Watched a guy lay a fireplace arch in Kansas City and now I'm done eyeballing my curves
I was on a job site in Kansas City last spring and this older guy was building a curved arch over a fireplace. He had a piece of plywood cut as a template and he kept checking every brick against it with a folding rule, like 3 or 4 times per brick before he set it. I used to just eyeball my arches and call it good enough, figured close was close. But then the mason I was working under pointed at his joint lines and said 'look how even that is, that's not luck.' My last arch had joints wandering by about half an inch and honestly I knew it. So now I'm cutting a template for every curve job, even the small ones, takes me maybe 20 extra minutes up front. Any of you use a template or do you have a better trick for keeping the joints true?