Re-Pointing sand stone wall with tight joints

[dannyonthefarm]

Hi I need to re-point the frount of my house.

It is built of sand stone blocks, the problem I have is that some of the joints are very tight almost stone on stone.

I was thinking of making the joints a bit wider with a grinder but I am unsure if this is the right thing to do?

Also in a couple of places the joints are very deep is it ok to just fill these in one go as I do the pointing or should I fill these deep bits first and leave space for pointing when it has dryed?

Cheers

Danny

[brickpoint]

The traditional way to point this type of brickwork is to rake out the joints to a depth of at least 25mm (1 inch), you can use a small cold chisel for this or an angle grinder but the mess caused with an angle grinder has to be consisered as someone will have to clean up. The best mix for the pointing is a 6:1:1 mortar (6 sand : 1 hydrated lime : 1 portland cement) if you want it the normal grey colour but if you want to have coloured pointing use a 4:1 (4 sand :1 portland cement) plus the colour. All the mortar colours act as a plasticiser so there is no need for the lime or fairy liquid. Fairy liquid was banned in the 1960s as a plasticiser.

[TheDoctor4]

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