Lessons learned on my first alt.home.repair mortar & flagstone job! (thanks to all)

It's a good thing I'm not getting paid by the hour - but at least I'm learning how to make mistakes in my first alt.home.repair sandstone tile & flagstone walkways:

First lesson learned was to wear better gloves! The tips of the middle & pointer fingers of both hands are worn through the skin already!

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Another lesson learned was that 5-gallon buckets are just too small to mix mortar well! I will go to Home Depot tomorrow to buy a concrete pan! What I did learn was that buckets are still needed. Lots and lots of buckets!
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Another lesson learned is that I made the mortar far too wet! And, I put far too little in the first, second, and third time I tried! And I didn't make enough. Given that, the sandstones were at first too low, and then they were sinking in the mud. There must be a fine line between lousy and just right - and I'm no where near it!
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In addition, forms are MANDATORY! I tried doing it without a form, but, in the middle of laying the first two stones, I found myself hastily building a form just to hold the two inches of mortar back!
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Along that vein, it's helpful to have two jobs going at once. The first job is the critical one. The second is simply a place to dump the extra mortar... perhaps to fill the bottom tier of a form. With a second job handy, I don't feel so badly making more mortar than I need.

Another thing I learned is that the location of the sandstone laid out as flagstone is vastly easier than choosing the flagstone to be then cut into tile to fit a defined space. Here's the flagstone, for example, that I very roughly laid out in a semicircle out of the waste products left over from the tiling job:

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I'll leave it with those of my lessons, for now. I'm sure tomorrow will bring more!

The most painful of all the lessons was that these leather gloves, while fantastic for outside work, stink for working with wet concrete!

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The only good news is that I now have no more fingerprints - so - I guess I can rob a bank and not get caught (as long as I don't bleed on the bank counter)! :)

Thanks for all your help. It looks sooooo easy in the videos. But they don't tell you all this stuff!

Reply to
Chuck Banshee
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Working as occupational health nurse, I once treated a guy for serious burns to both feet....mixing concrete sans boots. It is caustic stuff.

Reply to
Norminn

I like the ugly blue ones-

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haven't used *those*- It seems like I pay $5-6 each at the hardware store - I might get a dozen of those for $15] That style seems to wear pretty well and are just the right balance of easy to put on and still tight enough to let you feel what you're doing.

Get 2 they are worth their weight.

Keep your eyes open at garage sale for hoes with holes in them. You'll think you died and gone to heaven using a real mixing hoe.

I've considered altering a garden hoe-- but the steel is usually pretty tough stuff, and the hoe itself isn't as sturdy as the real thing.

Always. I'm always amazed when I see empty buckets lying around a jobsite. When my stack gets shorter than me I get nervous.

That is probably *the* most common mistake-- mortar or concrete-- keep it dry.

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For us mere mortals, yes--- but you've got to watch a pro one day. slap-slice-butter-place. . . over and over. every so often god whispers in his ear and he'll go back and trim things up-- but overall it is an un-interrupted dance.

-snip-

the morning will bring you an anatomy lesson. How many new muscles did you discover you had? All that bending can kill you.

You want to get some Cornhusker's Lotion for those hands. And some sturdy rubber gloves. The alkali in the mortar will eat your hands.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

I use my wheelbarrow for mixing concrete.

Reply to
Frank

Waking up, I'm learning that lesson right now!

I also learned the cloth kneepads I have are substandard to the rubber ones, if only because they get so soaking wet that you're soaked through to the pants leg.

I decided to raise the level the two inches ... so ... I have to form and concrete the footing to raise it up. But I can't raise it too high up because the sandstone 'tile' are uneven thicknesses.

I realize now that even thicknesses would have been a blessing when I have to pour the concrete and then after it hardens, plop the mortar on top to lay the sandstone 'tile'.

Reply to
Chuck Banshee

Makes sense. I'll try that this morning.

Reply to
Chuck Banshee

Yes, mortar tubs are handy. If you don't have a mason's trowel - the "V" shaped trowel - get one. A largish one. _______________

Gotta ask, why are you using two inches of mortar? I'd think a bed combed out with a 1/2" trowel would be plenty (might have to butter the bottom to even up).

______________________

We make "rocks" (cobbles) from excess mortar. Use them stacked to delineate flower beds sometimes. After they weather and get mossy they do indeed look like rocks.

Reply to
dadiOH

Oh oh. I didn't realize it was 'that' caustic! I'm not mixing lime per se ... so I wonder if it's that caustic, for me?

Maybe I should wear rubber boots instead of sneakers?

Anyway, another lesson I hadn't mentioned was my jeans split all along the butt! My pants fit loosely. They are not tight at all. Yet, somehow, they STILL managed a foot-long split from all the bending & lifting!

