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TIL a guy in his 70s showed me how he keeps his line blocks true with a string and a Sharpie
I was laying a garden wall for a lady in Boise last Tuesday, nothing special, about 200 bricks and a cap course. This older fella who lives next door wandered over with his coffee and just watched me for a while, and I figured he was going to tell me my mix was too wet or something. Instead he asked if he could show me a trick his dad taught him back in the 60s, and he pulled a chalk line and a Sharpie out of his jacket pocket. What he does is snap the line down the face of the course he already laid, then mark the line on both corner bricks with the Sharpie so when he strings up the next course he can eyeball it against those marks instead of trusting the line blocks alone. I tried it on the rest of that wall and my joints came out way more even than usual, especially on the long runs where the string always wants to sag in the middle. He said he has been doing it that way for 40 years and never had a course walk on him. Anyone else got little habits like that from the old timers, or am I the only one who never heard of marking the corners?
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dylangreen9d ago
So a guy snaps a chalk line on a wall you just laid and marks two bricks with a pen, and that's supposed to be some big secret? It's a level check you do with your eyes, nothing more. Seems like a handy habit for long runs, sure, but calling it the reason a course never walks on you is a stretch.
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