How to clean mortar from front arch

[ALEXZ]

Hi. I have finished building the my oven and now i am just busy on the aesthetics of the oven. I plan on doing a stucco finish.
i was hoping to leave the front arch with the bricks however my brick work hasn't been the cleanest (my first time laying bricks)
You can see from the photo that there is a lot of mortar on the Bricks. Is there a way to clean this up? I have tried sanding it and using a metal brush but neither had much of an impact.
If not,are there any nice ways to decorate the arch to hide the brickwork?
Thanks!

[UtahBeehiver]

Typically muratic acid is used to clean up mortar but you have a lot of excess mortar to remove and I don't even think muratic acid will help. David S from Australia does some nice mosiac tile. Look at his threads.

[david s]

Hi. I have finished building the my oven and now i am just busy on the aesthetics of the oven. I plan on doing a stucco finish.
i was hoping to leave the front arch with the bricks however my brick work hasn't been the cleanest (my first time laying bricks)
You can see from the photo that there is a lot of mortar on the Bricks. Is there a way to clean this up? I have tried sanding it and using a metal brush but neither had much of an impact.
If not,are there any nice ways to decorate the arch to hide the brickwork?
Thanks!

Hi Alex,

Here is an example of tiles on a decorative arch on a half built oven I installed today. A few tips: I find it easier to decorate the arch flat and then install it, but you can do the tiles vertically. Use a sealer on the tiles before glueing any onto the brickwork, use quality outdoor adhesive, glossy tiles and black grout which makes cleaning easy. This arch was made using 70 mm square tiles which give you plenty of rolled edges that you can arrange so that you don't get sharp edges on the inside or outside of the arch. A decorative border of smaller tiles also looks nice. Don't use tiles of varying thickness or you get sharp edges on the face.
I've not had any issues with tiles falling off from the heat, but I do have a small insulation gap between my arch and the flue gallery as well as a 30mm 4:1 vermicrete layer on the inner part of the arch which faces the heat.

If you leave your brickwork undecorated it will build up some black sooty marks which will be impossible to remove from porous firebrick, unlike glossy tiles which clean up well with a little damp newspaper.

Hope this helps you,
Dave

[ALEXZ]

UtahBeehiver and David S - thank you both very much for your advice!

David - I believe I will probably end up doing something similar with some tiling. Thanks for your adivce