Lime pointing video

[Feltwell]

Speeded up video of repointing on a Victorian house.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=801563490655762

[Gothichome]

He makes it look so easy. My issue when pointing is getting the lime to stick to my pointing trowel while doing the verticals. Mix it stiff, it falls off, mix it thin it falls off. Tried a grouting bag but all that does is squeeze the water out of the mix.

[a twig]

Forget sticking it to your trowel & use one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mortar-Holder- ... B005FPTJDY

Load it up, put one of the open edges right up against the joint, and use the finger trowel to slide in "slices" of mortar at a time from the hawk right into the joint.

Also allows you to still get the job done if you accidentally made the mortar a little too wet... (or so I've heard ahem...)

EDIT: Here's a video of someone using a similararar one...

[RBailey]

Using a hawk is definitely the way to go!
A hawk is great for horizontal and helps on the vertical but the verticals are defiantly harder. I found using the trowel / pointed end of a double ended pointing trowel worked better on the verticals than the flat end. (But flat end better for horizontal joints.)

I have seen a pointing hawk made of a plastic bucket lid cut into a semi-circle which looked like it worked well. Last time I used my plastering hawk and it was a bit big and cumbersome. Next time I think I will buy a proper pointing hawk.

Cheers,
Richard B.

[Feltwell]

If you can persist and get the mix right it will stick to a pointing trowel and it's definitely quicker and easier on the perps (verticals), though I confess to using a hawk in the past. Easier to avoid smearing if you don't use one though.

I confess that the house in the video is very familiar to me - though I'm not the one with the trowel skills! Bit of a pain that area of brickwork shown in the video actually, some deep voids to fill. Appears that long ago a downpipe must have been leaking for a long time and eroded the pointing, which was then - badly - replaced with a cement mix. Big hollows behind the cement made it easier to get it out though.