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Used to butter joint everything, now I only point with a tuck pointer
I switched about 2 years ago when a homeowner called me back three times on the same garden wall because the buttered joints kept cracking in the freeze-thaw cycles in Buffalo. Has anyone else seen better long-term results with tuck pointing over buttering fresh brickwork?
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casey_barnes1mo ago
Tuck pointing is good and all but I had a guy argue with me for 20 minutes once that using a margin trowel was the only real way to do fresh work. Wouldn't shut up about how his grandpa did it and tuck pointers were a crutch. I just let him talk while I finished the wall. Next spring his wall looked like Swiss cheese and mine was fine. Weather wins every time up in the northeast. You can have the best technique in the world but if the freeze gets in it will find every weak spot. That's why I stopped buttering entirely on exterior work.
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