Mr. Skellie learns about bricklaying....

When Bill came home last night, he said today was "Bring your skellie to work day". Mr. Skellie was all excited and was wondering what to wear. "Just be yourself' I said. And oh, by the way, can I come too?" Mr. Skellie said that since he was riding shotgun in Bill's truck there wouldn't be room in the cab for me. I was sensing a "wide load" joke coming but he just grinned at me. So the following morning, I followed along in my truck with all my photo equipment and spare parts for Mr. Skellie. Oh, and his sunglasses. The job site we were going to visit was a high brick wall that had recently lost a battle with a backhoe. There was at least 15 feet of the wall that had been knocked flat. Bill introduced Mr. Skellie and me to Joe Freeman from Freeman Masonry.

He was hired to make all the repairs along with fellow brick masons, Elvis and Danny. They stopped work just long enough for me to get this shot of them.

Joe first told us that they were able to save many of the bricks from the wall for reuse and that they would be mixed with new ones where needed.

He put Mr. Skellie to work right away. "Hey Mr. Skellie, hand me that brick hammer will you?"

He wasn't sure which one that was but guessed right and handed over the brick hammer to Joe. Next we learned about the differences between mortar, concrete, and Portland cement. The mortar he was using had lime in it to make it more workable, or fluffy. Concrete is a mixture of sand, cement, water, and gravel and is too loose to work with when you are trying to put bricks together. Think "driveway". While Bill and I were listening to Joe describe the different bonding qualities, Mr. Skellie decided he was going to bond with the mortar himself!

"I like how it squishes between my toes", he said. After a quick rinse-off, we went over to the mixer to have a look inside....hmmm, gooky, eeww.

Mr. Skellie found the big bags of sand and was standing in one pretending to be at the beach when I found him.

I brushed him off and we went back to look at the brick carrier.

Bill demonstrated how this works...you can carry more bricks at a time and it's easier on the hands.

Then we noticed that the old bricks had 10 holes in them

and the new ones had just 3 larger holes.

Bill explained that the new ones with the three holes actually hold together better because more mortar can squish through the holes...who knew? Mr. Skellie wanted to know how the wall was kept straight. "String" Joe said. Mr. Skellie looked doubtful. But Joe went on to explain that he prefers braided string versus twisted string because the braided has more stretch.

However, if you are doing a long length like this, the string will tend to sag in the middle. He uses things called "twigs" to keep the string straight. Now Mr. Skellie was really scratching his head. "String and twigs, are we building a wall or a fairy house?" Mr. Skellie asked.  Joe laughed and explained that this what what a twig was

and that it was made of spring steel and clipped over the line...like so.

As he was laying down another row, he talked about the small brick ties that he uses to strengthen the wall.

He also adds re bar in between the 2 rows of brick for even more strength.

He has to keep this small space even as he goes along because the top of the wall has a one brick cap that is 7 5/8" wide

so the 2 brick width of the wall and the small space cannot exceed this. Also, the wall is built to fit into a "keyway" in the brick posts.

Joe, Danny and Elvis went back to work and Mr. Skellie asked if I would give him a ride in the wheelbarrow.

"Just quick" I said. After running him around in circles for a bit, I sat down to take a breather. Bill took over while I took pictures of all the tools and equipment that's needed for a job this size. 

The last question of the day was about the little groove in the mortar joint.

Joe needed a grapevine jointer to recreate this design in the new mortar to match the old. He then said that when the work was all done, he would be using Lime Cleaner to clean the mortar off of the brick faces and to also make the mortar lines all the same color so it wouldn't look splotchy.

There's always more to something than you think isn't there. I would like to thank the guys at Freeman Masonry for letting a grandma and a little plastic skeleton interrupt their day for just a short bit. Have a great day!

(and the back...)