Painting brick walls - looking for advice

[Bob]

Hi all - I am looking for advice on painting brick walls - I have started scratch building structures (Cumberland Subdivision in the Layout Engineering thread) and the next building up has one brick wall.  I have laser cut brick sheet from RS Laserkits, and also brick styrene from Evergreen or Plastruct.  My goodness these are small!  I have seen some posts where mortar color is put on first, followed by dry brushing on the red color (using several shades), and I've seen threads where the red is painted first followed by the mortar color, wiping it off so only the white paint in the mortar lines is left behind.  But, N scale brick is so small, will either of these work?  Is it worth even dealing with mortar lines?  I have ordered some printed brick sheets (photographs, I guess), but they have not yet arrived.  Another question: do N scalers ever use HO scale brick?  Our eyes expect to see bricks with mortar lines, so is this a case where using a larger scale actually looks OK?  I'm really not quite sure what to do!

[Peavine]

I use sheetrock mud after is is painted. Wipe it on, then take off as muck as you want until it looks good. I use q tips with just a bit of water on them, and just wipe diagonally across the brick. Here’s an example of the effect.

[Peavine]

Sorry it’s upside down...

[MichaelWinicki]

Variety of ways to finish off a brick wall...







As Peavine posted, using sheetrock mud is great at showing mortar, but you don't have to go that route.  Mortar can darken over time so it becomes much more difficult to see. 

Sometimes I'll finish a brick building that is greatly weathered...

Sometimes not.  Sometimes I'll show it as a freshly pained structure so everything, including the mortar is the same color.

The big thing I've learned is to vary your colors.  I have about a dozen different "brick reds".

I'd stick with n-scale brick... But even that can vary in size from one supplier to another.  Quite frankly I don't think dealing with HO sized brick sheets would be any easier or harder.

[Bob]

Thanks for the replies - these look really good.  Do you have a preferred product - I have some DPM modular brick walls, styrene sheet brick and also the laser cut stuff.  Any advice on this?  Looks like I need to get some more red paints!

[MichaelWinicki]

Bob,

No preferred product.

They all can work.

Don't know how many brick buildings you'll have on your layout, but you could very well have a place for all 3 that you mention.

When it comes to buildings– The more and different materials you use (meaning different buildings being created out of different materials) the better and even if they're a group of DPM buildings you can and should vary the color from one to another.

[Bob]

Thanks Michael, and to everyone else.  I'll try painting and mortaring some brick this weekend and we'll see how it goes!

[wazzou]

I mainly use light weight spackle but I've also had good luck in a lot of cases using white flour like you'd bake a cake with.

Here's an example where flour was used.


Here's an example of spackle.

[Allegheny]

Bryan
How do you apply the flour?  Dry, moist, soupy?  Is it dusted or painted on and excess removed?
Please advise.
Allegheny

[wazzou]

Dry. 
I just sort of dump it on and move it around with a big round fluffy makeup brush.
I seal it with dullcote sprayed from a little distance so it doesn't blow away.
The building in the photo is over 15 years old and it looks the same today.

[dem34]

Dry. 
I just sort of dump it on and move it around with a big round fluffy makeup brush.
I seal it with dullcote sprayed from a little distance so it doesn't blow away.
The building in the photo is over 15 years old and it looks the same today.

I think in this context of using cooking products sealing it to avoid the stuff blowing away is secondary to making sure the stuff doesn't get moldy. This kid who has a Youtube channel, SMT basically ruined his N scale layout using flour as snow. Thing looks like a science project now with the giant mold clusters.

[wazzou]

I think you must have missed the part where I said after 15 years, it looks no different.

[peteski]

I think you must have missed the part where I said after 15 years, it looks no different.

Do you live in a dry climate? Mold (on food stuffs) loves dampness.
Speaking of using food for modeling, many years ago there was an article in the N-Scale Magazine about using dry uncooked pasta for modern street lamp posts.  Made me roll my eyes. Not only I imagined it getting moldy on some damp basement layout, I also thought that uncooked noodles are way too fragile to make good lamp posts.

[davefoxx]

Do you live in a dry climate? Mold (on food stuffs) loves dampness.
Speaking of using food for modeling, many years ago there was an article in the N-Scale Magazine about using dry uncooked pasta for modern street lamp posts.  Made me roll my eyes. Not only I imagined it getting moldy on some damp basement layout, I also thought that uncooked noodles are way too fragile to make good lamp posts.

I think you must have missed the part where he said he sealed it with Dullcote . . . fifteen years ago.

DFF

[Bob]

All of these photos are impressive - I certainly have some things to try!