Brick hod

A brick hod is a three-sided box for carrying bricks or other construction materials, often mortar. It bears a long handle and is carried over the shoulder. A hod is usually long enough to accept 4 bricks on their side, however, by arranging the bricks in a chevron fashion, the number of bricks that may be carried is only limited to the weight the labourer can bear and the unwieldiness of that load. Typically 10-12 bricks might be carried. [http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3395565.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=DAC7A34C488C04DF2AB09CC058560E3AA55A1E4F32AD3138]

Hod carrying is an unskilled labouring occupation in the building industry. Typically the hod carrier, or 'Hoddie' will be employed by a bricklaying team in a supporting role to the skilled bricklayers. Two bricklayers for each hod carrier is quite normal. His or (rarely) her duties might include:-Wetting the mortar boards on the scaffolding prior to fetching bricks from the delivery pallet using his hod and bringing them to 2x2 wide 'stacks' upon the scaffold that may then be easily laid by the bricklayers. The carrier needs to time deliveries of bricks with deliveries of mortar - also carried in the hod - to ensure the bricklayers maintain a constant work rate. On sites without premixed mortar, the mortar will also be mixed by the hod carrier. Bricks may be cut and assistance given to 'rake out' the mortar joints, if that form of coursing joint is required, or in repointing work. The baseline rate for a bricklayer is to lay 1000 bricks a day, if the hod carrier is serving a team of two then he must move 2000 bricks although it is not uncommon for experienced hod carriers to serve three bricklayers. It is also the custom in the UK for the labourer to make tea for his bricklayers.

Interestingly, in several novels and short stories by Italian-American author, John Fante, hod carriers, bricklayers, and stone masons feature prominently (perhaps most notably in his debut novel "Wait Until Spring, Bandini," "Brotherhood of the Grape," and "The Orgy"--one half of the posthumously released collection "West of Rome"). This is due to the highly autobiographical nature of almost all of Fante's writing (excepting his screenwriting, which he considered a debasing and vapid art form, a necessary evil that allowed a steadier, more substantial income than novel writing). Fante's father, Nick, was an Italian-born bricklayer descended from--at least in Fante's fictions--a long line of Italian artisan bricklayers and stonemasons. Moreover, the author spent a significant portion of his youth apprenticed to his father, experience that lent him the knowledge to write accurately about various details of the trade: from descriptions of the actual work, the physical toll it took on workers, the color and character of those workers, and the pride and satisfaction of a job well done. Because Fante looked up to his father (despite their numerous quarrels and fallings-out) he thus held the trade in very high regard, at times verging on romanticizing the quite difficult work it took. To him, bricklaying (and hod carrying) was something that ennobled poorer classes; it was a respectable manual labor that required a degree of artfulness. as well as being a manly occupation.

References

*" [http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/ooh9899/82.htm Bricklayers and Stonemasons] " in the "Occupational Outlook Handbook". (1998–1999)