OK, I actually have a question.

A lovely church in the area recently had a fieldstone wall repointed. The
wall probably dates to the late 1860's-- irregular coursed, rubble stone,
probably quarried from the local quaries in town-- about 3' high.

The repointing job looks like crap. The original joints are much neater,
probably measuring about 3/4 of an inch to an inch in most places (that's
just a guess), with a nice bead; whereas, the new mortar color doesn't match,
and the joints are much, much thicker-- sort of smeared/feathered the mortar
up over the stone, I imagine.

Does anyone have any thoughts or comments on the likelyhood of this
repointing job actually harming the wall? Crappy aesthetics aside, I doubt
there was any attempt to figure out how the original mortar was formulated.

-Heidi