deGruchy's Mortar
....Just add water!

For doing repointing work, stucco and plaster work or for laying up masonry units with a significant CO2 savings over modern materials used for the same applications.
Our on-line calculator gives the CO2 savings result you receive.

deGruchy's Mortar, in any of the stock colors, are simply a prepared blend of binder/aggregate/pigments to which you just add water, mix and go to work. Use it to repoint historic buildings, stucco and build new buildings which are considered a Green Application and result in a desired "Old World" Lime finish. It is as simple as mixing the mortar with water using a high torque industrial electric drill and a rigid paddle attachment in five-gallon pail or using a mason's paddle-style mortar mixer. The bag weight is 38.5 pounds.

deGruchy's Mortar is coded as "DGM" followed by a number to correspond to a certain stock mortar color. "SCG" on bags means "Standard Construction Grade" where no pigment is added. Type "F" stands for "fine sands" for the application of butter joint repointing, fine jointed Ashlar stonework and for smooth stuccos. Type "G" stands for "coarse granules" for most all other applications. The granules in Type G are coarse in comparison to the fine sands in a Type F mortar, but the coarse granules are likened to regular mason's sand that meets ASTM C-144 standards for sharp, well-graded sand. The coarse grains are not as coarse as typical concrete sand. Both the Type F and Type G sands have four grades of sand making up the majority of the component sizes in the entire sand blend. All Stock Mortars are made with NHL 3.5 and “G” type sand blend. Mortar (F) with fine sand is also made with NHL 3.5 and is a stock product in the SCG Non-Pigmented color only. All other mixes are considered a custom blend.

The advantage of the pre-blended material with sand and pigment already added is that the mixing can take place on each level of scaffold, if suitable conditions allow using the drill and paddle mixing method, with no excess sand piles or other bags of material stored on site. deGruchy's pre-blended mortar is all you need. Having all the materials in one bag reduces the temptation for masons to add Portland cement to the straight Natural Hydraulic Limes thinking this is what is customary when they use local type S hydrated lime. The pre-blended material ensures that the engineering of the mortar’s final properties is kept in a high quality control environment with the right sand and the right pigments for consistent color.

Lime Mortar And Color-Matching System
NO Portland Cement is present deGruchy’s mortars. deGruchy’s mortars will still reach over 750 p.s.i. as is required for a type N mortar while maintaining a high permeability that is beneficial for repointing and repair work on historic structures originally built with lime and sand mortar.

Mortars can be used for sustainable applications in stucco, interior plaster, laying up of masonry units, stonework and as historic building repointing mortars.

The colors shown below represent the 9 stock Mortar colors. Click on the image of the mortar kit to open the image in another window for printing it.

Lime Mortar Kit and Color-Matching System

An Mortar kit has the 9 stock colors of Mortar and 4 custom blends using our stock colors. The four example blends have some commonly found inclusions added to more closely match some typical historic mortar joints.This is done as an example of how you could use the 9 stock colors to produce hundreds of new shades and find ones specific to your various applications. The 4 custom blends have the inclusions and aggregates slightly exposed to duplicate a weathered surface in order to demonstrate how you can tweak the final appearance of a mortar to make it an indistinguishable match such as for patch pointing applications on historic buildings. You can hold one or more of these strips up to the original mortar on a building to ascertain which stock color or blend may be a match. deGruchy's Mortar colors are earth tone shades developed over 25 years to duplicate the majority of the mortar colors found on vintage buildings throughout the United States. You can add local aggregates from your region in various degrees in order to more closely match the color and texture of the building’s original mortar joints when the joints are properly tooled.

Please call for advice or if you need service regarding where to mail samples for mortar analysis in order to have a custom mortar duplicated or to design a mix if one of our stock colors or blends will not suffice.

The cost of the mortar kit is $20.00 (US) and includes shipping to the address you specify.
Click here to order your kit or call Lime Works.US at 215-536-6706 to order a kit or for further information.

For more extensive museum quality repairs please consider ordering a Building Conservator’s “Available Aggregate/Sand Library.” These are the aggregates available for custom Mortar mixes intended to be used by the design of architectural conservators to more closely simulate original sands and inclusions found in historic mortar formulations.

The cost is $40 (US) and includes shipping to the address you specify. Click here to order your sand library or call LimeWorks.US at 215-536-6706 to order a kit or for further information.

Documents:

Type G Mortar Data Sheet (Submittal)

Type F Mortar Data Sheet (Submittal)

Mortar Sieve Analysis

Water Ratios and Proper Mixing of Colored Mortars