Hot take: I learned more from one old mason in 10 minutes than 2 years on my own

Honestly, I was working a residential job in Omaha last spring and this guy maybe 70 years old walks over from the next lot. He watched me lay a course for maybe 30 seconds then said 'you're buttering too thick on the head joint, son.' He showed me how to cut the excess off with a quick trowel flick and it saved me like an hour of cleanup per wall. Ngl, I still think about that advice every time I set a brick. Anyone else have a random pro drop some simple tip that stuck with you?

2 comments

2 Comments

shane_nguyen7d ago

The part nobody brings up is how guys like that old mason actually develop those shortcuts. They learned them from other old guys who learned them from other old guys going back centuries. So when he flicked that extra mortar off, he was passing along something that worked for ten generations of bricklayers before him. Two years on your own just means two years of trial and error that somebody already figured out in 1873. It makes you wonder how much collective knowledge dies every time one of those guys retires or passes away.

avery_foster315d ago

@shane_nguyen nailed it with that thought about lost knowledge. My own grandpa was a carpenter and his trick for reading a tape measure faster, flipping it to the 10ths side, never got written down anywhere.