Mortar ... or not?

[chicken45]

I've used Roberts Mortar for my towers. The pictures are large.
Both are NSA kits.

The closeups:
MG Tower
The mortar formula was thick and had a tough time seeping in those verticals under the windows. My joints were horrible. There were gaps on nearly every corner. I didn't think this was a bad kit, and I knew I was gonna have a problem with this, but DAMN. Anyone else out there have MG Tower in N that doesn't have the gap problems? Each wall is assembled before final assembly. If I had to do it all over again, I'd wait to put those bricks on last if I could. I puttied them in, but you can see it still looks horrid. Anyone want to do some brick fixing for me?  I'm looking for advice.



AR Tower
Here, you will see I had to apply and reapply. Then when I wiped off the brick face, some of the paint smeared and dyed the mortar.


Far away:\


It gets better each time, but I'm still kind of "meh" about Robert's Mortar. Maybe I should pick up a new bottle or buy a little mixer.

[MVW]

If his is N-scale old brick - Wow!

Yeah, it really is that good. I haven't tried the "new" brick yet, but I will in the next few months. If the "old" brick is any indication, I can't imagine using anything else for a foreground building. Will be fun to see how their recommendation for mortar pans out.

Jim

[conrail98]

One of our local modelers here uses Flour by putting on in pinches, rubbing it in with fingers then spraying it lightly with dull coat. It looks fabulous,

Phil

Edit: Here's the thread where it was discussed on another forum. Local modeler is Harsco who asked the question then showed his results on Page 2: http://www.railroad-line.com/discussion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24777&whichpage=1

[Philip H]

Flour?  Who knew! 

[sirenwerks]

Jim,

Nice results on the latest building. I can definitely see the improvements over time.

As I mentioned earlier, I think that you are fighting a bit of an uphill battle due to the texture of the NSA brick sheet. However, I noticed something in your photos, and I am not sure whether my observation is correct. Is it possible that brick sheet is not oriented properly? Here is a comparison of a cropped section of your most recent building, one in the original orientation (left) and one that is rotated 90 degrees (right).

   

Maybe this is just an optical illusion or artifact of the camera, but it looks to me like the aspect ratio of the rotated bricks is better. This could really affect the perception of the brick/mortar contrast and give the appearance that something is "off". Just something to investigate.

Best wishes, Dave

I'm just catching up on this thread and maybe it's my eyeballs, but it looks like the mortar color is adhering to the brick face in the shot on the right, not in the mortar lines.  If this is the case, maybe starting with a mortar-color base and using a brick color as the secondary would be an alternate approach?

[wazzou]

Flour?  Who knew! 

I posted pictures in the second page of this thread showing the use of flour.   

[conrail98]

I posted pictures in the second page of this thread showing the use of flour.   

Why yes, yes you did.

This is an old Heljan kit built a minimum of 20 years ago that was mortared using the Gold Medal All Purpose Flour and Dullcote method.

The mortar has held up well and there are no cultures or critters. 

[Philip H]

I posted pictures in the second page of this thread showing the use of flour.   

you want me to remember something from page 2?     

[Baronjutter]

This flour idea seems really cool, I'm going to try it on my next brick building and try not to get distracted and make pancakes at the same time.

[MVW]

I tried the flour approach on the plastic sheet and got nothing usable. That's a reflection on the plastic sheet, not the technique. If you have material with enough relief for the mortar lines, I've no doubt it will work fine (as the photos show). I'm tempted to try it on the Monster Modelworks material, since it has well-defined mortar lines.

Jim

[Pennsy]

Has anyone tried a dullcote spay after painting the base color and then the various mortar techniques? I've done that several times and noticed it gives the plastic more 'tooth' when flowing on the mortar paint or washes. I'm going to give that a try with the flour technique next chance I get.