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Appreciation post: the old mason in Baltimore who caught my bad mortar mix by squeezing it in his hand
I keep seeing guys on jobs mix mortar by eyeballing the sand and water, and it bugs me because I did the same thing for years until a guy named Earl set me straight. I was on a porch rebuild down in Baltimore about 6 months ago and he walked past my board, grabbed a fistful of the mix, squeezed it, and just said "this is soup, son." He showed me the right feel, where it holds its shape on the trowel and doesn't slide off in a wet blob. I had been adding water out of habit because dry mix feels harder to work, but that thin stuff makes weak joints and the bricks keep sliding. Earl's rule was 3 parts sand to 1 part cement for most of what we do, and only enough water to make it workable, not runny. My walls have sat flatter since then and I use way less mix per course because it stays put. Wish I'd learned that in my first year instead of my fifth. What's the trick you all use to check mix without a gauge?
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morgan3298d ago
Man, this is the same thing I see with coffee people who scoop beans by the handful instead of weighing them, and with cooks who salt by feel until someone hands them a measuring spoon and their food finally tastes the same every time. It's the eyeball habit, we all trust it way past the point where it's actually working. Then one old head comes along and shows you in two seconds what five years of guessing didn't, and you feel kind of dumb and grateful at the same time. Earl squeezing that mix is the whole thing in a nutshell, the hand knows what the eye can't.
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