Remember when we just used a level and our eyes for a soldier course?

Had to match a 100-year-old herringbone pattern on a repair in the historic district, and getting the mortar color and tooling just right took me three full days. The old-timer who taught me would have had it done in an afternoon. Anyone have a go-to source for matching historic lime mortar shades?

3 comments

3 Comments

stellanelson2mo ago

What if the real skill wasn't the recipe, but knowing how to adjust on site? My mentor always said the old guys mixed with what was local, even dirt from the hole. I've had good luck taking a piece of the old mortar to a local masonry supply. They can do a simple analysis and get you a base that's pretty close, then you tweak it with pigments. It's more about the eye than the exact formula.

phoenix_grant342mo ago

That bit about recipes in their heads we'll never know, it hits on something bigger. It's like when you call your grandma for her meatloaf and she says "a handful of breadcrumbs." The real knowledge wasn't written down, it was in the hands and the eyes. You see it dying out everywhere, from the way a barber knows just how to hold the clippers to how a mechanic listens to an engine. Like adamp31 said, they had a feel for how the lime would cure with the local weather. We've got formulas now, but we lost the touch.

adamp312mo ago

The old Ecologic Mortar catalog was my bible for years. They had these little sample pucks for every region. I still mix my own now, but getting that base color right is 90% of the fight. It's never just about the sand, it's how the lime cures over time. Those old guys had recipes in their heads we'll never know.