Pointing

[Stuart Noble]

> Are these any good? Bit wary after spending money on a Durgun which was

That was certainly my experience

[dave]

>> Are these any good? Bit wary after spending money on a Durgun which was

Would you care to elaborate for folk like myself who don't know why? Thanks.

[Andrew Gabriel]

>>> Are these any good? Bit wary after spending money on a Durgun which was

Well, I haven't tried one, so I can only guess, but I can't imagine mortar being sufficiently fluid to flow through the device. Imagine trying to operate it full of dry sand for starters -- I wouldn't expect that to work. If you make the sand damp, it's even less fluid (i.e. you need wet sand to make a sand-castle). If you add more water (ignoring for the moment that it will be wrong proportion for a mortar), then squeezing it will just squeeze out the excess water, as sand doesn't actually dissolve in water.

So I'm left asking myself how on earth it could work? Maybe if you mixed your mortar with ultra-fine sandpit sand?

[Stuart Noble]

>>>> Are these any good? Bit wary after spending money on a Durgun which was

I have tried one, and it progressively compacted the solids as you would expect. IMO the only things suitable for such a device would be those that normally come in a cartridge anyway, and they would be too sticky to load manually.

[Tim S]

Stuart Noble coughed up some electrons that declared:

I had a long look at those on the internet - I was wondering the same. Good to have confirmation.

Gun delivery is certainly a good idea in principle - being able to inject a fillet sized stripe direct to where it's needed without faffing.

But AFAICS, the only way this is actually going to work with with a pump and a specially forumalated mix.

Some sort of electric gun (even something with a small battery drill on the back) and a worm drive pump might work - thought I'd seen something like that somewhere...

Tim

[Michael Shergold]

See

[Mark]

the mortar mix is far far too wet, so it comes out like Diarrhea, it will get all over the face of the bricks and will look like a dogs breakfast done by an amateur. and note they don't show it being used to actually do any pointing.

[Stuart Noble]

The one I used was the cartridge type. This looks slightly more promising, if only as a way of doing the vertical bits. I've rigged up various aids for that but still end up using fingers. That bricklayer's flick whereby the right amount miraculously lands exactly where you want it is a source of wonder to me. Maybe the consistency/flow thing is all about the plasticiser, a mousse type mix that flows easily without needing too much water