Mortar

Mortar, is in my opinion the most vital and misunderstood element to good bricklaying,
With the right mortar, the brick should just about lay itself, all you should have to do is align the brick to the string line and the bricks below.

Sand is generally sold as "Brickies sand"
The properties of the sand will have a great bearing on the amount of lime added,
the cement ratio (6 sand to 1 cement) always stays the same regardless of the sand type.

If the sand has too much clay in it, you can't add 1 shovel of lime per 1 shovel of cement, if you do, you wont be able to get the mortar off the trowel as it will be just too sticky.
On the other hand if the sand is a sharp washed river sand, more lime will be needed to make it workable.
•To test for the ammount of clay present in the sand.
•Grab a hand full of damp sand and squeeze it, the amount of sand sticking to your hand will indicate the amount of clay present. Sand with a lot of clay in it will really stick to your hand.

Lime's part in making good mortar is to make the sand workable, it also retards the mortar from going off too quickly especially in hot or windy conditions.
Lime also helps the mortar with added strength, and will seal small cracks later on if they should occur.

Cement comes in different flavours, the cement used in normal construction is classed ( in Austarlia ) as GP or General Purpose, this is the one to use for most things you will do.
There is also GB which is General Builders cement, but will set weaker so I dont use it, it contains fly ash.
There is also Brighton Light ( a form of GP cement ), which as the name suggests is light in colour, it is almost white.

Hand mixing mortar, when doing small jobs hand mixing is the prefered method.
Start by measureing out 6 sand to 1 cement and some lime ( or multiples of that ratio ) onto a flat surface, or into a wheel barrow.
Mix all the ingredients together while dry, when all the ingredients are well mixed add the water slowly.
It helps to make a hole in the dry mix before adding the water, once the water is added to the hole start by stirring the mix from the middle where the water is.
As the mix becomes dryer add more water and keep mixing, if the mix becomes too wet add a little more sand.

Plasticizer, I always use plasticizer in the mortar.
Plasticizer aids in making the mortar more user friendly, it does this by aerating the mortar.
For small jobs where you dont want to buy 5 litres of plasticizer you can add a drop of detergent.

The rule for any mortar is 'mix it and use it', dont leave it lying around for hours on end and hope to revive it by adding more water to "knock" it up.
Once the initial set has started to take place, which is around 45 minutes the mortar has hit its use by date and should be discarded.

Spreading (video), ok so you've got your batch of mortar ready for laying.
You now need to get the mortar onto where you want it so you can lay the bricks.
Stick the edge of the trowel into the mortar and have a play around with it.
If the mortar is the right consistency it shouldnt break your wrist doing it, or be so sloppy that it runs off your trowel.
It should be the consistency of, hmmmmm well, mortar.
Ok, it should feel "right".
This is the hardest thing about bricklaying to describe in words, but you will know when you have got it right.

To get a trowel full of mortar you have to roll the mortar around on the mortar board a little, you have to chase the mortar around the board so it forms a roll, sort of like a bread roll.
When you have your trowel full, sit your trowel over the area you want to spread, and in one action roll your wrist and pull back your arm, you have to stand side on to the brickwork to spread successfully .

You should now have the mortar spread where you want it, and like all good things it takes practice to get it right.
Spread the mortar so it is full width of the brick, any holes in your bed joint will become holes when you come to finish off the brickwork so now is the time to remedy that before it becomes a problem.
Holes in the mortar are much harder to fix at finishing time.

Mortar bed Joint, for the brick to bed onto the mortar easily you will have to furrow the middle of the bed of mortar,
This is done by putting the point of the trowel onto the middle of the bed and pull back towards yourself with an up and down motion. Furrow Video.
Make sure the bed is full width of the brick, this ensures that there are no holes in the bed when you come to finish off the joint.

Perpendicular joints, (perp ends/cross joints) are the joints between the brick ends.

Brickwork gauge has to be worked out prior to laying, if you are working on a surface you know to be truly level you can just mark your gauge up from the concrete.
If the surface is out of level you will have to establish a finished level height for your project and mark your gauge downwards starting from the top of your level mark.

Gauge Rod, make a gauge rod if you intend doing a bit of brickwork, this is a piece of timber marked off at 86mm intervals.
Cut the gauge into the rod with a fine toothed saw like a hacksaw.
Dont mark off each course at 86mm otherwise errors will creep into the measurements.
Instead, measure off as per the table below.

Number of courses	Metric	Imperial
1	86 mm	3 3/8"
2	172 mm	6 3/4"
3	258 mm	10 1/8"
4	344 mm	13 1/2"
5	430 mm	16 7/8"
6	516 mm	20 1/4"
7	602 mm	23 5/8"
8	688 mm	27"
9	775 mm	30 3/8"
10	860 mm	33 3/4"