Hi Victor, I have fixed a number of things to masonry and I can assure you that assuming your regular household brick you can use the same fixation. Those hollow steel anchors have been used a very long time. They work well. They can be a little tricky to locate particularly if you can't see to mark with a pencil or marker because the anchor is so much bigger than the securing bolt and the hole you need to drill is way bigger than the hole in what ever it is you are mounting so you can't use it easily for a template.
Having said that once you find a reliable marking method the next most important thing is to cut a fairly clean hole and to the correct depth. You can go a little deep but don't leave it shallow. for a long time I had a very powerful half inch slow speed drill, a heavy bugger but it didn't have a hammer capability. while it did a pretty good job in prick which is softer than cement it was a bear in cement particularly if you hit a stone and there is always a stone. the trouble is that it also tends to wander as you push and struggle to get a deep enough hole. A hammer drill goes in way faster and therefore way more accurately so the anchor fits way more precisely and the result is that they usually hold a lot better. There are other fasteners, one I have heard called a "red head" which is a threaded bolt at one end which flares and has a nail sort of fitting stuck into the bottom end of it. You drill your hole and put the nail end of this into the hole then bang it in, as the shaft of the nail enters the base of the "red head" it expands the bottom to hold it in. You then apply your hardware and a nut to screw it down. Again a very accurate hole. Recently I have been using a special screw/drill combination. You get about ten screws and a throw away bit in a package. The screws have a coarse thread and are of very hard steel and cut their own thread into the masonry. Because the bit is pretty thin, probably 3 16ths inch it goes in pretty easily and therefore leaves a nice clean hole that the screw can readily grab. I have used these to fix electrical fittings onto a basement wall and the clips to hold the shielded cable with good success but I am not so sure about the hinges of a gate which may be leaned on or bang about as the gate slams, might come free. Hilty has a fairly new system which permits you to drill say through a board into the cement then drive a fixer through the board and the hole. Seems that sighted people too have the same trouble I have in getting those anchors to line up precisely. So, Yes, use the same anchors. Keep them away from the mortar joints in the brick. If you do hit a void you may have to use toggle bolts but I very much doubt you will, you are more likely to run into a void in cement block in the foundation if the basement isn't poured. Usually the length of anchor you would be using won't go quite that deep though. Hope this is helpful. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: Victor Gouveia To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 10:08 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Hammer Drills and Masonry Bits Hi Folks, Ray's post begs a question I have in relation to drilling into masonry. While I know that I have to pre-drill a hole when ever I attach anything to a masonry wall, do I have to worry about the type of anchor I'm using when working with different surfaces? For example, I know that in solid concrete, one can use the anchors that look like a hollow spined tube that opens up as the bolt screws in. Would that anchor be appropriate to use in brick work, especially when I think of all the possible hollow spaces in the bricks? I am looking at attaching a gate to my house at the top of a few steps, and one hinge is going into solid concrete foundation, however, the other hinge is going to be going into the brickwork that is the side of my house. Is there a different type of wall anchor I have to use in the brickwork? Any help would be appreciated. Victor Gouveia [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
