On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 09:22:31 GMT, Lobster
wrote:

wimped
out of sand-blasting because an expert (now I think about it, it was
you, Anna, who put me on to him!)

That was rash of me. Generally when people mention sand blasting in my
hearing it is cos they want to remove paint and varnish from old
timbers. I throw my hands up in horror and say "Crunchie bar". In
future I will throw my hands up in horror when they mention brick and
sandblasting too

reckoned it would wreck the bricks.
So I just left it all alone and hope that the muck will weather away
eventually. But I did wonder about trying to cover it up - would your
brick-dust-treated limewash work? Never used limewash, how long would
it stay on an external wall? Wouldn't it just wash off?

I suppose so, but then you would have a painted brick wall - or would
you have the patience to paint each brick separately? Limewash
normally needs to be redone perhaps every 5-10 years depending on
exposure to the weather, though if you can colourmatch well to the
bricks then I spex you could get away with relimewashing less
frequently as you wouldn't need the perfect finish of a limewashed
wall. If applied correctly then limewash doesn't wash off as a one way
chemical reaction occurs as the lime sets.

As another possibility you could look up "tuck pointing" which is a
tried and tested method of tarting up old brickwork. The one time I
looked carefully at some tuck pointing I reckoned that close to it
didn't look very nice but that could have just been a poor example.
The general idea is to sharpen up the pointing with coloured lime
mortar to give the bricks more definition

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England
|""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs
/ ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc
|____| www.kettlenet.co.uk 01359 230642