Matching mortar for brickwork and blockwork joints
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Oct 20, 2023
Matching sand and cement mortar for brickwork joints and blockwork joints can be done to a pretty exact standard but it does take some patience and a bit of time. Using mortar toners and variations on the sand to cement ratio it can be seen from the video tutorial that most colours can be obtained. For more help and tips, see our project here: https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/Matchmortar.htm
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0:00
We're looking at how to match existing mortars in walls, stone walls, brick walls, block walls or whatever
0:16
We get a lot of inquiries about how do I get the same colour? Well, there's a number of different ways and it's basically just a trial and error really
0:25
You'll see here I've got some ever builds mortar tone. powder tone, powder tone, red, buff and black
0:36
So they're the three I have down in front of me. Behind them I've got four samples of mortar and another three behind
0:46
So I'll explain what we've done. These three here are straightforward sand and cement mix in this particular case that was a four to one mix
0:54
with red dye, black dye and yellow dye. The important thing to remember when you using mortar tongue is to mix the dye with the cement before you put it into the mix So you mix the dye and the cement dry mix it all up and then put it into the mix
1:14
and the distribution then is much more even throughout the mix. The mortar toners themselves, you can read the instructions because they're all slightly
1:23
different but it normally works out for a lightish colour. This is quite dark, okay
1:29
So that's about 2 kilograms of toner into 50 kilograms of cement, or 1 kilogram per 25 kilogram bag
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So that's the darker colour, so that's a kilogram of toner into a 25 kilogram bag of cement
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Less toner gives you a lighter colour. Now, behind that we have different sand and cement mixes
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This is a 2 to 1 mix. on my left to your right hand side three to one three sand one cement four
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sand one cement five sand one cement so you can see there's a very slight
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variation as we move up in sand content versus cement content we do these we measure it carefully on site we would have a large version of this These are called gauge boxes
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We use little tubs, so that's one sand, one cement. If you just wanted to use a little bit, we've even used a teaspoon
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to measure three sand, for example, one cement. As long as they're even, it doesn't matter
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Let it dry, it will give you an example of the colour
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It's no good doing it when it's wet, because it's not. when it's wet because it will be darker. So wait for it to dry
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hold it against the brickwork you want to match. And then we can have a mixture of sand and cement
2:50
and toners. So we have here, this is a yellow toner mixed at two to one
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and this is a yellow toner mixed at five to one. So you can see the color's slightly different
3:00
The more sand, i.e. less cement, that's slightly darker, the color comes out
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And if you rub it, you can see, I don't know if the camera can zoom in on that
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but you can see the colour you're going to get this is yellow and black and a
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two to one mix so really what I trying to say is that the possibility is using the toner and the different cement mixes are endless you can make variations of it so have us have a have an experiment at home and you be getting closer to the colour that you really want to achieve and
3:34
you can end up then you won't end up with a mismatching mortar bed as you've
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seen in the very in the close-up shot and the final thing that we can do is this has its own separate video. This is called Bevington's
3:55
weathering tin. It's a really straightforward process. You put the fluid in the top
4:02
adding various amounts of water to weaken it. Using a paintbrush, you can paint on the
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mortar joints and that will help you match any colour you like. So please go and have a look
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at our separate video on Bevington's weathering tint and between the weathering tint
4:20
the ever-built toners and the different sands and cements the permutations are absolutely endless
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