Blue brick curved wall

[23vc]

Thanks Charlie, I’ll have a look in the morning but I don’t think things have dried out as there’s more rain this evening. So will probably leave it. If it was anything but blue bricks with the black died mortar, I’d be less cautious!

 

[^woody^]

Frosts for the next week. I wouldn't bother.

 

[23vc]

I haven’t touched this since Christmas as I’ve been doing other work but I’m not happy about how it looks. In the weeks after laying it, it looked good, uniform black mortar. I’m not sure if this discolouration is efflorescence, or due to all the recent wet weather. I know I’m not the best bricky in the world and there’s the odd smudge but it looks rubbish more due to the colour.

Unless anyone’s got any ideas of things I could try, I’ll probably take the sledgehammer to it and redo in a 5:1 mix without any dye. I may also try asking everbuild who make the dye but won’t hold my breath. Bummer!

 

[noseall]

I haven’t touched this since Christmas as I’ve been doing other work but I’m not happy about how it looks. In the weeks after laying it, it looked good, uniform black mortar. I’m not sure if this discolouration is efflorescence, or due to all the recent wet weather. I know I’m not the best bricky in the world and there’s the odd smudge but it looks rubbish more due to the colour.

Unless anyone’s got any ideas of things I could try, I’ll probably take the sledgehammer to it and redo in a 5:1 mix without any dye. I may also try asking everbuild who make the dye but won’t hold my breath. Bummer!

We NEVER use mortar dyes.

If you do knock it down, can you please PLEASE lay the faces the same way around.

 

[23vc]

We NEVER use mortar dyes.

If you do knock it down, can you please PLEASE lay the faces the same way around.

Yep well spotted, I got some wrong. Does get a mention further up the thread

 

[robinbanks]

Give it a once over with brick acid first.. Though the back sides on show would annoy me enough to re do

I think the pointing would look better as recessed than half round, but a bit hard to do now unless you've a steady hand with a grinder

Mortar dyes lighten out a lot over time. I've a decorative red line down the grout in my bathroom and we really struggled to dye the grout red; used an entire tub of mortar dye to one bag of mapei white grout and it still looked pink when it dried and set. Coloured it in with a sharpie in the end

 

[23vc]

Give it a once over with brick acid first.. Though the back sides on show would annoy me enough to re do

I think the pointing would look better as recessed than half round, but a bit hard to do now unless you've a steady hand with a grinder

Mortar dyes lighten out a lot over time. I've a decorative red line down the grout in my bathroom and we really struggled to dye the grout red; used an entire tub of mortar dye to one bag of mapei white grout and it still looked pink when it dried and set. Coloured it in with a sharpie in the end

Reckon brick acid will remove the white? I’ve no idea what it is, whether efflorescence or something else.

Bricks the wrong way round, despite proving to be a popular talking point, are the least of my worries and a mistake I’ll never make again…

 

[robinbanks]

Yea, I find I tend to get efflorescence on bricks if they're laid wet, or if the top of the wall gets rained on and water gets down the frog holes - the water carries salts with it as it exits the wall.

Acid should take em off, and also the slight smearing of the mortar (was it a bit too wet when pointed?), though I can't guarantee it will be kind to the dye..

 

[23vc]

Yep, weather so bad/cold/damp that they got pointed up the next morning. Wasn’t a frost though.

 

[noseall]

Coloured it in with a sharpie in the end

Love it.

 

[noseall]

Reckon brick acid will remove the white? I’ve no idea what it is, whether efflorescence or something else.

Bricks the wrong way round, despite proving to be a popular talking point, are the least of my worries and a mistake I’ll never make again…

You won't get consistency, laying piecemeal with random pointing technique. Experienced brickies maintain uniformity because the muck is batched and they are quick - meaning the muck is consistently struck whilst its at a certain density.

You can strike (point) a panel of brickwork with exactly the same muck, but achieve differing results, depending on how long the muck has been left to dry out. A quickly struck joint will look a lot lighter than one that has been left to harden for ages.

 

[23vc]

You won't get consistency, laying piecemeal with random pointing technique. Experienced brickies maintain uniformity because the muck is batched and they are quick - meaning the muck is consistently struck whilst its at a certain density.

You can strike (point) a panel of brickwork with exactly the same muck, but achieve differing results, depending on how long the muck has been left to dry out. A quickly struck joint will look a lot lighter than one that has been left to harden for ages.

Yeah, I’ve laid much bigger quantities of decent machine mixed muck gauged properly. This was mixed in a barrow on a winter day and struck too early for my liking so wasn’t the best plan. You’re right, the whiteness on the dye does look a bit like an ironed joint done way too early, maybe that explains it.

I’ll ditch the dye and get some proper mixes going in this decent weather.

 

[stuart45]

Generally mixing by hand doesn't give you as good a mix. Even using a mixer a lot of the labourers get the mix workable by adding too much water, rather than letting it mix for longer to get enough air into the mix. Also helps if it's mixed for longer when using a dye.

 

[^woody^]

Even when I've used the Force I've never been able to get black mortar anything other than 50 shades of grey.