Mortar Wash Help....

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I made a mortar wash following the recipe from John Pryke’s book “Building City Scenery for Your Model Railroad”. The recipe is as follows:

1 part Polly Scale Concrete
9 parts alcohol
7 parts water
2-3 drops of detergent

I painted the building with Floquil Tuscan.
The hobby shop I was at didn’t have Polly Scale concrete in stock so I used Badger Concrete instead. The shop owner said it was water based so it shouldn’t be a problem.

The wash didn’t look as good as the pictures! While the wash was wet it look great but after drying the final look was grayed brick. The mortar between the brick wasn’t very noticable.

Any suggestions on how I can get the “wet” look to be the final result? Do I need more detergent? Does it matter what kind of detergent I use? Should I use Polly Scale paint instead?

Thanks in advance,

Bobby

2

Hello, i normanly use diluted white, grey mix brush it on and let it sit for a few minutes, then use a rag and wipe it off, it stays in the cracks and you can dampen the rag and get as much off as you like.

3

I’m with you 100%, Bobby. Same thing happened to me. Then I read this in one of the hobby magazines: paint all of the bricks mortar color first. After it dries, DRY BRUSH the brick color (the Tuscan) on to the bricks.

Makes a world of difference and turns out great if you don’t get too heavy-handed with the dry brushing.

Hope that helps.

-Gerry

4

Hi Bobby, I suspect that the problem came from using the Badger paint. While it is water based if my memory serves me it a water based acrylic paint. The Polly S paint is latex based which is thicker and more opaque and makes the mortar lines stand out. Hope this helps…Vic

5

Both Vic and Gerry raise excellent points. I have built numerous brick structures using John Prycke’s formula, followed by dry brushing. I found that throught the dry brushing process you can add variety to the bricks to make them even more realistic.

I to have learned the hard way that Badger and Polly S are not compatible from a mixing perspective.

6

Hi Jim, Thanks for the compliment on the other thread.

Back in the “old days” before all of the great paints we have now we used Griffin’s Liquid White Shoe Polish with a few drops of black India Ink added to make mortar lines. Just spread it on and let it dry for a minute or so and wiped it off.
Of course that was in the days when all of the “cool guys” wore white buck shoes!! HA HA HA!!
Take Care and Have Fun…Vic

7

Thanks for the help!

I’ll try another mixture using the Polly S rather than Badger.

I haven’t tried the method that Gerry mentioned to add variety. I have used a method that was shown on the Great Model RR - Vol 2 with the Great George Selios where he sporadically dry brushes the brick with grimy black to add variety. That seems to work pretty well.