120

I was full of aspiration about today, but church, lunch with friends, Simon Peterson, a game of netball, a game of tennis, and dinner out got in the way.

116

Hamish Dean made his debut on site today, and it was a fine one. A few of us had been up till 4 am playing cards, so I was unlikely to be in particularly good form. And so it was. I had a headache that Panadol couldn’t beat. That being said, we managed a bit over 3 hours at it and worked some nice combinations, laying 29 bricks.

The bricks are 3 layers deep in places now, and I’m really pleased with how it is coming along. They’re really starting to look like walls now, solid and hard. Enthusiasm is high. If only I could sustain 20 bricks a day.

I have decided to abandon my post title notation. There are a few bricks, I don't know the exact number, that I've deemed unsuitable. I'm now just going to keep track of the number of bricks that I have laid.

87 / 515

Pasting mortar onto the brick that I’m going to insert dominates the world. The whole world. I’m not sure what went wrong the first time I tried it, but it is a really fast technique for me now.
Michael Peach provided some valuable assistance early in the day. It was so much easier having another person there.

Mike Green timed me late in the day and I laid 3 bricks in about 24 minutes. Not swift.

Mike started talking about making a window out of bottles. This idea was one that I’d written off. But when he showed me photos of them on his phone, I was back on the horse. That would be awesome.

63 / 515

Yeah yeah

54 / 515

17 bricks made on what was essentially a free day was a disappointing effort. Motivation is low for bricklaying. I did sleep twice during the day so maybe I wasn’t feeling too flash.

37 / 515

I returned from my trip not shattered as I had semi expected to be. What an awful sentence.

It seems that the cut I inflicted upon Paul during our normal scuffling around caused an infection. And it didn’t stop there. It proceeded to infect his whole system. Sorry mate.

I have taken great joy in posting photos on this blog whenever I have drawn blood, mostly minor scratches. Unfortunately Paul didn’t take a photo of his finger, but this is the colour his finger was:



Things sped up considerably today as I developed a new method of filling the gap between the bricks. I slapt mortar onto the face of the sitting brick and held it there until it gripped. Paul, Simon, and Alan stopped by today and they suggested the correct technique was to apply the mortar to the brick in hand then quickly slam that home. I’m sure that is the correct technique. I couldn’t get it working for me though.

I believe the stake may have raised as high as 20 cents should Alan manage to touch a cow. He couldn’t.



I’m done using the concrete mixer to mix my mortar. I’m working with such small quantities at a time that there is no point using the mixer, most of the mortar gets stuck in there anyway.

Things weren’t fitting so well towards the end of the row I was working on today so I beat the end off a brick with the hammer. The resulting mangled end didn’t resemble square so a thick smear of mortar was needed. This section of shack is looking distinctly castle-like, though embracing none of that austere structure’s structural capability, nor moat.

23 / 516

Michael Peach helped out with some of the lame job of filling the vertical gaps between bricks. We got on a bit of a role with him doing that and me laying them. It was a lot easier to do with wider gaps between the bricks. This brick laying is going to take a long time.

517 became 516 when one of the bricks was deemed unsuitable for shack duties. Maybe it could still be suitable for ugly duties.

15 / 517

The laying of bricks, the culminating event of this project, is the worst job yet. I figure it took me a bit over 2 hours to lay 15 bricks. Frustrating. I was definetly getting faster toward the end, and it will be a bit easier once I’m up higher rather than scrabbling on my knees.

Getting the mortar to adhere to the side face of the brick is the hardest bit, I’m yet to get a good system going there. I tried smearing the side face with mortar, and some of it would hold on there, then jamming the brick up against that. But like a young boy being told to give his older girl cousins a hug, he just didn’t want to get in there close. My most successful technique from this point was poking mortar into the gap with a stick. Amatuer. I am amatuer.

I hope my mortar mix is ok. It looks pretty dry, but I figure I need it like that in order to push it into position. The bricks do feel really solidly anchored once they are down, so that has to be a positive thing.

My line of bricks wasn’t particularly straight, nor was it level. The level was the fault of the foundation, so over a number of layers I’ll bring it back to horizontal. The straight though is my fault, I just need to be more careful.

78 / 517

I’m pretty pleased with my first day’s bricklaying. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Donald Crowhurst stopped by and we made rapid progress, laying 78 bricks in a bit under 3 hours. Loving it.

517

I didn’t lay any bricks today. Again cycling formed a big part of my day. I spent maybe 2-3 hours on the shack. With Andrew’s assistance I got the bottom layer of black paper on and got the concrete mixer into position. Then I started putting the string up to act as a guide for the brick level. Not easy. I attached some temporary wood to the roof that I’ll put nails into to determine the brick line. Tomorrow there will be bricks. Surely.