Stone & brick masonry · Marlowe Bend · second generation, since 1983
Every wall we build starts with its corner.
Quoinwork lays quoins, arches and anchored stone the drawing says to lay — NHL 3.5 lime in every joint of a pre-1930 wall, stainless veneer anchors at sixteen inches on centre, and centering under every arch until the keystone says otherwise. Drawn first, bedded second, warranted twenty-five years.
Pointing season runs April to October — lime carbonates against the calendar, not the thermostat. Surveys and mortar chips happen year-round, and the spring rake list fills by mid-March.
Services
Four crafts, one yard
01
Lime repointing
Joints raked by hand to twice their width, vacuumed, and flushed full in two passes with natural hydraulic lime matched to the chip from your own wall — NHL 3.5 in the field, NHL 5 at copings and parapets where the weather hits hardest. Portland never enters a pre-1930 wall on our watch: it is stronger than the brick, so winter breaks the brick to save the mortar.
02
Anchored stone veneer
Full-bed and thin veneer hung on stainless Z-anchors and dowel pins at sixteen inches on centre, dovetailed into a scratch-and-double-back coat over a two-layer weather barrier. Wecope with the flashing details other crews photograph around — because a veneer wall is a roofing decision wearing a stone coat.
03
Arches & lintels
Segmental and semicircular arches rebuilt on timber centering: voussoirs numbered on the drawing, laid from both spring lines, keystone set last, centering struck only after the ring closes. A brick arch that reads wrong from across the street was wrong on the sawhorses.
04
Fire features & hearths
Fireboxes laid in moderate-duty firebrick for the living-room hearth, high-duty where a Rumford firebox runs hot, every fireclay joint struck thin and the smoke chamber parged smooth. The chimney gets a cast crown that sheds water, not a smear of mortar that drinks it.
The yard ledger
The corner the town measures from
Recent work
The wall book
Six walls from around Marlowe Bend — corners, arches, veneers and one hearth that gets photographed more than the house. Every owner will let you stand in the yard and inspect the joints; we would rather you did.
How the wall gets kept
Chip, rake, point, strike
Four movements, the same on every wall — the only variable is the wall itself. The warranty is signed at the end of the fourth, and it runs twenty-five years.
The survey & the chip
A mortar chip leaves an inconspicuous joint and gets matched; the wall’s age picks the lime, the chip picks the colour. You keep a written square-foot number, held sixty days.
Rake by hand
Joints opened to twice their width with chisels and vacuumed clean. No grinders — a spinning wheel burns the arris and bricks the brick we came to save.
Point in two passes
NHL lime flushed full, the first pass stiffened before the second, struck to the profile the wall was born with — flush, weather-struck or bucket-handle.
Cure & strike the warranty
Weeks of carbonation, misted in heat and covered against frost, then a final brush at leather-hard and twenty-five years signed into your name.
They rebuilt the arch over our carriage door with the voussoirs numbered like a museum job, and the centering came out on a Tuesday with no ceremony at all. The mason said “the ring holds itself now” — which I have thought about roughly weekly since.
Two contractors proposed grinding our joints and one proposed painting the wall. Quoinwork proposed a chisel, a lime bucket and a calendar — and the wall dries after rain for the first time since we have owned it.
The veneer anchors were in the quote with a spacing number attached, which is somehow the detail that sold me. Three winters, zero movement, zero efflorescence. The stone reads like it grew there.
Lime, anchors, arches
Asked at every survey
Why won’t you use portland on my old wall?
Because a wall built before 1930 was designed to breathe through its mortar. Lime is softer than the brick and sacrificial — it weathers out so the brick doesn’t have to. Portland is stronger than old brick, so the freeze-thaw cycle breaks the brick to save the mortar: exactly backwards, and expensive in exactly the way you cannot see for five years.
What do the anchors actually do on a veneer?
They tie the stone back to the structure so the wall is a system instead of a skin. We set stainless Z-anchors and dowel pins at sixteen inches on centre into a scratch coat, over a two-layer weather barrier, with flashing and weep vents at the base. The stone is the finish; the anchors and flashing are the wall.
Can you match our brick?
From two salvage yards and standing yard stock of 1890–1930 common brick. The match is laid out wet, in daylight, against your wall, and approved by you before a single unit is bedded.
How does an arch rebuild work?
Timber centering is built to the drawn curve, voussoirs are cut and numbered on the ground, laid from both spring lines toward the crown, and the keystone goes in last. The centering is struck — removed — only after the ring closes and the mortar has taken its initial set. Geometry holds the arch; we just keep it company while it figures that out.
What does a firebrick grade mean?
Firebrick comes in duties — low, moderate, high and super — rated by how hot and how often. A living-room hearth wants moderate-duty; a Rumford firebox that gets run every evening wants high-duty. The grade is on the drawing, and the drawing is yours.
Twenty-five years, corner to crown
If a joint we pointed fails, a veneer anchor lets go, or an arch settles inside twenty-five years, we return and correct it at no charge — and the warranty follows the house, not the invoice.
quoinwork@stonemasons.example · Marlowe Bend · surveys year-round
Send us the corner.
Year built, what is cracking or growing, and a photo if you can manage one. The survey visit brings the chip kit and a written square-foot number inside the week — the calendar for spring raking opens March 1.