I have just finished a brick wall around my front garden. I have ordered
some natural sandstone copings, with wrought iron railings to go on top.
Could anyone please advise me on the best mortar mix (and any other
hints) to lay the sandstone on top of the brickwork. Being on a main
road with heavy pedestrian traffic, I want the copings to be secure.
Many thanks
Peter Morrill

Peter Morrill wrote:

I have just finished a brick wall around my front garden. I have ordered
some natural sandstone copings, with wrought iron railings to go on top.
Could anyone please advise me on the best mortar mix (and any other
hints) to lay the sandstone on top of the brickwork. Being on a main
road with heavy pedestrian traffic, I want the copings to be secure.
Many thanks
Peter Morrill

Mmm. Pretty much any mix will probably do. I have laid bricks and stones
with wildly varyg mixes from 2:1 to 20:1 sand/cement.

The porosity goes down and brittleness goes up with more cement.

Adding hydrated lime reduces the brittleness and makes a really nice mortar.

Try 1:1:6 lime/cement/sand.

Or 3:1 sand/cement.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
Peter Morrill wrote:

I have just finished a brick wall around my front garden. I have ordered
some natural sandstone copings, with wrought iron railings to go on top.
Could anyone please advise me on the best mortar mix (and any other
hints) to lay the sandstone on top of the brickwork. Being on a main
road with heavy pedestrian traffic, I want the copings to be secure.
Many thanks
Peter Morrill

Mmm. Pretty much any mix will probably do. I have laid bricks and stones
with wildly varyg mixes from 2:1 to 20:1 sand/cement.

The porosity goes down and brittleness goes up with more cement.

Adding hydrated lime reduces the brittleness and makes a really nice mortar.

Try 1:1:6 lime/cement/sand.

Or 3:1 sand/cement.

I would add some PVA to the mortar used for capping on a wall.
Helps stop it lifting off. I use about a teaspoon of PVA per
2 shovel loads of sand, mixed into the water. (Actually, much
easier to mix the water into the PVA in equal quantities at
first, and then add more water to dilute it down.) There's a
waterproof PVA which I happen to use because I have it, but
I don't know if it makes any difference over the ordinary PVA.

--
Andrew Gabriel

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:

Peter Morrill wrote:


I have just finished a brick wall around my front garden. I have ordered
some natural sandstone copings, with wrought iron railings to go on top.
Could anyone please advise me on the best mortar mix (and any other
hints) to lay the sandstone on top of the brickwork. Being on a main
road with heavy pedestrian traffic, I want the copings to be secure.
Many thanks
Peter Morrill

Mmm. Pretty much any mix will probably do. I have laid bricks and stones
with wildly varyg mixes from 2:1 to 20:1 sand/cement.

The porosity goes down and brittleness goes up with more cement.

Adding hydrated lime reduces the brittleness and makes a really nice mortar.

Try 1:1:6 lime/cement/sand.

Or 3:1 sand/cement.


I would add some PVA to the mortar used for capping on a wall.
Helps stop it lifting off. I use about a teaspoon of PVA per
2 shovel loads of sand, mixed into the water. (Actually, much
easier to mix the water into the PVA in equal quantities at
first, and then add more water to dilute it down.) There's a
waterproof PVA which I happen to use because I have it, but
I don't know if it makes any difference over the ordinary PVA.


I found that the lime addition - which I really did to get a color and
texture - seemd to make the mortar stickier. Have you tried both? I'd be
interested to hear the difference. I dis use a bit of PVA in osme mixes
but to nbe hinest, I couldn;t tell teh difference, and irrsepectve if
what I used and how dry the mixture was, it all seemed to cure bloody
solid in the end.

Peter Morrill wrote:
I have just finished a brick wall around my front garden. I
have ordered some natural sandstone copings, with wrought
iron railings to go on top.

How are the railings to be fixed?


Could anyone please advise me on the best mortar mix (and any
other hints) to lay the sandstone on top of the brickwork.

