Best way to scrape out high bedding mortar

[Chris May]

Hi

After having had two lots of resin mortar between natural stone slabs,fail after being put in by a contractor, we are going to repoint the joints ourselves. The bedding mortar in many places comes up almost to the top of the slabs and I read that there needs to be a reasonable depth for resin mortars to work. I guess that's why it all came out within 6 months of being done.

What's the best/easiest way to get the high mortar out without damaging the edges of the stone?

Any help will be much apprecaited as I'm not looking forward to spending days on my hands and knees with a hammer and bolster, it's a big area!

[lutonlagerlout]

what resin mortar was used?

did it begin with GEo?

depending how soft it is you can either rake out by hand with a plugging chisel or use an anglegrinder
either way after raking out use a "henry" type hoover to get all the detritus out of the joints.

i would recommend a gun pointed joint easipoint and instarmac both do gun pointing mortars that are very strong and uniform in colour
LLL

[Chris May]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Sorry don't know the name of it, but GEO does sound familiar. It was done quite a few years ago. There was a very strong smell of chemicals around the house for weeks afterwards but it never seemed to go very hard, you could push a fingernail into quite easily. It started coming out very soon after completion and after a few months more what was left went very black, it was sany coloured to start.

My other half wasn't keen on having it all done again with the same stuff, we don't know if they used it incorrectly or if there was something wrong with the resin mortar itself. The same company also used the same stuff on my next door neighbours concrete paving slabs and theirs all came out after about a year as well.

It's the bedding mortar that needs to be chipped out and it's rock hard,we think an angle grinder would destroy the edges of the slabs and some of the joints narrow down to less than a centimeter because of the rustic nature of the stone, hand cut.

We'll get one of those chisels, cheers for that. Do you not recommend the current brush in resin mortars? I hoped they might be improved now or perhaps the one that was used originally wasn't a very good one and we could get a better one. I'd prefer to use the resin mortar, if there's one that stays in, because we don't want mortar stains on the stone and it's a big area as well.

Are easipoint and instantarmac easy to get hold of retail?

[GB_Groundworks]

I use Rompox dran(drain) used correctly in the correct depth joints it's great stuff same for the other quality manufactures such as gtfk etc.

Your problem sounds poor workman ship and the use of the wrong resin product. They should have cleaned out the joints after bedding the slabs.

I would rake out the joints with an angle grinder or Stilh saw if you've got a steady hand you will be fine, or you can get those specialist mortar rakes for repainting easier on the knees and sanity than a hammer and chisel. If you do go down the mechanical way remember your gloves goggles mask and ear ddfbnders.



Edited By GB_Groundworks on 1281359292

[Chris May]

Cheers for this information. I've looked at the Romex stuff and it certainly sounds the business. I think we'll give it a try perhaps do a test area first before attempting all the patios and paths. We do have a small angle grinder so perhaps we'll give it a try if not we'll try a mortar rake.

Thanks for all this useful information, very much appreciated.

[GB_Groundworks]

There's some pics in the Craic of the last job we did with romex basalt grey thread called last few weeks in pictures.

[ilovesettsonmondays]

just a word of caution .a couple of years ago i was paving in the city centre .a guy stopped and asked if i would be interested in repointing a patio and path which had geofix between the slabs .it was about 2o m2 of indian stone .two of us went there one saturday morning ,took the firms stihl saw up there .luckily we had a few diamond blades in the pick up .it took two full diamond blades to grind 20 m2 out .luckily they were the firms blades otherwise we would have been working forv peanuts .

[lutonlagerlout]

i caught a cold last year raking out a patio
the slabs had been laid on wet concrete and it had forced its way up between the slabs
the mortar had failed but the guy kept showing me my quote saying "grind out to 38mm"
it was a nightmare
I wont get caught like that again
LLL

[rab1]

lucky for you lads that it wasn`t my patio. laid on a wet grano mix as it was free. :;):

[Pablo]

I've just completed the mother of all repointing jobs. It was about 230m2 of reclaimed 200x100 setts that were badly laid and the pointing was different strengths and finishes. Had 2 lads on it constantly with kangos rotating them every 2hrs or so. It took 18 days I could have nearly relaid it in that time. And I went through a kango and a makita chipper in the process. We then blasted all the debris out with a 4000psi washer which also cleaned them and removed the bits we'd missed nicely. A powerful washer will make mince meat of geofix and bedding mix.