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Unpopular opinion: buttering the back of a soldier course cost me 3 extra hours on a garden wall
So last week I'm laying a curved garden wall in Fort Worth and I got it in my head that buttering the back of every soldier brick would give me a tighter joint on the face. Big mistake. What should've been a 6 hour job turned into 9, because every sloppy back butter squeeze pushed mud out the face and I had to tool and clean each one twice. Halfway through I just stopped and went back to a normal full bed with a light tap and it went way faster, joints looked just as good. Your mileage may vary depending on the brick, but has anyone else gotten stuck on a finishing habit that ended up costing more time than it saved?
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ruby_grant5d ago
I did the same thing on a retaining wall in Weatherford last spring, and it cost me a whole afternoon. What finally worked was skipping the back butter and just making sure the bed was flat with a little extra mud in the middle, then one solid tap with the butt of my trowel. The brick seats itself and the mud pushes out where you want it, not at the face. If a joint still looks thin I'll slide a little mud in from the top with a margin trowel after. The other thing that helped was cutting my mortar a touch wetter so it spreads easier, less poking at each brick. Now I only butter the back on outside corners where the joint really shows.
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