The Brew Cabin

Let me tell you about the bad time I have had laying granite setts in my new patio.
I followed the advice on your website and went for European fan ridged construction, apart from hitting my fingers with the rubber hammer a few times and a few blisters every thing went according to plan. Feeling a bit adventurous I decided to point them up with pitch, this was the start of my trouble. I have a friend who is a roofer so I lent his tar boiler filled it with pitch and away I went, as it heated up it was gurgling and popping and making me vary nervous.when the pitch was molten I pored it in to the can and started pointing. Having no experience I got a lot of pitch on to the setts, I thought it would just peel off, but it stuck like **** to a blanket no amount of scraping would get it off. After much experimentation I found a jet wash was the best tool to remove it and then it came off fairly easily. After talking to my friend the roofer he suggested lightly damping the rest of the setts before finishing off the pointing, I tried this and the pitch came off the top of the setts easily. Any one out there pointing with pitch I would suggest pointing a small aria first before going mad like I did.
Any way now the setts are finished they look beautiful Thanks Tony and your website for giving me the inspiration to go for it.

It's true that the molten pitch doesn't bond as strongly to damp setts - I suspect it's probably because the pitch is cooled so quickly by the water present - but the type of sett is equally important. If you have a fine-grained igneous or metamorphic sett, such as granite, basalt or gneiss, then the pitch spillage seems to peel off quirte easily, but the porous sedimentary setts, such as the gritstone and sandstone setts of northern England, the pitch seems to penetrate the pores and become stuck fast.

Wetting the setts before applying the pitch is a good idea: in fact, I may add this point to the page dealing with pitch jointing, but then great care needs to be taken because standing water and boiling pitch are a bloody dangerous combination. If you choose to dampen down your setts before sealing with pitch, give it a few minutes to soak in and for all small pools or puddles to disappear before pouring in the pitch.