cuts every half inch.

the_terry1mo ago

Gotta disagree, wet saws give way cleaner results even if it's slower.