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I finally stopped mixing mortar by eye after 12 years and started weighing it
For years I just dumped sand and cement in the mixer and eyeballed the water until it looked right. Last spring a guy on a job in Dayton handed me a kitchen scale and said try 1 part cement to 3 parts sand by weight, not by shovel. I thought he was being ridiculous but I tried it on a small garden wall and the bricks set so much tighter. Now I keep a cheap scale in the truck and batch every small job that way, about 15 to 20 lbs at a time. Mixes come out the same every single load and I use way less cement too, maybe a bag and a half saved per job. The shovel scoop method depends too much on how wet the sand pile is that day. Anybody else weigh their batches or is that just me being extra?
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uma_nguyen2424d ago
The wet sand pile thing is the real killer nobody talks about. A shovel of soaked sand can weigh half again what a dry shovel does, so your 3 to 1 mix is really 5 to 1 some days and the wall pays for it. I keep a bathroom scale in the truck and batch by weight too, usually 5 lbs cement to 15 lbs sand for small stuff, and I add water by the pint instead of the hose until I know the sand. One tip if you are new to it: write the weights and water amount on a scrap of plywood for each job so you can repeat it if you need more mortar later. Also weigh your sand damp but not dripping, and check a few batches for how they trowel before you trust the numbers on a new sand pile.
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