Cement is made by heating a finely ground mixture of clay and limestone, and water, to a temperature at which the clay and lime¬stone fuse into a clinker. The clinker is ground to a fine powder called cement. The cement most commonly used is ordinary Portland cement which is delivered to site in 50 kg sacks. When the fine cement powder is mixed with water a chemical action between water and cement takes place and at the completion of this reaction the nature of the cement has so changed that it binds itself very firmly to most materials.
The cement is thoroughly mixed with sand and water, the reaction takes place and the excess water evaporates leaving the cement and sand to gradually harden into a solid mass. The hardening of the mortar becomes noticeable some few hours after mixing and is complete in a few days. The usual mix of cement and sand for mortar is from 1 part cement to 3 or 4 parts sand to 1 part of cement to 8 parts of sand by volume, mixed with just sufficient water to render the mixture plastic.
A mortar of {cement} and sand is very durable and is often used for brickwork below ground level and brickwork exposed to weather above roof level such as parapet walls and chimney stacks.
Cement mortar made with washed sand is not as plastic however as bricklayers would like it to be. Also when used with some types of bricks it can cause an unsightly effect known as efflorescence.
This word describes the appearance of an irregular white coating on the face of bricks, caused by minute crystals of water soluble salts in the brick. The salts go into solution in water inside the bricks and when the water evaporates in dry weather they are left on the face of bricks or plaster. Because cement mortar has greater compressive strength than required for most ordinary brickwork and because it is not very plastic by itself it is sometimes mixed with lime and sand.