Shoutout to using an old butter knife for pointing work

I kept fighting with my pointing trowel in tight gaps on a repointing job near Portland last month. Turns out if you grind down the tip of a cheap butter knife, it fits perfect in old mortar joints and saves your wrists. Has anyone else improvised tools like that on a job?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_avery1mo ago

Yeah, that thing about grinding down the tip of a cheap butter knife is genius. I did something similar last year on a brownstone job where the joints were super jagged and tight. I took an old steak knife from a thrift store and ground the edge down to more of a chisel shape. Worked way better than my regular pointing tools for those weird spots where nothing else would fit. The real trick is making sure the tang goes all the way into the handle, otherwise it'll snap off when you're really leaning into a stiff mortar. I've also seen guys file down the sides of a butter knife to make it thinner for those really narrow gap situations. It's funny how something from the kitchen drawer can save you hours of frustration on the scaffold.

emma_clark1mo ago

Ain't that the truth though? I had a butter knife fail on me mid-repoint on an old stone foundation and ended up grabbing one of those little flathead screwdrivers from a glasses repair kit and ground it down. That little thing is still in my main tool pouch like three years later. The best tools always seem to come from the most random junk drawer moments, don't they?

chen.casey1mo ago

Right on, @the_avery touched on something real with that tang issue. Had a similar thing happen on a chimney cap repair up in the Cascades when my makeshift tool just snapped clean off after I got too aggressive with a stiff mix. Ended up having to climb down, dig through my truck for a random allen wrench I'd bent into a hook shape for pulling out old weed blocker fabric, and used that instead. Weirdly enough it held up better than the knife ever did. Sometimes the jankiest tool you throw together on a whim ends up being the one you keep reaching for the rest of the season.