Old timer named Frank taught me to butter my bricks in 1998

I was a green helper on a job site in Cleveland. Frank was like 70, been laying brick since the 50s. He saw me slapping mud on and said "son, you gotta butter the head joint too, every single one." I thought he was being picky. Then he made me redo a whole corner because I skipped three. Took me an extra hour but that wall never had a crack. Does anyone still do that or is it just a lost art now?

2 comments

2 Comments

christopher3857d ago

Man, I heard a story like this from a buddy who does restoration work. He was fixing a church wall built in the 1920s and said every single head joint was still buttered tight. No cracks, no settling, nothing. Meanwhile he's been hired to tear out whole sections of 1990s work where guys skipped that step and the whole face is spiderwebbed. Said the old timers just had a different standard, like it was personal pride not just a job. Frank sounds like one of those guys who actually cared about the wall outlasting him.

juliaa258d ago

I used to think "butter every head joint" was just old timer fussing, but watching a wall I rushed crack a year later changed my mind hard. That extra hour he made you spend is nothing compared to having to tear out and redo a whole section. Frank knew what he was talking about, that attention to detail is what keeps brickwork solid for decades.