Experience any use?

[longjohntiler]

Hi Everyone,
I have been following the forum for a while and thought it about time I signed up. I started in the trade in 1957 in the days of sand and cement fixing and a five years apprenticeship. (Can anyone else remember having to soak wall tiles.)I am retired from active service now and haven't fixed a tile for a few years. I am still involved in the trade, although only on the technical side now, but it does keep me up to date. Over a fifty year odd year career I seem to have done most things. Anyway, if I can input anything useful I will try. With a bit of luck I might at least help people to avoid making some of the mistakes I made.

 

[Gazzer]

Hello and welcome

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Hi longjohn, I remember breaking ice on the soaking drums in winter, not a very good job, but I was the apprentice.:welcome: Good to have you on TF

 

[bugs183]

Hiya!
My dad was trained in sand and cement screeding and fixing. Labouring for 3 blokes. I can lay a sand and cement floor, but ssh don't tell anyone!!!!
Did you reckon adhesives wouldn't catch on as well!!!!!

 

[Dan]

Hi LJT, welcome aboard. You sound like a handy bloke to have on the forum!

 

[nybor62]

welcome to the forum, nice to have you on board

 

[Andy Allen]

welcome to the forum.....

 

[DHTiling]

Hello and welcome... tell us more about your role in the technical side of things... who is this with..?

 

[Brian the Tile]

hi longjohntiler:welcome: yes i remember the old way sand and cement fixing,wish i had a penny for every mix i had to do by hand,no mixer the bloke i served my time with wouldnt buy one he used to tell everyone he had one that walked talked and brewed up,he was a hard taskmaster not a nice man at all,but i must admit he taught me a lot,adhesive was just coming in ,the old bal tad was the first one i remember but no one seemed to want to try it at the time ,they couldnt give it away,aye them were the days and very hard days aswell

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

hi longjohntiler:welcome: yes i remember the old way sand and cement fixing,wish i had a penny for every mix i had to do by hand,no mixer the bloke i served my time with wouldnt buy one he used to tell everyone he had one that walked talked and brewed up,he was a hard taskmaster not a nice man at all,but i must admit he taught me a lot,adhesive was just coming in ,the old bal tad was the first one i remember but no one seemed to want to try it at the time ,they couldnt give it away,aye them were the days and very hard days aswell

Same as, Brian, I never saw a mixer until I was 18 all hand mixed, mostly by muggins (me) Bal Tad, yup I remember that too. Hard old game back then, but still is. LJT must have seen more changes than us.:yikes:

 

[aphilp]

Hello and welcome

Anne

 

[Ian]

Welcome along to TF

 

[White Room]

Hi and welcome John....

 

[Turkish tiler]

:welcome:

 

[longjohntiler]

Thanks for the good wishes.

 

[Andrew Case]

Where abouts are you Longjohntiler? You can update your location in your profile if you like

 

[Max@ableskills]

Hi and welcome to the forum. I remember sand/cement fix all to well. When i started out adhesives were around but the guy that I did my appenticeship with insisted on sand/cement fixing.

I will never forget come rain or shine (mostly rain as I seem to recall) mixing sand and cement on a board by hand (I am sure that lots of us have all been their lol) and then carrying it to site by the bucketload.

I would not mind there was nothing of me in those days. I can remember lifting 50kg bags of cement (yes 50kg so much for health and safety) over my shoulder and thinking I am almost carrying my own body weight here.

Those were the days

Welcome along to the forum, looking forward to your input.

 

[White Room]

50kg bags of cement, thats a blast from the past...

 

[Max@ableskills]

50kg bags of cement, thats a blast from the past...

Showing my age now lol

 

[longjohntiler]

And just so the youngsters know, (anybody under 65) there weren't all that many hoists or forklifts about on sites either. It wasn't a joke when a 10 ton (No such things as tonnes then) load of cement arrived to be hand balled off at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon. Particularly if your store was on one of the upper floors. Just for the record, 50kg bags came later. It used to be 1cwt bags. (That's 8 stone or 112 pounds a bag)

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

:welcome:LJT to the forum i to remember soaking tiles until all the suction was gone, its changed so much,i miss the old guys ,and there ways :lol:

 

[White Room]

And when you got deeper into the load of cement they became hotter, straight off the press so to speak.

 

[longjohntiler]

All your comments are appreciated. Anyway, one of the things about being a veteran is that we have to concentrate on what we are going to do rather than what we have done, as we haven't all that much time left to do it. Forward into the future! The next job is always going the best.

 

[jonnyc]

Good to have you along. sure you can give some good well leant advice.
we ought to start a thread showing the oldest pics we have of tiling jobs .
might be a problem digging out the negs from the attic.

 

[suave]

done a bit of hand fixing last year at college and the soaking of the tiles good to see how it was done back in the day