Easy way of getting motar between bricks?

[leew2]

Ok, so I am inserting a course of bricks between a new lintel and the existing wall above (supported by acrows). Putting mortar on the lintel and then beding the bricks in is easy enough but I'm having difficulty filling the joint between the tops of the new bricks and the bottom of the existing wall. The fact that the old wall is built from frogged bricks laid frog down does not help and the course I am inserting is a header course (it's a 9 inch solid wall). I've tried trying to push mortar in with a trowel or trying to use a bit of 6mm ply to push it into the joint but most of the mortar ends up on the floor and it seems to take ages, like 10 mins per brick to properly fill the joint.
Is there any easy solution to this?

Many thanks.

 

[hotrod]

Are you using 2 trowels? 1 trowel "face down" to hold your mortar in your left hand and a second trowel (pointing trowel) in your right hand to feed the mortar into the joints? Make sure your mix isn't too wet - you shouldn't lose any on the floor using this method as you can offer up your loaded trowel and feed it straight to where you need to point/fill using the second trowel .

The above assumes you're right handed.

 

[^woody^]

First you fill the frogs as much as possible. Then you put mortar on top of the bricks before inserting them - some will slide off, but most should remain.

The mortar needs to be semi dry, not runny

You should also be packing with slate, which will reduce the need for mortar

 

[RonnyRaygun]

Use of a finger trowel to pack the mortar in nice and tight is handy too. Simply get some mortar on your bricklaying trowel and push it into the gap using the finger trowel.

 

[hotrod]

Use of a finger trowel to pack the mortar in nice and tight is handy too.

Yes, I forgot to mention those in my post above Ronny. Also known as tuck pointers or margin trowels. You won't find them at screwfix but I got mine from dm tools. Handy for pointing paving up as well:-

http://www.dm-tools.co.uk/search.php?search=tuck+pointers&catpage=&x=0&y=0

 

[ChapiTheBricky]

slate's a good idea, another tip, roll up lengths of newspaper tuck it in 10mm, fill from the other side with semi-dry 1-3 mortar untill tight, remove newspaper and fill remaining 10mm, full bed, job done