What sort of sandstone is it?


Being on a main road with heavy pedestrian traffic, I want the
copings to be secure.

What! Thay're going to steal them??


J.B.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:

I found that the lime addition - which I really did to get a color and
texture - seemd to make the mortar stickier.

Yes, but not once it's set. The lime eventaully becomes chalk,
which is not known for its tensile strength. I do use lime in
mortar for work in lime mortar buildings, but that's precisely
because you don't want the mortar firmly bonded to the bricks.
I wouldn't use it where you want the mortar to glue something in
place, like the top exposed layer of a wall.

For the colour effect alone, you can buy white cement.

--
Andrew Gabriel

Subject: Mortar mix for sandstone copings
From: Jerry Built
Date: 11/08/04 09:16 GMT Daylight Time
Message-id:

Peter Morrill wrote:
I have just finished a brick wall around my front garden. I
have ordered some natural sandstone copings, with wrought
iron railings to go on top.

How are the railings to be fixed?


Could anyone please advise me on the best mortar mix (and any
other hints) to lay the sandstone on top of the brickwork.

What sort of sandstone is it?


Being on a main road with heavy pedestrian traffic, I want the
copings to be secure.

What! Thay're going to steal them??

People (well drunken layabout chavs anyway) pull them off for fun, especially
at chucking out time. I have a double thickness brick wall 1 metre high along
my pavement frontage and every ten feet there's a pillar 15" square with a
coping on top. I'd regularly find one or more lying on the lawn on Saturday and
Sunday mornings. Although my street is all private houses and quite posh
there's a council estate just past the far end of it and it's the main route
between there and the local pubs. Wish I'd known that before I bought the
place. One day there was half a pillar lying on the lawn with the coping still
attached. They'd tried to pull it off but the mortar had actually failed about
4 brick courses down so there was this lump weighing the best part of 1cwt
buried in the grass.

Over time I lost every bloody coping so I had them all reattached and planted
Leylandii a couple of feet from the wall. Now those have grown up and over the
wall so they protect the copings and no one has bothered with them since. They
also stop kids running up and down on the wall which was another reason the
copings came loose.

No idea what mortar mix the guy used though but I asked him to make it as
strong as possible given the existing vandal problem and it certainly stuck
them down solidly enough.
--
Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines (www.pumaracing.co.uk)

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
The Natural Philosopher writes:
I found that the lime addition - which I really did to get
a color and texture - seemd to make the mortar stickier.

Yes, but not once it's set. The lime eventaully becomes chalk,
which is not known for its tensile strength.

Mortar or concrete in general are not known for tensile strength!

I do use lime in
mortar for work in lime mortar buildings, but that's precisely
because you don't want the mortar firmly bonded to the bricks.
I wouldn't use it where you want the mortar to glue something in
place, like the top exposed layer of a wall.

1:1:6 is still pretty tough stuff compared to plain lime
mortar. If you want to stick the cappings down a cement/PVA
slurry brushed on before they are bedded will make them
stay put quite unnecessarily well. Simply soaking the
surfaces is probably enough - I'd personally rather that
any stress from movement is released through the mortar,
rather than the sandstone.

For the colour effect alone, you can buy white cement.

Yup, that's good for effect when (say) grouting paving
flags/slabs, but not for (say) pointing lime-mortared
brickwork. Presumably that's why you say "colour effect
only" above!.


J.B.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:

I found that the lime addition - which I really did to get a color and
texture - seemd to make the mortar stickier.


Yes, but not once it's set. The lime eventaully becomes chalk,
which is not known for its tensile strength. I do use lime in
mortar for work in lime mortar buildings, but that's precisely
because you don't want the mortar firmly bonded to the bricks.
I wouldn't use it where you want the mortar to glue something in
place, like the top exposed layer of a wall.

For the colour effect alone, you can buy white cement.

I used white cement AND lime.