Had an older mason show me a tuckpointing trick last Tuesday that saved me 3 hours on a chimney job

I was working on a 1920s brick chimney in Brookline and a retired mason named Pete walked by. He stopped and watched me struggle with the mortar joints for a minute. Then he reached into my bucket, wet his trowel, and packed the mortar in at a 45 degree angle instead of straight on. He said "the joint wants to grab it, not fight it." I tried his way on the next row and it went in twice as fast with no voids. Has anyone else picked up a technique like that from someone who just happened to walk past their job site?

3 comments

3 Comments

kimw577h ago

That "dip the trowel in water" thing I heard too.

casey81811h ago

Man, I read something similar in an old mason's handbook from the 1940s that my uncle had. It talked about how you gotta let the mortar work with the brick, not against it, and the angle you hold the trowel makes all the difference. That 45 degree trick is legit for packing joints tight without air pockets. I've also heard of guys dipping their trowel in water first to keep the mortar from sticking too fast, which helps with that smooth flow Pete was talking about. Funny how the old timers just knew stuff you can't learn from a YouTube video.

felixm297h ago

It's funny how much of that old school knowledge is getting lost. You see it everywhere, not just in trades. People want a quick fix or a video that shows them the one secret trick, but they miss the whole feel of the work. The trowel dip is a perfect example. It's not about memorizing a step, it's about understanding how the material behaves and adapting to it. That kind of wisdom comes from years of paying attention, not from a five minute tutorial. We're replacing a deep, practical understanding with shallow information, and I think we're worse off for it.