Jason the Mason

We had a visit last week from Jason the Mason. There he is on the left of the brick pile in the striped shirt. His mission was to “audition” for the job and give us a mortar sampler.

Jason and his helper nailed up two boards next to the front door opening and began a sample wall. Here you see the bricks in the foreground and the beginning of the wall in the background. The bricks look really different on they end than the do on the face!

I liked the messy looking mortar.

But apparently the mortar has to be “tooled” and compacted or else it will develop hairline cracks and wick in moisture.

So, Jason the Mason did rustic tooling with his trowel.

Even thought this was a tear down sample wall, he made sure that he didn’t leave any voids. I liked his attention to detail.

Then after running 8 courses with Ivory Buff mortar, he started again to show us the Desert Buff.

Then Jason and his helper were off. They were roping in a rodeo this weekend and had to get the horses cleaned up. What a great life! Brick laying all week and rodeos on the weekend – it’s a little boy’s dream life!

Above you can see the two different mortar colors. I drew a line on the right hand board to show where the mortar changes. They are pretty close when wet.

Here it is yesterday after drying out over the weekend.

Now the color difference is more pronounced. I think I have a preference, but I’ll withhold my opinion until the experts (i.e. the architects Justeen and Denise) come and weigh in this afternoon. After all, they’ve done this before and have a better eye for what the finished product will look like.