Dry grouting problem - advice needed! - Problems with dry grouting flags/cobbles

[barrington]

Hi,

I dry grouted some yorkstone flags using a 4 building sand:1cement mix last week, brushed in, tamped using pointing iron a few times brushing in more then took a watering can to the flags to try to help get the mix to go off (i didn't soak it by any stretches but didn't think i'd need to). But this was over a week ago and the mix hasn't gone off properly, its still quite soft to touch. Will it just take longer or should it have gone off by now? I do a bit of pointing but not done it on flags before & not used to dry mixes.

Does anyone have any ideas on what has gone wrong?

I'm just raking out some joints in setts (they're filled to about 1" below surface with grano then had a dry mix brushed in last time i think). I was just going to rake out the mortar then brush in a dry mix but after it not going off last time i'm a bit worried about it going wrong. Any advice welcome on this! Cheers

[lutonlagerlout]

barrington fella its hard to not take the mick out of new posters
dry pointing is a total fail
the method you have described is beloved of the travelling community and the cowboys
having said that it was the way i was taught
grab a cup of tea ,pull your chair closer and read this
LLL