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Pro tip: the guy on the scaffold next to me at the Aurora job said he taps every brick twice before laying it
I was on a three story apartment job in Aurora last Tuesday and the older guy working the scaffold next to me kept tapping each brick twice with his trowel handle before buttering it. I asked him why and he said it tells him if the brick is cracked or rings hollow, and he's been doing it 31 years so I figured he knows something. I tried it for the rest of the week and caught two bad bricks in one pallet that I would've laid without thinking. Now I'm wondering if I'm just slower for no reason or if this is a real habit worth keeping. Any of you old timers do the tap test or is it just him?
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riley_sanchez462d ago
Tapping doesn't really test your hearing like that, it's more about the sound the brick itself makes so even a guy with beat up ears can feel the difference in the ring. @sam_wood60 is kinda mixing up two things there. The tap is telling you about the brick, not your ears.
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sam_wood602d ago
Man, nobody ever talks about what this does for your ears over a career. All that tapping is basically a free hearing test every single brick, and us masons are already half deaf by fifty from mixers and saws. I bet the old guys who tap can still hear a hollow brick long after the rest of us are guessing.
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