Shoutout to the guy at the lumber yard who told me my mortar mix looked wrong

I was picking up some 2x4s for a scaffold in Tacoma last month, and this older guy pointed at my wheelbarrow and said, 'Son, that's too wet, you're gonna have weep holes for days.' He was right, the whole wall dried patchy and I had to re-point a whole section. How do you guys judge your mix on a humid day?

4 comments

4 Comments

taylorshah2d agoMost Upvoted

Hang on, hold up. Breathing in the morning air to judge water ratio? That's wild. I mean, I get that old timers have instincts, but that's a whole other level. My uncle could tell if a storm was coming by how his knees felt, but your uncle sounds like some kind of masonry wizard. That is not a skill you see on any job site today, that's for sure.

milarodriguez2mo ago

It's a good example of how we've lost the passing down of simple, hands-on knowledge. That older guy learned by doing, probably from his own dad or a tough foreman. Now we watch a YouTube video and hope for the best. Humidity absolutely changes the game, you have to account for the water already in the air. On muggy days, I go by feel and aim for a mix that just holds together in a tight ball. The willingness to share a tip like that is getting rarer, which is a real shame for the next generation of tradespeople.

lilya762mo ago

My uncle was a mason for forty years and he could tell you the exact water ratio for a batch just by breathing in the morning air. @milarodriguez, you're right about the feel. Do you think that kind of instinct is completely gone, or are there still job sites where the old guys will actually take a young worker aside and show them the tricks? I worry it's all about speed now, just getting the pour done fast, not getting it done right for the long haul.

the_lee2mo ago

So what happens when that last old timer retires and that gut feel knowledge isn't written down anywhere? I've seen it go both ways, some guys guard their tricks like gold and others love teaching. The real problem is the schedule, because taking five minutes to explain why the mix looks wrong today is five minutes the foreman is screaming about. That pressure to just go fast means the right way gets skipped, and then we all end up fixing it later.