The crowbar and pick-axe are the tools used for demolishing old brickwork or clearing out rubbish; the sieve ([see large cut]) for sifting the lime of which the mortar is made, and the rammer for hardening the ground to render the foundation firm. The raker is used for raking out the mortar from the joints of old brickwork which requires re-pointing, or the joints refilled with mortar.
To “set out” the work, which means to measure the spaces, and to keep the lines, curves, and angles, straight and true, the bricklayer uses the square, the level, the plumb-rule; the square shows whether the proper angle has been preserved; the plumb-rule is an upright rule, with a string at one end, to which is attached a leaden ball. If the work is straight on its perpendicular lines, and the plumb-rule be applied to it, this leaden ball will hang exactly in the centre, and swing through a hole in the rule, while, if the work be crooked, it will swing to one side. The level is a rule on the same principle, but for testing horizontal lines, such as a cornice on the top of a wall. The good bricklayer will frequently test his work by these tools, and will also use a line stretched to two pins, to guide him as he builds up his courses of bricks.
The bricks and mortar are supplied to him by a labourer, who carries them in a hod. The labourer also makes the mortar, and builds up and takes down the scaffolding ([see large cut]). The scaffolding, or that frame of poles and planks erected in front of the building as it is in progress, is constructed of standards, ledgers, and putlogs.
The standards are poles made of fir trees, from forty to fifty feet long, and six or seven inches thick at the butt ends, which are firmly fixed in the ground. When one pole is not long enough, two are lashed together, the rope lashings being tightened by wedges driven in between the coils in a peculiar way. The ledgers are horizontal poles placed parallel to the walls and lashed to the standards; these support the putlogs, or cross pieces, which are about six feet long, one end of them resting in the wall, the other on the ledgers. On these putlogs are fastened the scaffold boards, which are stout boards with pieces of iron hoop placed round the ends, to keep them from splitting.
Level. Cutting Chisel. Square. Line and Plumb. Hod.
A bricklayer and his labourer will lay about a thousand bricks, or two cubic yards of brickwork, in a day.
The tools used for tiling, or placing the tiles on a roof, are the lathing hammer, the iron lathing staff to clinch the nails, the trowel, which is longer and narrower than that used for brickwork, the bosse, for holding mortar and tiles, with an iron hook to hang it to the laths or to a ladder, and the striker a piece of lath about ten inches long for clearing off the superfluous mortar at the feet of the tiles.
