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A retired guy in Des Moines told me to butter my trowel and I still can't decide if he was right
So I'm laying block on a garage in Des Moines back in April and this retired mason named Ray stops by to watch. He's got 40 years in the trade and tells me his old crew wiped their trowels with a little lard before spreading mortar. Says the mortar slides off cleaner and the trowel doesn't drag. My foreman thinks it's nonsense and says you just keep your trowel clean and your mortar mixed right. I tried it on one course and honestly the mortar did come off the blade easier but I can't tell if I was just paying more attention. Ray swore it saved his wrists over a whole career. So here's the question: is buttering your trowel a real old school trick or just something Ray's crew got superstitious about in 1978? Half of me thinks it's legit and half of me thinks a clean trowel does the same thing. Anybody here ever work with a guy who did this?
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