Dust Free Brick Raking

This was Bo's first ever attempt at raking out brick joints. So we equipped him with an alien piece of equipment and let him get on with it. The prospective client wanted a small test area repointed in different styles, so they could chose which to apply across the whole property, a 1970's brick-built detached property, currently with recessed mortar joints. Being a relatively young property, the mortar joints are in good condition, so a powerful angle grinder and a quality raking blade are essential to achieve good productivity. Being in the centre of a rural village, both the client and the contractor were seeking a dust free method of carrying out the work.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Brick raking
• mortar raking
• joint raking
• repointing
• tuck pointing
• concrete cutting
• dust control
• dust extraction
• dust free raking

[RoberTastic]

hi what sized blade do you recommend for repointing they have .250" and .375" - another vid recommended a small blade to minimize damage, but is .375 small enough for a noob?

[manholebuddy]

@RoberTastic

a 1/4" (6.5 mm) blade is most commonly used as most bed joints are 3/8" (9-10 mm). Of course a narrower blade give you more clearance, but at the same time, you don't want to be leaving too much material in the joint. With a little practice, it is easy to cut straight and accurate.

[ChrisW12208]

@manholebuddy yeah them blades can ruin the brick and are hard to work with. Have you tried the mortar rakes that look like drill bits almost???  Go to wholesale tool co website and search for "mortar rake set". They have a really nice set for cheap there. I got mine there :-) They are like morta sortas

[manholebuddy]

@ChrisW12208

as a supplier, the bulk of our demand is for blades and dust control guards.

The Router bits have their uses but it seems that most professional re-pointers are happy with the blades, probably due to the much gretaer productivity that can be achieved.

That said, router bits are available if required.

[DoctorS8n]

What brand of grinder & guard system are you using?

[manholebuddy]

Guard is of PWM design and manufacture

Grinder in this instance is Hitachi G13se

Dust cowl can be factory configured to work with a range of specific angle grinders

[bucketrobbert]

whish nex door nayber builder used that machine the loppy twat

[ChrisW12208]

@manholebuddy  Thanks for the reply. Yeah I found something better than the router bits even. SDS powered mortar raking chisels. Look up Duro mortar chisels on youtube and you will see they are nice and fast and don't kick up dust or ruin the brick.

[RoberTastic]

@ijl66

u dirty boy

[RoberTastic]

@manholebuddy

thanks.. nice name by the way lol

[ijl66]

To slow and cumbersome, i do this for a living, much quicker without guard, but a lot dirtier!