Repointing advice - style colour etc

[danlightbulb]

Last year I repointed some brickwork sections that were badly deteriorated. The brick joints are wide and uneven. I used a curved tool to create a concave finish. I used standard building sand and cement in a 5:1 ratio with a little plasticiser, which has come out rather grey.

I attach a picture of a section I finished. I did a few square meters in total.

The thing is that the whole house needs doing and I intend to do more this year. I'm not really that happy with how it's come out, the colour seems to be wrong and I'm not sure it's the right style for the house.

The original pointing (it's hard to tell what's original) is sand/buff coloured, and I would say sharp sand not fine sand as you can see the aggregate content. Probably done with lime but maybe not. In various places it has had cement lathered over the top but even this is more buff coloured not grey.

I want to do this job right, but I'm not sure what right is. Can anyone say what colour and finish I should achieve please? I was previously advised that I don't need to use lime and a standard sand cement mix is fine, but even so I could add a colourant and go for a different surface finish like flush or use a brush to texture it a bit.

I'm happy to redo the bits I've already done but obviously now I'm starting on the rest of the house it's got to be right from the start.

Thanks.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

It looks like you tooled it too soon and with too narrow a width tool, so it's dug deep trenches. The tool needs to be wide enough to rest on the corners of the bricks, not narrow enough to fully fall into the joint.

Also it's been done very heavy-handed, you need to glide over the surface rather than follow every bump in and out.

You've pulled the corners off too. You need to slide it from the corner inwards, not outwards.

I'd say build a garden wall as training then assess whether you want to let yourself do the rest of the house.

 

[danlightbulb]

It looks like you tooled it too soon and with too narrow a width tool, so it's dug deep trenches. The tool needs to be wide enough to rest on the corners of the bricks, not narrow enough to fully fall into the joint.

Also it's been done very heavy-handed, you need to glide over the surface rather than follow every bump in and out.

You've pulled the corners off too. You need to slide it from the corner inwards, not outwards.

I'd say build a garden wall as training then assess whether you want to let yourself do the rest of the house.

Thanks.

I used the widest jointer I could get, think it was 3/4 inch one end and 1/2 inch the other end. The joints are so uneven widths (all different) and wide that it was really hard to get it to look half decent. The corners just kept falling out as the bricks themselves are often chipped in the corners, I couldn't form a sharp square corner in the mortar.

What was happening when I was jointing it is that the jointer was pulling the mortar out. The jointer itself has quite a sharp curve to it, I expected it to be a more gentle curve shape to be honest. I'll get a photo of it.

 

[danlightbulb]

This is another section I did where the joints are a bit narrower, it's not so deeply recessed here.

 

[danlightbulb]

The jointer is 1/2 and 5/8 other end.

Here are some photos of the widest end of the jointer against the brick.

 

[danlightbulb]

Is this wall better?

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

It looks almost v-shaped. Poundland special? They should be a smooth curve, basically a section of a circle.

Buy a Marshalltown one.

The last photo looks OK, but it's still a very deep v-shape.

 

[danlightbulb]

It looks almost v-shaped. Poundland special? They should be a smooth curve, basically a section of a circle.

Buy a Marshalltown one.

The last photo looks OK, but it's still a very deep v-shape.

Yeah it is very sharp. I got it from wickes. The Marshaltown ones in screwfix don't look a lot different from the picture, but they do do some larger sizes.

Do you think I should redo the whole lot?

Or I could not do a concave profile at all and do it completely flush?

 

[23vc]

I’ve seen far worse repointing than that, and I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with it. Just make sure you tool it when it’s firming up to really compact and iron it. What’s the actual issue? 5:1 sounds right if it’s just sand and cement. Can’t do much about how grey it is.

 

[danlightbulb]

I’ve seen far worse repointing than that, and I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with it. Just make sure you tool it when it’s firming up to really compact and iron it. What’s the actual issue? 5:1 sounds right if it’s just sand and cement. Can’t do much about how grey it is.

I just think it looks crap.

Like Ivor says it's deep in places and the greyness of it makes it stand out more compared to if it's more sandy coloured or more similar to the brick in colour.

So I'm thinking when I do the rest of the house I do it completely flush with the surface of the brick and use a colourant to make it buff coloured?

 

[danlightbulb]

Here's a section done not by me but previously. It's more buff coloured and flush with the brick.

The issue is that the layer of pointing there is only a couple mm deep as they didn't take out the joint properly to do it.

In such a wide joint is this better than trying to make a concave profile?

 

[23vc]

The latest pic is weather struck, completely different pointing style. Done with a pointing trowel. More common on old/reclaimed brick. Yours is bucket handled/half round. More common on newer stuff.
Doing it completely flush is different again, where you rub it down with sacking/brush.

Wouldn’t recommend dye, can be very mixed result and look worse.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

There's always a top layer of cement on the top of new pointing. It weathers away after a couple of years, exposing the sand grains below.

But your work has a lot more slop on top because you tooled it too soon, while it had the consistency of toothpaste.

You should fill an area, then tool it all. The timing depends on the weather, you'll get the feel as you go. If you leave it too long it turns crumbly. You want wet crumble.

 

[danlightbulb]

There's always a top layer of cement on the top of new pointing. It weathers away after a couple of years, exposing the sand grains below.

But your work has a lot more slop on top because you tooled it too soon, while it had the consistency of toothpaste.

You should fill an area, then tool it all. The timing depends on the weather, you'll get the feel as you go. If you leave it too long it turns crumbly. You want wet crumble.

I did leave it some time before tooling it. It wasnt wet at all definitely not sloppy and I didn't get any sticking to the brick etc. My mix wasn't too wet either. It was dry enough that the edges would crumble off. I did tool it hard though, trying to get the compression into the surface so that might be why it looks so smooth.

As I said, the jointer only just touches the brick edges even on the narrower joints. On the wider joints I had to do it by eye as the jointer doesn't touch the edges of the brick.

How much should the jointer overlap the bricks either side of the joint?

Given that the brick spacing isn't uniform, does that suggest flush pointing is the better option here? If I try curved/bucket handle again then I will have the same issue? Even flush pointing I will get some much larger joints than others due to how the bricks are.


When I was tooling it, what was happening was that the curve of the jointer tool was digging in to the mortar and pulling it back off. And I was trying to get uniform curvature and good compression.

Does it look better if I use a bristle brush to texture it after it's been tooled?

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

The tool should have lots of overhang over the brick. Mine has two ends, I always use the broader one for faces and the smaller just for internal corners. The broader one is probably double the size of a mortar joint and doesn't have that daft V shape yours does.