Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to decorative architectural features, such as arches or other features, and more particularly, to a method for manufacturing such features, which can be cheaply and easily fitted to a building.

Background of the Invention

It is known that decorative architectural features, such as arches, whether so-called flat arches, semi-circular arches, or completely round "bulls-eyes" on buildings provide greater architectural interest. Often, flat or semi-circular arches are provided above windows or doorways in buildings. Such features are traditionally built by shaping or cutting the bricks and positioning them in place with mortar. More recently, stee! or concrete lintels have been installed over the window or door space, with bricks slips stuck to them prior to installation. Nevertheless, the bricks have still needed to be cut to the correct size and shape to fit properly on the lintel. In addition to this a further process involving the mortaring of the gaps between the slips i.e. pointing, needs to take place to complete the effect which involves additional time and cost with the inherent risk of poor workmanship. Thus, as shown in Figure 1 , a building 1 having an opening 2, such as a window or door, has a flat arch 3 formed above the opening 2 for decorative effect. The flat arch 3 is formed of a number of vertically orientated bricks 4 arranged on a steel or concrete lintel 5. As is known, depending on the radius of curvature of the arch, the bricks may need to be cut to size in order to be able to fit and produce the correct shape of the arch.

Figure 2 shows a similarly-formed semi-circular arch 6 formed around a window 7. In this case, the lintel 8 is shown more clearly as providing support for the bottom and rear off the bricks 9.

In order to reduce the time spent cutting on the building site, some bricks have been pre-cut to shape. Indeed, for some features, where the lintel is not too large, it is known to cut the bricks and fit them to the linte! in advance, so that the lintel with the bricks already in position can be fitted in place on the building, with only mortaring between the brick slips that are stuck onto the lintel and the outside edges of the bricks to the rest of the building then being required. In the case of such features where the iintel is not load bearing, and therefore does not need to be steel or other strong material, it is known to use a backing block 10 of light material, such as a polystyrene block and to fix only brick slips 11 onto the backing block using mortar, or other suitable adhesive, as shown in Figure 3. The brick slips 11 are only thin layers of brick that look as though they are complete, but are for decoration only. When load-bearing is required, it is known to use concrete backing blocks, or precast monolithic concrete lintels, to which the brick slips are faced. Although such pre-made decorative arches are popular because they are much easier to install on a building, they still need the brick slips to be cut to shape and fixed to the concrete or other backing block with mortar or other suitable adhesive, and then pointed with a suitable mortar to look like part of the building.

As building costs are driven down, the costs of such unessential decorative architectural features are considered more and more carefully and, for cheaper buildings, decorative features may be omitted altogether, leading to plain and dreary buildings which are all alike.

Brief Summary of the Invention

The present invention therefore seeks to provide a decorative architectural feature and a method of manufacturing such a feature, which overcomes, or at least reduces the above-mentioned problems of the prior art. Accordingiy, in a first aspect, the invention provides a method of manufacturing a decorative architectural feature, the method comprising: preparing a substrate of the desired size and shape, the substrate having at least one display surface for displaying a decorative architectural design, applying a layer of adhesive substance to at least part of the display surface, and applying a first desired finishing material to adhere to the adhesive substance on the display surface.

The substrate may be a structural member, for example made of concrete, preferably with a lightweight aggregate mixed in, or may be a non-structural member, for example comprising any one the foilowing: an aircrete block, reconstituted stone, wood, polystyrene, expanded foam and plastic material.

The first desired finishing material is preferably chosen to resemble bricks, stone, render, pebble-dash or any other desired effect and is preferably chosen to be of a colour to match a building to which the decorative architectural feature is to be fitted. Accordingly, the first desired finishing material may be sand, dust, brick-dust or other suitable material.

The adhesive substance is preferably weather resistant or weather proof and is preferably a giue or resin, such as epoxy resin.

In a preferred embodiment, the method further comprises: providing a stencil having at least part of the decorative architectural design cut-out from a backing sheet, positioning the stencil adjacent to the layer of adhesive substance, applying the first finishing material through the cut-out in the stencil so as to adhere to the adhesive substance, removing the stencil, and applying a second desired finishing material to the iayer of adhesive substance to adhere to the remaining part of the adhesive substance to which the first desired finishing material did not adhere to.

The second desired finishing material is preferably chosen to resemble mortar and is preferably chosen to be of a colour to match mortar on a building to which the decorative architectural feature is to be fitted. Accordingly, the second desired finishing material may be, for example, sand.

The method preferably further comprises, between the steps of removing the stencil and applying a second desired finishing material: providing a second stencil having at least a different part of the decorative architectural design cutout from a backing sheet, positioning the second stencil adjacent to the layer of adhesive substance, applying a third desired finishing material through the cut- out in the second stencil to adhere to the adhesive substance on the display surface, and removing the second stencil.

The method may further comprise repeating the steps of providing a stencil, positioning the stencil, applying a desired finishing materia!, and removing the stencil, as many times as desired with further stencils and further desired finishing materials.

The decorative architectural feature is preferably an arch, such as a flat- gauge arch, a segmental arch, a semi-circular arch, a circular arch, or a cambered arch. According to a second aspect, the invention provides a method of re- facing a portion of a pre-existing building, comprising: manufacturing a decorative architectural feature according to the method described above, wherein the substrate comprises a desired portion of the building and the step of preparing the substrate comprises cleaning and preparing an external surface to receive the adhesive substance.

According to a third aspect, the invention provides a decorative architectural feature manufactured according to the method described above.

