The Brew Cabin

I have seen moulten lead 'pointing' of flagstones, I wish to reproduce this on my patio. Do you have any advice on this potentially hazardous practice.

Bearing in mind all the problems that lead smelters and people living in their neighbourhood have suffered over the years, the alst thing you would want to be doing is melting lead on your patio.

Having said that we used to get bits of lead from the printing works and melt them in a baked bean tin on the gas ring, and it doesn't seem to have affected me too much!

Lead pointing was used very, very rarely, and usually on specific projects that, for one reason or another, couldn't accept a standard lime mortar or cement mortar joint. The biggest problem with lead jointing was that it was prone to mysteriously disappearing overnight, much like the lead from church roofs.

I've never used lead pointing in over 30 years of laying flags, and the only time I've ever seen it is on a certain ecclesiastical property in the north-east of England, which I won't name for fear of it being visited by the lead goblins when darkness falls.

Where have you seen it, Danny? Send the answer by email or use the confidential Messenger system above, if you prefer. I wonder if we're both talking about the same place?

Personally, I can't see any advantage to lead jointing of paving. It doesn't form a watertight joint, as you'd get with a mortar or with pitch; it goes dull with time, so no-one can tell it's lead unless they look very carefully, and you can achieve a similar effect using a dusting of lead, tin or solder on top of a 'proper' mortar joint.

If you must, though, then all I can advise is that you get yourself kitted up with a mask, long gloves, decent boots and use a long-handled pitch-pot over a gas ring, which you can get from any decent Hire Shop. I'm not sure what grade of lead you should use - perhaps a plumbing specialist could advise, or you might be able to get more info from British Lead Mills (BLM).

I'd be interested to hear how it goes, and, if you do lead your joints, I'd love to see pictures! :)

I think you will have a lot of trouble pointing with lead, when it is molten it will act like water and most of it will end up running under the flags in to any small voids.If i was you I would try a small test aria first before spending a lot of money on lead.

Danny mentioned, in a private email, that he was planning to partially fill the joints with a semi-dry sand & cement mix before pouring in the molten lead. He's hoping that the semi-dry grout will help 'dam up' any voids or escape routes and so avoid wasting too much lead, much the same as is done when working with molten pitch.