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Watched a crew in Tampa lay a brick wall without checking the level every third course...
They got almost four feet up before the whole thing started to lean, and we had to tear it down. My old boss in Chicago always said 'trust your eyes, but check your level' and it's saved me so much time. How often do you guys actually check your level on a straight run?
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umar492d ago
Read a story in a trade magazine about a mason who swore by checking every single course on long runs. He said the human eye gets tricked by patterns after a while, so even a tiny error stacks up fast. His rule was to check the level and the plumb at each corner before moving on.
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My buddy did that on a garden wall last year. He was so sure it looked fine, ended up having to redo half of it. Now he checks every other course at least.
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That mason from the story is right about the eye getting tricked. You can stare at a line for so long it starts to look straight even when it's not. It's like when you're cutting a long board and you swear the pencil mark is good, but the saw proves you wrong. On a wall, a quarter-inch off on the first course is an inch off by the fourth. That's when you get that lean that you can't ignore.
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