Mortar should be mixed soft and sticky. It should stick to the bricks and or
stones. If it does not stick and falls off you are not adding enough water,
if it runs off you have too much water. A good test is to use a trowel, pick
up a batch, and tip the trowel upside down. If it stays on the underside of
the trowel it is good, sort of heavy whipped cream. Either that, or it is
not a good product.

Yes you can thin it to squeeze out of a bag, but loosely squeezing it
between the rocks will make for a poor joint, this method is only good for
touching-up the finish of the joints. You need to work the mix onto, between
the stones and behind the stones to get a good bond.


"gore" wrote in message
...
I'm pretty sure I know the cause of the stones falling out.See the gutter
on the ground smashed by the rocks? That should be on the house. It's been
on the ground since I re-sided the house last year, and we have had some
pretty heavy rain here lately. I put in new drywall and windows in the
room above about 3 years ago and haven't noticed any shifting or cracking
in the drywall, so I think it's pretty much not going anywhere at the
moment. However I am going to contact a foundation expert or 3 this week
to have the damage assessed. Today I want to set the rocks back in and I
bought the quickcrete mortar that I linked to from Lowes. The directions
call for troweling it on, but that is not working to well for me so I was
wondering if I could add a little more water to the mix to make it squeeze
out of one of those bags to get into the cracks better. Any harm in this?
will it shrink too much when it dries?

Thanks
Shane