Swapped from buttering bricks to using a slop bucket and it cut my time by half

I used to be the guy who buttered every brick by hand, dipping into the mortar board and slapping it on one at a time. Did that for about 5 years on residential jobs around Portland. Then last fall I worked with this old timer named Chuck who showed me his slop bucket method. He just keeps a 5 gallon bucket half full of mortar and throws the bricks in, lets them sit for 20 seconds, then pulls them out dripping. I thought it was gonna be a mess but honestly it's way cleaner than hand buttering once you get the hang of it. Now I can lay about 300 bricks in a shift instead of 200 without rushing. Anyone else switch to something that felt wrong at first but ended up working better? What's your go-to trick for speeding up the wet stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

jesse_burns81mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah man the slop bucket is a game changer once you trust it. I was skeptical too but now I keep a bucket right next to my stack and just dunk and go. One thing I'd add is keep the mortar a little wetter than you think you need, if it's too stiff it just clumps and makes a mess. Also lay a couple bricks out on the slab first to soak up the extra slop before you set them, saves you from wiping joints later. The key for me was getting a rhythm down where I'm dunking two bricks at a time and setting them before the third one gets too drippy.

uma_mitchell831mo agoTop Commenter

@jesse_burns8 have you ever tried dunking three bricks at once?