Masonry: Masonry Terminology

In this video I will explore just some general terminology for masonry or rather brick construction. A typical standard common brick is two and a quarter inches by three and five eighths and eight inch dimension. So after you add the mortar it becomes a four by eight brick pretty much. So a withe is a complete section of a brick wall. This is a two-withe brick wall, for example, and there will be ties, truss ties or ladder ties between the two withes of this wall. So a course is just one layer of brick and it has bed joints versus head joints. These joints, the bed joints could be either weathered, which is struck that way, and that is to help with drainage of water, or a struck, which is not very popular because it leaves water right there, a rake joint, a concave joint, and this is all the tool that is used to strike the joint after the mortar has been laid. We have a V-joint, a flush joint, and an extruded joint. So the typical coursing that we may have is a regular stretcher course or a running bond stretcher course where the next brick comes in here and sits in here. So that's a running bond where the overlap is half of a brick. So a stretcher course versus a row lock course, basically it's this face of the brick that is showing versus in a stretcher course, it's the long face of the brick. And then if you flip it on its side, if you flip the row lock on its side, you get a header course, typically over openings. Or if you stand the brick up so that the eight inch dimension is standing up, we have a sailor course or a soldier course. So depending on which dimension is showing to the outside, we have either a sailor course or a soldier course. And then finally, a shiner course is basically you flip the stretcher course on its side and you get the eight inch block versus standing up is the three and five eighth inch versus the depth is two and a quarter inch. So these are just generically some terms for Mason reconstruction.