According to a fourth aspect, the invention provides a method of fitting a decorative architectural feature to a building, the method comprising the steps of: providing a decorative architectural feature as described above, and fitting the decorative architectural feature to the building.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Further features and advantages of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the detailed description of an embodiment of the invention given below, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 is a schematic front view of a known way of producing a flat arch on a building;

Figure 2 is a schematic front view of a known way of producing a curved arch using a iintei on a building; Figure 3 is a schematic front view of a known pre-formed flat arch for later installation on a building;

Figure 4(a) is a schematic view of a stencil for use in the manufacture of a pre-formed flat arch according to an embodiment of the invention; and Figure 4(b) is a schematic view of the pre-formed flat arch made using the stencil of Figure 4(a).

Detailed Description of the Drawings

Thus, according to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method of manufacturing a decorative architectural feature, which is cheaper and easier to manufacture and install than the existing ways of producing them.

As shown in Figure 4(b), a flat arch decorative feature 12 is manufactured by first producing a substrate formed of a backing block of the correct size and shape. The backing block may be a single block, or may be made up of two or more separate blocks 13 and 14, which are joined to together to produce the desired size and shape. If made up of separate parts, they are joined together using a strong, durable and weatherproof adhesive, for example, a two-part

(activator and base) epoxy resin 15 to stick the pieces together. The block (or parts forming the block) may be of any desired materia!, whether load-bearing or not, depending on the use and location that is to be made of the architectural feature. If it was not load bearing or structural, then it is desirable to keep the insulation properties high and the weight low. A suitable material would be an aircrete block, such as durox®, celcon®, or thermalite®. Alternatives would be wood, polystyrene or expanded foam. If the backing block is to be load bearing, then it is preferably made of concrete. Alternatively, the backing block could be made of reconstituted stone.

The next step in manufacturing the decorative architectural feature 12 is to apply a layer of adhesive 16 over the front surface of the backing block. The adhesive should be easy to apply and, again, should be durable and weatherproof. It may be any suitable glue or resin, for example a two-part (activator and base) epoxy resin, such as that calked Metrofix 31 manufactured by Nickerson Chemicals Ltd.

A stenci! 17, as shown in Figure 4(a) is then positioned over the layer of adhesive 16. The stencil 17 is formed out of any suitable material, depending on the iifetime required. Thus, for a stencil that is only to be used once or a few times, it could be made of cardboard or paperboard or similar material. If it is expected to be needed for longer, then it could be made of a more durable material, such a plasties or steel sheeting. In any event, the decorative design is drawn on the sheet 18 and then cut out to form the stencil. Thus, for a flat arch design, as shown, brick shapes 19 are cut out of the sheet, leaving the shapes 20 of the mortar joins to cover the adhesive when the stencil is in position.

Once the stencil 17 covers the adhesive, a suitable first finishing material is applied through the brick-shaped cut-outs 19 to stick to the adhesive 16. The first finishing material may be of any appropriate material to provide the desired surface finish. In order to simulate bricks, it is preferred to use brick dust of an appropriate colour. The finished surface colour would usually be chosen to match the brickwork of the rest of the building to which the feature is to be mounted, although a desired contrasting colour may also be chosen. Thus, usual colours would be orange/red, yellow, or blue to match Staffordshire blue engineering bricks. However, any colour could be produced by using, for example, sand as the finishing material, together with an appropriately coloured dye.

Once the first finishing material has been applied to simulate the appearance of bricks 21 , any excess finishing material is removed and the stencil 17 is then removed, and a second finishing material is applied to simulate, in this case, the appearance of mortar joins 22. The second finishing material is applied on top of the first finishing materia!, but will only adhere to the adhesive layer 16 in those portions that were covered by the shapes 20 of the stencil. The remaining part of the adhesive layer 16 will already have been covered with the first finishing material, so the second finishing material will not adhere to it. A suitable finishing material to simulate mortar would be sand of any variety of colour and texture. Furthermore, the sand could be artificially coloured to match any cement, lime mortar or putty used on the building.

Finally, the excess second finishing material is removed. At this time, if the biock has a further external display surface, then that surface can be similarly treated to produce the appropriate design, if it was impossible to treat all the surfaces at once.

Of course, instead of brick and mortar simulation, the feature could be produced to simulate stone, for example by using stone dust as the finishing material. Furthermore, if the feature were to be generally monolithic in form, then no stencil would be required and the finishing material would be applied over the whole of the adhesive layer. Other effects that could be replicated by appropriate finishing materials stuck to the adhesive are render and pebble-dash.

Furthermore, if a more compiicated decorative design were required, for example to simulate more than two different materials, then two or more stencils could be used in turn, each stencil only having cut-outs for the particular finishing material that is applied through those cut-outs and covering all the rest of the adhesive layer.

Once the decorative architectural feature has been manufactured, it can be mounted to a building and mortar or other material can be used at its edges to blend in to the rest of the building. It will be apparent that such a feature may be used in other orientations and locations than those described, for example within buildings. Furthermore, although the method of manufacture has been described with respect to a backing block to manufacture the feature separate from the building, it will be appreciated that the blacking block could already be positioned on the building and could, in fact, be part of an existing building. In this case, the external display surface merely needs to be cleaned and prepared to receive the layer of adhesive, and then the same method could be used to re-face the appropriate part of the building in situ. ft will be appreciated that although only one particular embodiment of the invention has been described in detail, various modifications and improvements can be made by a person skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the present invention.