What colour of mortor is this?

[Ruggers]

Can anyone advise on what colour this mortar is and how to achieve it? It doesn't look pure grey or full white. Could be grey cement with white or silver sand, maybe something similar?

It's definitely lighter than the grey brick.

 

[^woody^]

Probably used a buff building sand, a bit of lime and a bit of cement. You can't point with silver sand!

The greyer the mortar, the more cement, but too much cement makes it too strong and it will crack. So you would get the colour from the sand .... or a dye.

 

[Charlie George]

That is silo mortar, the exact colour is hard to know for sure, it could be natural,take a look at the Atelier apartments on Chapel St it has similar brick and that is natural mortar,and looks similar.

 

[Ruggers]

Good guess for the location, extra points , I got this from a video because i'm looking to use the same brick. How can you tell it's silo from a picture? I just looked it up and assume your referring to an actual large silo for large construction then and no good for a single dwelling?

I've had similar looking mortar before doing random mixes patching in but the brand of cement makes a huge difference too. I have a choice of 230m2 of brick or 120m2 If i only do part of the build in brick. It really depends how much the type of mortar affects cost. Snowcrete is 3x as much as ordinary

 

[Ruggers]

Probably used a buff building sand, a bit of lime and a bit of cement. You can't point with silver sand!

The greyer the mortar, the more cement, but too much cement makes it too strong and it will crack. So you would get the colour from the sand .... or a dye.

I was hoping to avoid the dye so it's easier to gauge consistency of colour. Does the lime lighten it up a bit? Buff sand just standard building sand you'd get in a bulk bag? I didn't realise you can't point with silver sand.

 

[Charlie George]

You can order pre mix mortar in tubs or in tonne bags to mix yourself, it most probably will be natural, the brick type affects the look of the mortar, if you look at your middle picture, that looks 100% natural,as for knowing it's silo mortar most large sites use them, and normally only use natural/black, i spotted the Church in the picture, and know the area well.

https://goo.gl/maps/DkVErZfqqVSUa626A

 

[noseall]

I was hoping to avoid the dye

Wise. Work of the Devil.

 

[Deleted member 292770]

looks like bog standard cement to me .

 

[Ruggers]

You can order pre mix mortar in tubs or in tonne bags to mix yourself, it most probably will be natural, the brick type affects the look of the mortar, if you look at your middle picture, that looks 100% natural.

I'd imagine a full house would require a lot of tubs and them not going far, is it ready to use mortar or you mix with sand still?

How does it work with ton bags, they're open and exposed to the weather, is the colouring in with the sand then you add bags of cement?

looks like bog standard cement to me .

I'm hoping so, keeps costs down. I think sand colour or brand of cement makes a big difference. Below is a picture (Left) of 4/1 mix of red building sand and I think it was Hanson cement i used. I've contacted our 2 local merchants, one only stocks red sand, the other stocks buff sand in ton bags but will allow me to take some to try. They said Hanson is the better cement as the blue circle and Lafarge contain more fly ash which tends to be a lot darker.

The builder said to play around trying things but they usually use 4/1 mix, he said some people use 5/1.