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Reply to
Chuck Banshee

I'd say yes- especially because your hands don't look like mason hands yet.

It all depends on how messy you are. 2 of my 2 brothers in law helped my lay block for 2 days. at the end of the day 1 looked like he just arrived on the job, and the other looked like he bathed in mortar.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

It looks like your fingers are pretty well burned, too.

As others have said, wheelbarrow. I do use a 5gal bucket to mix mortar to set tile. It takes me too long to use 80# of the stuff.

Keep some mortar mix in reserve. You can add more (or water) to get the consistency right. Also, measure everything. When you get the mix right, you'll know what the right ratio is. You can scale from there to the size of the mix needed. The ratio might change a little from day to day (or bag to bag) but you'll have a good starting point.

Yes, and forms will allow you to calculate the quantity of mix you need (~120#/ft^3).

I don't usually have much more than I need, so just dump it where I clean the tools. If it's washed out thoroughly it'll just be a little gravel in the dirt.

NOW I see what you're doing. It's making sense (I thought they were steps). Lookin' good!

Be careful! CSI can use your toe prints through your boots. ;-)

They also cut away when the real work is done (by Mexicans).

Reply to
krw

Considering the multiple uses of a wheelbarrow and infrequent need for something to mix cement, it should do you.

Reply to
Frank

I'm glad this topic got mention....it is important because of the potential for really severe problems. A minor injury today can become a catastrophe if one gets infection from antibiotic-resistant bug. I worked in occupational health long enough to see that many safety measures were considered "sissy". Just a wood sliver can cause disability if infection reaches a tendon....NO injury is a laughing matter. I took care of a guy once who had a speck of welding stuff fly into the back of his boot....he had a small 3rd degree burn down to his Achilles tendon. A little larger or deeper burn might have caused a permanent disability. He refused to go to the company doc, so I redressed the burn every day, praying it didn't get infected; took a long time to heal.

So, here is a link to safety issues with concrete:

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Reply to
Norminn

-snip-

-snip-

Good time to re-inforce-- Wear glasses of some sort when working with masonry!!.

Messy brother-in-law has one eye that works. He was actually wearing safety glasses [those 'stylish' sunglasses] when a pressurized hose burst-- but the concrete was caustic enough to burn his cornea.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

Though I will say-- for the price- a tub has advantages. You can mix in it while the wheelbarrow is hauling 'stuff'. The flat bottom is a plus when trying to get things mixed. Easy to pick up and dump onto a site.

If your wheelbarrow is metal, the plastic tubs are a lot easier to clean. [Just leave them at the end of the day- and beat them in the morning to shake all the dried mortar off]

My mortar tub is also my soil mixing and potting tub-- and a mini-barrow when I'm doing pavers.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

Hey, I asked my next door neighbor to help me lift a square of sidewalk (not by the curb but smaller, near my front door) and he showed up with a pair of pink rubbermaid gloves for washing dishes with! I managed not to laugh and fortunately for his gloves, I had leather gloves to lend him.

A fallacy, some law-enforcment guy on the radio tried to convince me of. He said that those who had their prints removed ended up with even more distinctive prints, because to start with, everyone else has normal prints, and the very few who have "no prints" still have distinctive parts.

Alll the videos are dry. Very few are literally wet.

Glad you enjoyed it.

Reply to
micky

Chuck Banshee wrote in news:jglced$ugj$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:

It sure is interesting to see all the problems and lessons learned. And you provided good pics , too.

Reply to
RobertPatrick

Baltimore. Maybe his wife bought the gloves for dishes.

And he owned his home that was next to mine, and his previous home which he rented. I assumed he did some of the repairs himself.

Reply to
micky

I changed from sneakers to boots ... just to throw them off the trail!

Here's my 'new' wardrobe:

- Rubber-palmed gloves (instead of bare hands & leather gloves)

- Rubber boots (instead of leather sneakers)

- Rubber knee pads (instead of cloth kneepads) etc.

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Reply to
Chuck Banshee

Here's me reaching for a cup of tea & home made pie by the wife while working yesterday before the game halted all construction.

Are my hands looking more like a mason's yet?

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:)

Reply to
Chuck Banshee

Yesterday I was buying new tools, dust masks, gloves, kneepads. Then I spent the day up to the game building forms I now know I need, and snapping lines for the drainage run ... so I didn't mix any mortar.

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So today is the mortar mixing. Unfortunately, I goofed and bought the 5-dollar size - which - it turns out - can't even mix up a single 60-pound bag of mortar. So, I'll end up using the wheelbarrow I think.
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Reply to
Chuck Banshee

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