Showerthought: I used to race through buttering every brick until a job near Tulsa taught me slow down is faster

Back in my early days I'd lay maybe 300-400 bricks a day but half of them had cold joints or bad mortar consistency. Had a foreman on a commercial wall in Tulsa back in 2018 who made me redo a whole 20 foot section because the bond looked sloppy. Took me 3 extra hours that day. Now I spend way more time on each spread, making sure the mortar fills the frogs and I'm not rushing the cut. My daily count dropped to around 200-250 but I almost never have to chip out a brick anymore. Has anyone else found that slowing down your buttering actually saves you time on the back end?

2 comments

2 Comments

black.patricia4d ago

Funny you mention mud pies, that's basically what I was making on my first brick job too, except mine came with a side of regret when the foreman made me scrape them all off in 90 degree heat. I still catch myself rushing sometimes when a wall's going good and I gotta mentally smack my own hand to slow down and actually check my mortar bed. Just goes to show you can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as that dog is willing to redo a few walls first.

grant9014d ago

Started buttering bricks too fast on a church job down in Texarkana once, foreman just watched me for a bit then shook his head. Said I was making mud pies instead of setting bricks, had to scrape half of em clean and start over. That was the day I learned that if your mortar's not sticking proper to the brick, you're just making future problems for yourself. It's like that old saying about measure twice cut once except with brick you gotta spread twice and pray once I guess.