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Winter Work

17K views 154 replies 13 participants last post by  fjn 
#1 ·
Some pics from whats going on this site. The house is a farm house replica. Its perfect.



The other side of the house





We had 5500 Old Virgina bricks trucked up here in early December. All the cubes are a frozen mess of coarse right....



We build pyramids as we go and blast them with the heater. They will dry out in an hour. This one is about half the size of what it was.



This wall will actually be inside of a closet.





Couple fireplaces back to back off set.

 
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#11 ·
After the storm where we got 36" of light powder snow this real estate agent calls me and says she has a vacant house that needs the driveway plowed.

I head over there and pull up to this.



Its been sitting a long while judging from the leaves.



There is a circular drive by the house that had ice under the snow. I was so careful the whole driveway then at the end found the ice and was stuck on level ground. Luckily I was able to simply throw some pine needles and sticks under the tires and was on my way.

 
#9 ·
I do a lot ya. Usually if we do a fireplace at the end there is a bunch of broken stuff we use for fill around the firebox. Makes it slightly cheaper. We save the fireplace for a rain day. And we dont drop any mud down the flue onto the top of it when its done last.

With 2 brickies you will loose time having both of them on the fireplace instead of sticking one up top to cap out while the other one gets the inside done. One guy typically gets the fireplace/box done and cleaned up by 2:00- maybe 3. With 2 guys is takes us till 1 ish maybe 2. Waste of a guy done like that.
 
#16 ·
God I love the barn beam look.
I mentioned in another post that I did a lot of masonry for a famous carpenter builder Gunther Builders from Trumbull,CT. He did all his homes in that barn / colonial theme....3'' exposure clapboard with hand made nails,wood gutters,strap hinges,bead board,structo lite plaster between barn beams;ship dormers, on and on. On his brick he'd only accept a flat trowel tip joint sometimes scored with it immediately.

A Bridgeport CT masonry yard for many years had a brick panel display showing old v's done with a groove jointer.
I did some with them but imo the trowel line rules in the colonial setting. I have a lot of northern yellow pine done with a adze in my home. Harder wood after it dries is difficult to find...lol

Here's a pic of a few line groove jointers . The shiny one is MarshalTown , the others I like better are Rose.. I think. IMO It'd be ashamed to see those hand molded bricks with a concave joint. The chimney is on one of his more formal homes. He did a whole devopement Sturbrdge Village style in Trumbull CT.
 

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#19 ·
Here's a pic of a few line groove jointers . The shiny one is MarshalTown , the others I like better are Rose.. .


I had the exact same experience with a grapevine jointer I purchased in the south,a place where that type of joint is fairly prevalent.


It looked real nice with a wooded handle and all.The metal looked like a rough cast iron casting. It grabbed the mortar and just flat out made a mess of things. An old time local hardware store had a few forged ones that worked perfectly,do not know the brands though.
 
#22 ·
Great pictures!

No i like the line joints, even ordered 2 new ones from bon tool anticipating thats what they would want.

Im not one way or the other with the joints. Whatever, just need to get some work done lol. Chimneys are backing up on me.
 
#25 ·
Fred and Sean lol I got a pail full...I remember the old man telling me to rub them in the sand when I was kid, 10 years ago :eek:

OT I was over the kiddo's house yesterday and had to smile. We put on a addition a year ago and what was a window became a interior partition. It needed plastering so we put in sheet rock reversed to simulate rock lath [cant get it around here any longer].
I had a few bags ''laying around'' here that he took, along with a clapboard screed and a cedar shingle float and hawk etc.
I told him I'd be over and be careful as the structo lite may be hot
He told me it set up as he was mixing it...had to scrape it out of the wheelbarrow....lol. He said the next one did similar.....I asked him if he threw the water out that he washed the tools in...''nope''....''Plaster is a pain he said!'' :rolleyes:

J you are fortunate to have the work....things are semi dead in CT...many new faces came in the past 10 years, most all are working against each other. It's one reason I occasionally bid larger jobs. By the way osha shut them down for a while...maybe it was a blessing I didn't get in. Could be one of those jobs manned with ''No Hows'' rather than ''Know Hows."

These are two ways to make the trowel line..the underside of the arch is trowel tipped then lined ..sceened sand. the other is sharp and a bit coarse mason sand not trowel tipped just trowel lined....they may like the coarse..also it gets more eroded when acid washed and nylon brushed.
 

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#30 ·
I do that when I'm working on rural jobs but can't really do it in the city. You have to be fussy about the sand you use though. Sand that has gone red is useless, it turns into powder. You need a labe that is carful and awake.

In the city I bag the sand into feed bags when I first get it, then I bring bags of sand into my enclosure (or into a garage or mudroom if i'm working on a finished house) each night. On bigger jobs an electric heated tarp over the pile. But electricity isn't always available
 
#38 ·
Red on Red, they wanted a hearth like an old paver walkway, try as I may I couldnt get them tighter. I think they will have me joint it , ....somehow...:rolleyes:





Before the damper goes on



I always fill this and hit it with the backside . Seen to many charred 2.4's here.




What I had for diner the other night

 
#58 ·
JB, those 52DD's? and portland in the firebox. Inspectors would chop our dingys off for that. I do however like the look and am quite familiar with the consequences.

My fav place lets you cook your own filet on a 700 deg. stone. Absolutely delicious!
 

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