I'd love to say I've mastered this but I try every brick and sometimes I pull it off but mostly I end up with not enough on the trowel so have to pick a bit more off the spot board to butter the next one
Bricklaying on your own
- Thread starter 23vc
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I'd love to say I've mastered this but I try every brick and sometimes I pull it off but mostly I end up with not enough on the trowel so have to pick a bit more off the spot board to butter the next one
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I think you should speed more time laying bricks than on here.
Only joking, looking good.
Andy
Only joking, looking good.
Andy
Learned a hell of a lot from this site over the years, doubt I'd have attempted the whole project if it hadnt been for the guys on here, including your good self!
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The mix is probably the most important thing to get right; you didn't put any water in yours I see
Joking aside, put your plasticiser in a half bucket of water and chuck it in the mixer. Then add just enough water that it clumps together and looks like crumble (on an apple crumble) then leave it. In about 10 minutes it'll be like angel delight / chocolate mousse. When you tip it into the barrow, pull a finger through it to make a gouge. It shouldn't collapse in on itself nor fill with water. If it looks more like the beach when the tide just went out or slips around before stopping moving then it's too wet and not fluffy enough. Biggest mistake the labourers make is looking at it at crumble stage and adding more water thinking it's too dry. It just needs to turn to get to mousse stage
When you're getting it off the board, if you dig in, turn the trowel on its side 90 degrees and let it drop off back into the board (with a straight side) then dig again and drop again 90 degrees over then it ends up a fairly regular cuboid shape. This makes it easier to line out on the wall as your sausage of mortar is a consistent thickness. If you can fling it along the wall as you put it down it will elongate. Eventually you'll get the feel for how big and how much flick needed to get the 10mm bed you're after
Joking aside, put your plasticiser in a half bucket of water and chuck it in the mixer. Then add just enough water that it clumps together and looks like crumble (on an apple crumble) then leave it. In about 10 minutes it'll be like angel delight / chocolate mousse. When you tip it into the barrow, pull a finger through it to make a gouge. It shouldn't collapse in on itself nor fill with water. If it looks more like the beach when the tide just went out or slips around before stopping moving then it's too wet and not fluffy enough. Biggest mistake the labourers make is looking at it at crumble stage and adding more water thinking it's too dry. It just needs to turn to get to mousse stage
When you're getting it off the board, if you dig in, turn the trowel on its side 90 degrees and let it drop off back into the board (with a straight side) then dig again and drop again 90 degrees over then it ends up a fairly regular cuboid shape. This makes it easier to line out on the wall as your sausage of mortar is a consistent thickness. If you can fling it along the wall as you put it down it will elongate. Eventually you'll get the feel for how big and how much flick needed to get the 10mm bed you're after
Thanks, I only put a small splash of plasticiser in as I'm worried about over dosing it and am not very good at working out the amount given I'm only mixing half a bag of cement at a time. Maybe I can get away with a bit more
Thanks for the replies all, they have really helped and done another couple of mixes today, only potential cock up is it was going off so fast in the heat that some of it seemed to crumble when I gave it the final brush down after pointing it. Oh well I'll have a closer look tomorrow and if that course is duff I'll re lay it
Thanks again for the help it's got me into more of a flow
Thanks again for the help it's got me into more of a flow
Mortar doesn't go off by drying out. It goes off via a crystallisation reaction in the presence of water. It takes several days to cure and will do so regardless of weather so log as the rain isn't so torrential that it washes it out/sun isn't so blazing g that it evaporates the available water before ta taken part in the chemical reaction to cure the mortar.
If your blocks are really dry and you think the mortar may be drying out / losing moisture faster than it can cure (it needs moisture to cure) you can take a watering can to the wall.. I'd recommend to water face bricks before they're laid rather than after though as you want the moisture to have soaked into them rather than washing watery mortar dribbles down the face work. Further, depending on the design of your bricks, try to avoid pools of water (including rainwater) in the frogs. If you trap large amounts of water in the wall it will make its way out over the following years, bringing salts with it and depositing a white powdery appearance on the face work
If your blocks are really dry and you think the mortar may be drying out / losing moisture faster than it can cure (it needs moisture to cure) you can take a watering can to the wall.. I'd recommend to water face bricks before they're laid rather than after though as you want the moisture to have soaked into them rather than washing watery mortar dribbles down the face work. Further, depending on the design of your bricks, try to avoid pools of water (including rainwater) in the frogs. If you trap large amounts of water in the wall it will make its way out over the following years, bringing salts with it and depositing a white powdery appearance on the face work
I wonder why the speed of "crystallisation" is much faster on a hot dry summer's day than on a cold damp winter's day.
Obviously nothing to do with drying out then.
Thanks for the replies all, they have really helped and done another couple of mixes today, only potential cock up is it was going off so fast in the heat that some of it seemed to crumble when I gave it the final brush down after pointing it. Oh well I'll have a closer look tomorrow and if that course is duff I'll re lay it
Thanks again for the help it's got me into more of a flow
Heat from a hot summers day can turn your mortar back into sand, as the water in the mix evaporates away to soon.
Shade, or better still cover the new work with polythene or dampened hessian to prevent premature dehydration - that's always a show stopper.
Dampen your bricks first, and point up in good time while you can still get a good finish, else you will make it worse and any pointing mortar you try to apply won't stick, and won't stay in after a winter or two.
People think it's great laying bricks out on the hot summer's days, but it's the worst.
When bricks were really porous the advice on a hot day was for them to be well damped down but surface dry. That way you get a small amount of suction needed for the bond and no runs down the face work.
In really hot places like in the USA they lay a course of bricks and then joint up the bed joints. After they are up 5 or 6 they courses the perps get done and then the beds re struck.
It's done like this as the beds go hard quicker and are more difficult when this happens.
In really hot places like in the USA they lay a course of bricks and then joint up the bed joints. After they are up 5 or 6 they courses the perps get done and then the beds re struck.
It's done like this as the beds go hard quicker and are more difficult when this happens.
Cheers for the replies. I think one course has gone off too quick and will need re doing but I'll check in a few days. I did mist spray it with the hose after but don't think it rescued it
Not even going to bother today, too hot
Not even going to bother today, too hot
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If you let it dry out then wet it again will it start the reaction again? I've never had a conclusive answer
No, because when they dry, the tiny cement particles form an impervious crust. You have to keep them continually damp during the curing period.
However, if you grind up old concrete, breaking the crust on the particles, you can re-wet it and it will start to harden again.
Underground concrete, around drains and in tunnels but also foundations and even fence post backfill, is sometimes kept wet for a hundred years or more, and becomes exceptionally hard and strong. The incremental strength gets less and less, over longer and longer periods, so 28 day concrete is often considered to be near enough maximum strength.
However, if you grind up old concrete, breaking the crust on the particles, you can re-wet it and it will start to harden again.
Underground concrete, around drains and in tunnels but also foundations and even fence post backfill, is sometimes kept wet for a hundred years or more, and becomes exceptionally hard and strong. The incremental strength gets less and less, over longer and longer periods, so 28 day concrete is often considered to be near enough maximum strength.
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