Re: Brick colored paint

I'm jumping in after being absent for month or so.

For bricks I'll generally use red oxide (box car red) lightened with white to varying degrees.

Milwaukee has been known as "Cream City" since the early 20th century due to the cream-colored bricks common to the city. This is due to the chemical make-up of the local clay that was used to make the bricks. Being a rather industrial area in times past, these bricks can be found in an almost pristine cream color to stained almost black from exhaust and pollution.

Mortar around here tends to be a light gray and from a distance on the lighter cream buildings is almost unnoticeable.

And neither are you, f****it. Far from it.

But I *DO* manage to get your name right, and more importantly, I acknowledge those times when I'm shown to be incorrect by those with more knowledge than I have. You should try it some time...

Who's "Martin"? I know you're nearly blind, but can't you read message headers? Can you, in fact, read for comprehension at all?

C "I have seen mortar that's been _painted_ white. (I checked.) Looked ghastly, but hey, it wasn't my building."

and I replied, in the conventional manner;

"A practice known here in Australia as "tuckpointing"."

Do you understand *NOW*?

It's a little difficult to provide photographic evidence as there is very little genuine new brick structure building going on in NZ these days, in fact in my last ten days travelling 2,500km I didn't see any at all. I did work in the building industry in my student days (late '60s) and never ever saw any attempts to colour mortar, it was always white. From such a viewpoint I never considered that elsewhere builders would go to the trouble of colouring their mortar, but now you've brought it up I realise it's something I'd never bothered to consider or question! Of course white mortar weathers to off-white fairly quickly, but even weathered it's reasonably obvious that it started white or almost white. Steam train era brick buildings here didn't show white mortar, but I have no reason to think they started life as any other colour.

Martin, you very informatively told us that in Australia there was a practice known as "tuckpointing", but you omitted to give ANY indication as to what that practice was or is. Was that simple ommission or basic stupidity?

Regards, Greg.P.

The colour of mortar is not something I'd ever questioned, here in NZ it's always been white, so I've not built up a collection of photos to illustrate differences. Of course it weathers from (pure/near) white, and as far as I know there have been very few brick buildings built in the last 20 or so years. A quick check of the yellow pages shows the bricklaying craft to be approaching zero here so I'm unlikely to find any new examples. One can get bricklike facings, but I wouldn't stoop to photographing those as evidence.

Why would the mortar stain with dark bricks??? Do you also stain your clay to produce different coloured brick?

Regards, Greg.P.

Thanks; I was pointing out to Martin, who delights in picking every possible error I make, that he is not infallible. I know the process, called "repointing" here, but never heard of tuckpointing. We don't get "This Old House" here. (so far, but I guess they'll get to it eventually )^8

Regards, Greg.P.

I can imagine. The advantage I find in getting involved in these discussions is that once in a while I learn something - AFAIK we (NZ) don't, or didn't 50 years ago, have such practices here. Sure, there's the occassional brick house with coloured mortar in recent years, but the norm here has always been variations on red-oxide bricks and (initially near) white mortar. I assumed, without putting any great thought into the subject, that the same would hold true elsewhere. I hope the reasonable individuals here won't think too badly of me for never having put in-depth thought into foreign brickwork!

BTW, I have a small stack of yellow fire bricks, gathered up from an old lime furnace demolished nearby.

Regards, Greg.P. NZ

Of course! The red comes about during the firing process as a part of the chemical reaction. Different reds through browns towards black can be created with different temperatures and firing times, in fact it's difficult to get the same precise result twice.

All those colour effects are relatively stable and will not stain the mortar.

Iron oxide will certainly stain mortar if water can penetrate the brick.

I never thought I was - well there was a moment back in 1967.

I'm incorrect about bricks??? I only commented on New Zealand bricks, so how wrong could I be?

Context? " >> A practice known here in Australia as "tuckpointing". "

So you're telling me Australians are stupid enough to waste their time painting the mortar between bricks. Is it any surprise I missed the context. Even I didn't think Aussies were that stupid!

Mark, old thickwit, if I supplied photos of white mortar between bricks, how would you know that they were genuine bricks and mortar and not those of some Aussie who couldn't find the airport and spent his days with a bottle of white-out beautifying his NZ house?

(Hokitika - Hokkaido is in Japan 8^)

You were on the west coast of the South Island. Those areas (I'm there right now) are a long way and a number of mountain passes from more dense population so heavier building materials such as tiles, bricks and blocks are more expensive than locally produced timber and cement. Typically homes here are timber framed and clad, with corrigated iron rooves. Brick buildings are uncommon.

Most likely that is "stucco", a concrete plaster applied to a timber clad building to reduce painting requirements. My own home is poured concrete, 6" thick. An unusual method of construction.

Brick houses aren't uncommon in city areas or near rural brickworks, but concrete blocks arrived in the 1950s and steadily replaced brick in new construction. I can't recall seeing a new brick house in 20 years. However, bricks are readily available at hardware outlets so I guess there must be some somewhere.

Off the top of my head, I'd guess at 1 in 25 houses are brick in Christchurch. (that's one word BTW, no second emphasis on the first ch of church)

Regards, Greg.P.