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A foreman in Dallas told me to stop dunking my trowel in the mortar bucket and start using a spray bottle, saved my brick edges
Last month I was laying a porch column in Dallas and my trowel kept caking up with dry mortar, so I did what I always do and dunked it in the bucket. The foreman walked over and told me to toss that habit because the water in the bucket gets full of grit and it was actually roughing up my trowel edges. He handed me a $4 spray bottle and said just mist the trowel and the brick face before I butter. I tried it for the rest of the column and my mortar stayed workable way longer, no more smeared faces on the brick. The difference was night and day, I probably saved 15 minutes on cleanup alone and my edges looked crisp. Now I keep two spray bottles on the scaffold and the bucket is only for mixing. Has anyone else been taught this by an old timer, or is it just a Texas thing?
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paulnguyen14d ago
That trick works everywhere, not just Texas, my old boss up in Ohio showed me the same thing years back and it changed how I lay brick. The grit in the bucket is the real killer, it grinds down your trowel edge and leaves that smeared mess on the faces. Two spray bottles on the scaffold is the move, one for the trowel and one for the brick, keeps everything workable without ruining your gear.
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