Just realized I'd been buttering my joints all wrong for 10 years

I've been laying brick for about 12 years now, and for the first 10 I always buttered the head joint by slapping mud on the end of the brick after I set it. Thought I was being fast. Then this old timer on a job in Nashville watched me for a minute and said 'you're fighting gravity, kid'. He showed me to butter the brick before I set it and give it a quick twist. My head joints went from ugly gaps to clean fills overnight. Now I feel dumb for wasting so much time. Has anyone else had a basic move like that pointed out way later than it should have been?

3 comments

3 Comments

rileyb6129d ago

10 years of ugly head joints-that's a lot of bad mud.

sean_torres7129d ago

Bad mud hides bad framing pretty well sometimes.

the_robert20d ago

You know I read somewhere that the old timers used to say "work smarter not harder" but nobody ever says how long it takes to figure that out. Sounds like you got your money's worth of lesson in one sentence though.