Old timer at the brickyard in Toledo showed me the wet sponge trick and I've been using it since

Stella Bennett · 2026-10-14T20:35:04.726909+00:00

So last month I was laying a small garden wall for a guy in Toledo and this older fella named Ray was watching me from his porch across the street. He came over after about an hour and said my head joints were a little dry and that I should try keeping a wet sponge in my bucket. At first I thought he was just being nosy, but I tried it on the next course and the mortar just slid off the trowel way easier. He told me he laid brick for 38 years and that a damp sponge keeps the mortar from sucking the water out of the brick too fast, which stops the joints from cracking later. I finished that wall in half the time and the joints looked cleaner than anything I've done before. I bought him a six pack of Labatt and we sat on his porch talking about the old days at the local brickyard. I've been using the sponge trick on every job since and my foreman even asked where I learned it. Anyone else get shown something simple by an old timer that just changed how you work?

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Old timer at the brickyard in Toledo showed me the wet sponge trick and I've been using it since | Bricklayers - Librear