An oblique corner is a corner that is not square: not 90 degrees, but sharper or blunter. In Dutch it is called a lepe hoek, from leep, meaning skew or slanting. In English brickwork the corner itself is often called a squint quoin.
The term appears as soon as a building or component departs from the rectangle: a plot that runs at an angle, a street that does not meet at right angles, a polygonal tower or bay — and stairs.
In brickwork
At an oblique corner the bond does not turn the corner by itself. In a square corner headers and stretchers alternate neatly; at a skew angle every course produces a closer piece that has to be cut to fit — the squint brick.
Points to watch:
- Measure the angle precisely, in degrees, not “roughly slanted”. Use a sliding bevel or a digital angle finder, and put the angle on the drawing.
- Order special bricks rather than cutting them. Many brickmakers supply purpose-made squints for fixed angles (30, 45 or 60 degrees, for instance). A factory brick has a fired skin on the face; a sawn brick shows the pale core.
- Avoid slivers. Pieces smaller than roughly a quarter brick look poor in facework and are structurally weak. Better to shift the bond than to build in a sliver in every course.
- Acute corners are fragile. Below roughly 60 degrees the nose of the brick is very prone to breaking. Consider a chamfered or rounded corner detail instead of a sharp arris.
- Allow for more pointing and more time. An oblique corner costs considerably more labour per metre run than a square one; make sure that is in the estimate.
In staircases
In stair building the term has a specific meaning: the outer corner of a quarter (where the stair makes a quarter turn) is cut off at an angle rather than left square. Usually this is done to make room for a pipe, duct or chimney that has to pass exactly there, or to let a door beside the stair swing open.
When measuring up a stair, the oblique corner is therefore a dimension in its own right: give not only the width and length of the quarter, but also the length of the cut-off face and the angle it stands at.
On drawings
Always mark an oblique corner explicitly on the construction drawing, with the angle in degrees or with two dimension lines from which the angle can be derived. An 87-degree angle is indistinguishable from 90 on a drawing, but on site it runs well over half a metre out of true across 10 metres.
Related terms
- Squint brick
- Brick bond
- Mitre
- Cross bond
- Half-brick wall
- Winder stair
- Closer
Want to know more about building terms? Take a look at our knowledge base on fredsdiyplans.com.