When new pointing stands out on a New York wall, the joint is rarely the problem. The color is. Usually the mortar was mixed to suit the weathered face of the old joints, chosen while still wet, or tinted to cover for the wrong sand. A good color match is settled long before anything goes into the mixer.
Mortar is about a fifth of what you see on a New York brick wall. The Brick Industry Association puts it at roughly 20 percent of the surface, so a joint in the wrong color changes the look of the whole front. NPS Preservation Brief 2 explains where that color comes from. Sand is the largest part of any mortar and gives it its color and texture, and when the sand is right, the rest usually falls into place.
As a custom color brick pointing contractor in NYC we start with sand, not dye. We break open old joints in several places to see their true color, choose sand to suit it, and let a trial sample cure before anyone judges it. That is what custom mortar matching means in practice, and where a job calls for it we can arrange a laboratory analysis as well. Raking out and filling the joints follows the same method as brick pointing NYC.
A color that looked right in the bucket can look wrong on the wall a few weeks later.
These are the usual reasons, and each one is avoidable.
Weather wears binder off an old joint’s face, leaving more sand showing. Mortar mixed to suit that face sits wrong beside New York joints.
Mortar keeps changing as it cures. A color chosen from the fresh mix on an NYC job is a guess until the joint has cured.
Pigment cannot fix the wrong sand. NPS Brief 2 makes it a last resort on New York walls, after sand and colored aggregates fail.
Tooled too soft, mortar finishes lighter. Tooled too hard, it streaks dark. On a New York wall, timing matters as much as the mix.
If the look you are after is a fine line of contrasting color over each joint, that is tuckpointing NYC, a separate technique.
Four things that decide whether a match holds up once the work is finished.
NPS Brief 2 allows pigment only when natural sand and colored aggregates cannot get there, and then only synthetic mineral oxides, no more than 10 percent of the cement by weight, with carbon black held to 2 percent. On an NYC wall, sand does nearly all the work.
The Brief warns that one building can carry several mortar colors from different periods. Taking old mortar from several places on a New York facade shows which color is original and which came from a later campaign.
Historic mortar is often assumed to have a white binder, but gray cement was available by the last quarter of the 19th century. On NYC brick from those decades, the right base can be gray rather than white.
A small panel built the way the main job will be built becomes the benchmark for everything after it. On a New York wall the owner approves the cured panel, and the rest of the work is checked against it.
Small pieces of old mortar come out of different parts of the NYC wall and are broken open. The unweathered inside shows the true color, the grains of sand and whether the binder was gray or white.
Sand is chosen to suit what the old mortar showed, and small samples are left to cure for about a week at roughly 70°F, as NPS Brief 2 describes. Then they are broken open and compared against the original from the New York wall.
The chosen mix goes into a small panel on the NYC wall using the same techniques as the main job. Once it has cured and you have approved it, that panel is the standard every later joint is held to.
Patchy pointing on a New York wall usually traces back to a decision made too early. Someone looked at the weathered face of an old joint, picked a color from a chart, mixed it, and judged it wet. The joints that result can be perfectly sound and still look wrong for years. The fix is not a better dye. It is opening the old mortar to see its real color, choosing the sand to suit it, letting a sample cure before judging, and holding the rest of the work to an approved panel. Do that, and new joints on an NYC wall settle in beside the old ones.
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By matching the sand first. NPS Preservation Brief 2 says sand gives mortar most of its color and texture. Old mortar is taken from several spots, broken open to show its unweathered inside, and a trial sample is cured before comparing. On an NYC wall, pigment comes in only if sand cannot get there.
Usually because it was matched to the weathered face, where binder has eroded and more sand shows, or because it was tooled too soft. NPS Brief 2 notes mortar tooled too soft comes out lighter than expected. On a New York wall, matching the unweathered inside avoids most of it.
It can, but NPS Brief 2 generally advises against staining new mortar. Old and new mortar weather at different rates, so a stain that looks right now can drift, and some staining mixtures can harm masonry. On an NYC wall, a slight difference is usually best left to age.
About a week. NPS Brief 2 describes curing a trial sample at roughly 70°F for about a week, then breaking it open and comparing it with the old mortar. A color judged on fresh mortar at a New York job site is a guess, since the mix keeps changing as it cures.
Often because it was pointed at different times. NPS Brief 2 notes that a single building can carry several mortar colors from different construction periods. On an NYC facade, sampling from several places shows which color is original and which came from a later campaign of repairs.
Not usually. NPS Brief 2 says a laboratory analysis is most useful for identifying the sand, and that a specification should not rest on it alone. Careful sampling and cured trials settle most NYC jobs, and where a building needs more certainty, we can arrange a mortar analysis.
Roughly a fifth of what you see. The Brick Industry Association puts mortar at about 20 percent of a brick wall’s surface. That is why the shade of a perfectly sound joint can still change how a whole New York front reads, and why color deserves its own attention.
