I'm in the process of exposing the brick on an exterior wall around some newly installed patio doors. The majority of the brick work looks fine, the problem is the edge of the wall where the brick looks like it's been cut by a blind man with a sledge hammer. It's next to impossible to clean (I've only done about half so far), cleaning brick is hard anyway but I can't even get to a lot of the broken edges with the chisel and wire brush I'm using.
The plan is to do as little as possible to wall once it's been exposed—ideally I can just seal it and I'm done.
Is the brick (the broken edges specifically) going to be ok if I clean it up, remove everything that's loose and seal it as it is? Maybe since the brick is so broken anyway I should just have at it with my chisel to smooth off the worst bits?
Another problem it's left me with is the big gap between the brick and the patio door (probably 2 ½ inches at the worst areas), what's the best way to fill the gap?