Talked to an old timer in Nashville and he flipped my mortar mixing game

I was on a job in Nashville last week and this 60 year old bricklayer named Ray saw me mixing by the bag instructions. He told me to feel it with my trowel instead of timing it, and said the water content changes with the weather. That hit different because I realized I'd been trusting numbers over my own hands for 3 years now. Anybody else ever get a tip from an older guy that made you change your whole routine?

2 comments

2 Comments

reeselewis13d ago

Ray was dead on about that. My first boss, a guy named Pete who was like 70 when I started, told me the same thing about feeling the mud on your trowel. He said the bag instructions are just a starting point and you gotta adjust for the humidity and temp or your mix gets too stiff or too runny. I spent my first year measuring everything by the clock and it bugged me how inconsistent my batches were. Once I started ignoring the numbers and just going by feel, my joints came out way cleaner.

kai_nguyen13d ago

I mean, is mud consistency really that deep though?