1/16 Diorama - Backyard Hospital Supply Railway (inspired by Lainz)

[Hydrostat]

I'm absolutely with Russ. At least try to achieve a rectangular base, not square. But I figured out here what was possible using your square base.

Volker

[Design-HSB]

Hi Gerald,

without a circle I would imagine that as nano layout well.

Only if I imagined, since there is a train in a circle. 

[mad gerald]

G'day all,

Planning the ,,foundation stone ceremony" regarding my layout I got a little bit worried about the amount of necessary bricks. Assuming the basic dimensions of the main building will be approx 25 x 30 cm (and 2 storeys high), it would need approx. 2000 bricks only covering the 2 walls visible to the viewer's eye. Pretty much and IMHO a little bit too expensive ...

Looking for an alternative I continued on a little exercise object with the attempt making bricks from card board similar to the technique introduced by Marc and tested be me too ...

I made a drawing using MS PowerPoint, printed on card board (0,5 mm thickness) and cut the bricks with an x-acto, using PVAC glue to fix the single bricks and styrene strips (corresponding width of joints) for adjustment.  

Now ... ,,... Cutting all these bricks by hand, it was so pretty slow ..." ... so a recommendation for a laser cut company would be very much appreciated, as the local ones around here are not interested in such minor jobs ...

Apart from the "bricks from card board" technique, I'm also dabbling with the idea making bricks from plaster using a mould i. e. as offered by Diorama Debris







Cheers

[artizen]

To speed up the process of gluing individual bricks, try printing the brick pattern on the walls using address labels glued to the cardboard. That way, you can see where each brick goes and there are lines to follow.

The cardboard bricks look surprisingly realistic once painted.

Using Diorama Debris moulds will result in a much heavier module with all that added plaster on the buildings.

[lab-dad]

Using Diorama Debris molds will result in a much heavier module with all that added plaster on the buildings.

You better believe it!
Mj

[finescalerr]

What if you were to use cardboard bricks, as in the photo, and then paint on a thin coat of plaster or something similar? Perhaps you could then distress the plaster more easily than you could card ... and have the best of both worlds. Does anybody know of a good way to do that? Is it even possible? -- Russ

[mad gerald]

... hmmmm ... ... I think I'll stick to the card board bricks (even though cutting them all by hand is a PIA) - at least regarding this excercise object ...

Cheers

[chester]

Staying a bit with Russ's idea. Spray or roll a coat of paint on the bricks and sprinkle some kind of powder while the paint is still wet on them to give them some texture. Brush off what one doesn't want when dry.

[Hydrostat]

Using cardboard I would recommend not to bend it round the corners. You may build the edge stones outside of the wall from two pieces, seal with CA, file to shape and then apply them. Chester's suggestions seems reasonable to me, maybe you can mix some coarse plaster or extremely fine sand into a brick red ground colour. Anyway you'll have to seal the cardboard for you'll have to add mortar and so on. There are several possibilities aside of CA like clear nail enamel or the stuff the cardboard kit providers use to strengthen their material before painting.


Cheers,
Volker

[mad gerald]

G'day all,

Thanks for your additional input, guys ... I especially like your suggestion, Ian:

To speed up the process of gluing individual bricks, try printing the brick pattern on the walls using address labels glued to the cardboard. That way, you can see where each brick goes and there are

IMHO the card board surface does not need any treatment as it has a discreet/slight structure, similar to real slightly weathered bricks ...  

Using card board for bricks can work pretty well, have a look at Marc's attempt and result:

My attempt was by far more humble and just for testing, if it would work, using the scrap from spiral binding systems and I built the bricks used for corners from 2 pieces, sealed with CA, as suggested by Volker ...



Marc had cut the bricks for corners like this:

5.) Here is how the corners were done. The "wedge" is removed/cut from the side with the scribe mark. (the scribe mark serves as an "eye-balling guide" when making the cuts.

The card board I use now has only a thickness of approx. 0,45 mm – and there appear no affections (bulges) on the surface, when I glue it around the corner.

Well, let's see how it looks like, when it gets coloured ...  

Cheers

[Ray Dunakin]

That looks good.

[mad gerald]

G'day all,

Now almost all individual cut out card board bricks have been glued to the exercise object ... in fact ALL bricks are mounted while posting this ... it was a real PIA (labor-intensive and time-consuming) ... but IMHO the (intermediate) result turned out to be quite good ...  

One thing I learned is, that the blade has to be pretty sharp - otherwise the card board tends to fray along the the cutting lines.

The other thing I noticed is, while gluing all these single bricks, that such a brick wall looks much better with some additional brick variations/ornaments (like in the upper section) and different layers. As there are several older brick buildings 'round here, I got good opportunities for research and comparison.

Now I'm waiting for the colours to arrive (I ordered recently), similar to the ones used by Marc ...









Cheers

[Malachi Constant]

Looks quite good to me!    -- Dallas

[Ray Dunakin]

Looks great! I agree that adding some brick "ornamentation" helps a lot. It also is one of the things that distinguishes it from "brick sheet" modeling.

Oh, and I love the rust and peeled paint on the door!

[finescalerr]

No criticism. -- Russ