How to Repoint Brick Using Only Hand Tools | Ask This Old House

[Music] all right marks around the corner underneath the window is some spots that I noticed okay so here's the window and then I noticed that there are some few cracks in the mortar and some of its missing entirely right so you see this joint right here yeah we call that a head joint in between the brick okay call this a bed joint okay we have problems with both of them as you can see mortars completely fallen out of this head joint we're gonna correct that if you look at this bed joint under the sill see it yeah it's very crumbled it's gray wrong color you can see that we had a guy come in here he matched the color pretty well the guy before him though not so well you see this gray mortar yeah I wondered what that was yeah it's just a sloppy guy doing a sloppy job we're not gonna work like that of course but over here we have some of the original joints yeah it seems a lot smaller it's a lot smaller so what you and I are gonna do is going to take all that out take that head joint out take everything out from under the sill and then we're gonna come back with the right tools the right column water and we'll be good to go all right sounds like a bigger job than I was anticipating not at all we're gonna go step by step and by the time we're done you're gonna be a pro all right sounds good all right let's go okay summer so here are the tools that we're gonna use to clean the mortar out this is a brick hammer and this is a pointing chisel all right so what do I need to do first what you're gonna do is you're gonna take this point you're gonna get it into the top of the joint okay you're gonna be pointing it down just as you are okay and then you're gonna start tapping that with a brick hammer and do I use which side of the Mauritian flathead yeah there you go okay pull that out now all right reset at your angle exactly now go back down on that hand great pull out start again see how you're doing that yep pulling it out and we're gonna down yeah yeah yeah halfway done that's great great now don't be afraid to reverse direction now get that little bit don't be afraid to go up at yeah just be gentle you don't want a damage to the brick okay doing a great job now just remember you want to get that joint exposed at least three-quarters of an inch which you probably just did okay and we like to do that because mortar does not stick to mortar so if we smeared mortar onto that joint it would just eventually break off so water does stick to brick and that's why we like to go in at least three quarters of an inch okay so the more brick that's expose the better and the more exposure okay you're doing a great job what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a thinner chisel I'm gonna go behind you the ones you've already done I'm gonna clean out just a little bit more and you can continue on and do the rest of the head joints in front of you all right okay we're gonna do all the head joints first that'll weaken the bed joint and make the bed joint easier to chisel out now I'm going to go clean out all the extra motor with this clean-out tool okay so now what we want to do is brush out all that dust all right should I start at the top and work my way back down at the top and work your way down exactly don't be afraid to use a little muscle with that see how much you're getting now we're gonna wet in the brush it's gonna do two things it's gonna pick up some of the extra dust but it's also going to dampen the brick so the mortar spawns better all right great job Thanks yeah oh yeah you did really well with that okay so the most important thing that we're trying to do here today is match the mortar okay so what we did we took a chip out of the wall when all the way down to our local Brickyard put it up against some already pre-made swatches we found a color yours is called moccasin becomes free mix which is great for us Portland cement lime sand the color moccasin and all we have to do is add water alright so what we want to do with the water is add it slowly okay is there a certain consistency that we're looking for yeah I'm thinking oatmeal if that makes any sense but that's a nice consistency to work with so we're just gonna wanna add and twist we're gonna do just another little dab okay let's try to put some on the wall all right I'm gonna feed you a little more to read on top of that finished trowel okay very good you're gonna put that right up to the wall like that great now you take that tucked pointer okay which is that and you just push that mortar right into that joint so do you join let's cut a little piece off and push it in exactly and make sure you get nice and deep that's great and that's the action you just want to continue that throughout the joint okay sounds good doesn't matter how thick I put it in there you know what just like we talked about before you're gonna want to stay off of the edge of the brick right there so right now you're looking really good all right I'll just keep going down the line turn you that yeah nice and try to keep it off the okay brick keep it off the other brick remember neatness counts oh that's great okay keep sliding to your right yeah you can see how the mortar is staying consistent and it doesn't look like it's right out yes yeah that's because you wet the brick before now if the brick were completely dry they'd be sucking water right out of that mortar okay and that would make the mortar brittle that's it you're doing a good job pushing it all the way through okay so now we're gonna want to go over the head joints we switched travels on you which is fine right but now you're gonna take your joiner you're gonna try to flip that motor up on the backside of your jointer stuff it right into the head joint and pull it down oh nice yep that's it same thing as the bed joint you're gonna wanna work it all the way back there you go nice turn nice turn the final step is to use a horsehair brush brush off all the excess and blend the mortar all right summer looks great oh man I love the way you stayed off the edge of the brick just like the original work that is great don't worry about the color it's all going to cure for six weeks it'll all cure together I can already tell that it's we have a great blend going and you know what do you think you did you first masonry project I think you did a great job what do you think Thanks it was a lot easier than I thought it was yeah so again you spend 75 bucks on some tools and material you'll get a day out here do what we did and you got something behind you

Channel: This Old House

Views: 342,947

Rating: 4.7891655 out of 5

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Episode, TV Show, DIY repoint, hand tools, Mark McCullough, Milwaukee, brick hammer, pointing chisel, brush, bucket, trowel, brick, home renovation ideas, diy home improvement, diy home projects, home renovation ideas on a budget

Id: eHsoNLm78ys

Length: 7min 41sec (461 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 05 2017