Sunday 16 February 2014

Fremantle prison pointing & repairs - The good, the bad & the ugly

Here we have Fremantle prison with the old, the horrible & some new repairs.

The new repair is lime mortar but probably with standard purchased sand where as the original pointing is a mix made from the limestone which was quarried from the hill. You can see the original really matches the stone

& has a simple strike.

Original peach lime mortar on rubble

It amazes me that people are so obsessed with cement mortar in pointing stone.  Here is what was a wash house Id say. Oh, thats another story, Wish id taken a photo of Nanas wash house before it was dismantled.

Any rate here is an original example of peach mortar to match back with darker stone etc. Non-hydraulic mortar is so nice to use. Cement mortar goes off so fast and when it does it cant really be woken up with out issues.

The mortar in this stone would be potentially 200 years old when most modern houses are knocked down after 30 years of age.

If I have posted this before, forgive me, its my fav

Its original house


Original hand cut surface stones - mortar colour

This is my happy place. I went down thinking about this place to Freo and it took me there.

These are all original. Probably loose stones in surface sand hand cut and the mortar reflects it. These stones slaked would give the mortar the peach colour.

The mortar is also dressed with poor mans tuck pointing which uses the iron to produce the recess then the ribbon is actually painted in probably with a linseed made paint.

Id love a place like this.  The sound on the boards, just like grandpas shop, again

Fremantle stone pointing - The real mix

Today I went down to Freo again in search of my happy place again.  I discovered amongst all the bastardry some original pointing.

Notice the mortar is matched nearly to the stone. Its very simply struck but it looks great. Notice its aged together really well. The peach loam soil mixed with it would increase the strength of the mortar

This is like art to me.  Mixing this correct is no easy feat..

Wish I was there in the time they did it; well, for a week.



#fremantle