My foreman said 'a clean trowel is a sharp trowel' but my partner swears a little build-up gives you better control.

I'm curious where other crews stand on this, especially for laying face brick in tight patterns.

3 comments

3 Comments

Ngl that sand trick sounds wild, but it makes total sense for dialing in the grip. When you're working with a tight pattern, do you find yourself changing your trowel's finish based on the weather? Like on a super dry day versus a humid one, does that change how the mortar sticks to the steel?

faith_shah882mo ago

Ever think about what kind of mortar you're using? With a really sticky lime mix, a totally clean trowel can make it slide off too fast for tight work. But if your mortar has a lot of plasticizer, that build-up gets slick and you lose your edge. It's less about clean or dirty and more about matching your trowel's surface to your mud's grab.

grant4782mo ago

Wait, didn't an old bricklayer's trick involve wiping the trowel with a wet rag and then dragging it through dry sand? That was supposed to add just enough grit for tricky mortar. Your point makes that make sense, it's about controlling the slide. A perfectly smooth trowel on some mixes just doesn't grab right. So you'd rough it up a bit on purpose to match the mud.

-1