The foreman in Reno made me lay a sample panel before touching the wall, and it saved the whole job
Was on a hotel job in Reno last month and the GC's foreman told me to build a 4 foot sample panel before I started laying the big wall. I grumbled about it since I've been laying brick 11 years, but the sample showed my mortar was mixed too wet for that hot dry air and the joints were sagging within an hour. We bumped up the mix and I ended up laying 1,200 block that week with almost no rework. Now I do a small test panel on every new job before I commit, takes 20 minutes and saves me hours. Anyone else get told to do this by an old timer and think it was a waste of time?
I rolled my eyes at the sample panel thing for years, thought it was just a foreman covering his own butt. Then I did one on a job in August and watched my joints start to sag by noon, turns out the mix was all wrong for that heat. Now that 20 minutes upfront feels like the cheapest insurance I ever bought.