Old timer was right about mixing mortar in the shade

I was working a big retaining wall job up in Cleveland last July, and this 60 year old mason named Frank kept telling me I needed to mix my mortar in the shade or it'd set too fast. I shrugged it off because who has time to move their mixer every 20 minutes, right? Well, after 3 batches that turned into a crumbly mess before I could even butter the stones, I finally listened and it cut my waste by almost half. Anyone else had old timers give you advice that seemed like a pain but actually worked?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_james3d agoMost Upvoted

That heat soaking into the mixer drum is the real killer. Nobody thinks about it but the drum itself holds heat like a cast iron skillet. Once it's hot, your batch is cooked before you even add water. Trick I learned is to wet down the inside of the mixer with cold water before you start. Cools the drum down fast and buys you extra working time. Never seen anyone else mention that part. Frank probably knew that too.

verab283d ago

That bit about the drum holding heat like a cast iron skillet really hit home for me. I've absolutely wrecked batches before just because I didn't think about that (it's such a simple thing to overlook but man it hurts when it happens). Wetting down the drum before starting is genius, I'm definitely trying that next time.

jordan6533d ago

Cold water trick works, but you gotta be careful about thermal shock if the drum is really hot. I've seen mixers crack from that on older rigs, especially if the metal is thin in spots. verab28 might want to test it on a cool drum first just to see how much it really drops the temp. Another thing nobody brings up is that the mixer blades themselves hold a ton of heat too. They're usually solid steel and soak up heat from the last batch way faster than the drum walls do. I'll hit the blades with a spray bottle before the drum, that seems to help more. Frank would have known that, he was a pro at reading the equipment temp by feel alone.