Lime Pointing ~ time trial

I’m trying to get the pointing finished this year, but it drags on and I could do with a change of scene. So although I’ve not yet finished the northern gable end I decided to finish the more straight-forward and visible back wall. I’d completed all along the bottom of the back wall – up as high as I was able to reach on a step ladder and so to finish the top I’ll need to use an extending ladder.

(As a slight aside, pointing from a ladder isn’t as awkward as it sounds – you can rest the mortar hawk and any tools you’re not using on the rungs of the ladder ahead of you and so can point one handed – which makes a change.)

But, how long would it take me?

To answer that question (and make a probably misguided attempt to make pointing exciting) I decided to undertake a lime pointing time trial – how much could I get finished in one hour? (You’ve got to give me credit for a least trying to make things exciting…)

Here are my results:

Before:

From Pointing

One hour later:

From Pointing

Now I realise that my results don’t exactly standout from these pictures (no I didn’t just move a ladder during the hour – if you look closely you can see the grey / brown pointing in the joints between the stonework on the second picture). I’ll take another picture next weekend after the mortar has dried to the off-white that the dry mortar lower on the wall is [See below – picture added November 2010]. I managed to point from the right hand corner to the left side of the ladder, with a couple of patches needing some more work and pointing started on some patches to the left of the ladder. To save some time I used a mortar gun to fill some of the deeper / wider joints and placed a few pinning stones in wide joints – which eats up some time.

My conclusion was that pointing at this rate I would need 8 to 10 hours to finish the back wall. That would be a long day’s work, or more likely a day and the following morning. I can then finish the top of the northern gable end in my own time…

We’ll see…

From Barn Conversion 2010