Steve (aren't you Steve, or am I confused again/still?),

Evidently you didn't have the pleasure of our company sometime back when one
of our esteemed unfortunate colleagues was working on a 1880's building with
sharp-edged molded-brick laid in butter joints, and had to figure out how to
repoint it after the mortar had turned to moosh and only remained in place
because the joints were so narrow.

Generally speaking, we of the Pinhead Persuasion are aware of the
too-hard-mortar, too-soft-masonry-unit problem, and the need for occasional
(OK, regular, cyclical) maintenance, given that nothing (except death, maybe,
depending on who you're talking to) is forever.

My question was, given the above, can we reasonably specify lime mortar
and/or lime putty in lieu of  cement (yeah, we use lime in it, too) mortar?
And are we not leaving our clients with a different (although potentially
lesser) problem of more frequent repointing, instead of the masonry damage
that can be expected in too-many cases as a result of too-hard cement mortar?
 Are we selling them  eye of newt instead of snake oil?

Ralph

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