Hello I am making 2 smoke stacks and would like to know how to make wood look like brick? I am using oak doll rod with a taper to it . I put a base coat of aged concrete on first and took a piece of old screen and wrapped it sprayed with brick red/brown color let it dry took off the screen and it look like the screen was never on it . What am I doing wrong ? The screen is made for a old window so it is metal. The stacks are for my boiler house here is a photo . Thanks Frank
Have you considered using a printed brick paper? You could find an image on the web and try it yourself - not much expense, and if it works for you then you’re done. Alternately, you could order some professionally-made textured paper, which would give you the raised bricks and indented mortar, and also relieve you of the task of painting.
If you’ve already got one brick smokestack, you could use latex rubber to make a mold from that, and then cast some more with Hydrocal or other material.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3728 http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/770-6017
The above are two stacks from Walthers - a lot easier than making one from a tapered dowel!! If you try to wrap a tapered dowel with brick paper, you won’t be able to keep the brick rows streight or line them up where they join. My [2c]
Using screen as a stencil is pretty creative. The reason it didn’t work is that the screen is woven round wire, so even though you held it tight agains the dowel, there still were lots of voids between the screen and the dowel. When you sprayed it, the overspray went around and under the round wire.
I would be tempted to paint the whole thing brick red and then at random places around the smokestack draw in a few mortar lines with a white or gray pencil/marker and every so often use an artist’s coloered marker to make an occaisional “brick” a slightly different color. All you need is the illusion of individual bricks, unless this is right next to the viewer.
Dave H.
It is your model but … do they have to be BRICK? What if they were concrete or rendered brick. Chimneys of any age at all tend to be fairly blackish with perhaps a hint from a viewing distance that they might have been brick.
Other possibility, paint it brick red and use a scriber on a marking gauge arrangement, dipped in white paint and lightly suggest the white lines of mortar!
As I said it’s your model.
Regards from down under.
Trevor
Here http://www.scalescenes.com/ you can get printed paper like brick paper for stacks.
Wolfgang
Hey thats a neat site, i just downloaded two of the free ones to see how it works out. I will post something on it when i am finished and let everyone know how it works out. Great post Wolfgang!
Hello thanks for the info the brick paper sounds good but my printer is not the best I am lucky if it will print black but I could have my dad try on his. Yes it has to be brick so it will match the boiler house I think they would be built at the same time? I am going to try some new window screen it looks like it was molded not woven or some lace stuff that has a square pattern to it. And a lighter coat of paint. I think that might help. How commum were square stacks with no taper that would make the paper work better. Thank Frank
Your stacks really don’t have a lot of taper, so I would at least try printing a sheet of brick and wrapping it around. Hopefully, you’ve got a “front” and “back” to your layout, so you can put the seam where it won’t be seen.
Another option would be just to use dowels and skip the taper completely. The paper would go around a true cylinder with no trouble, other than that pesky seam. Even that can be minimized, since you can scale the printed bricks to get an integral number of bricks in the length of paper you need, as long as there’s no taper.
With a taper, you might try cutting the paper in strips, maybe a half-dozen bricks high, and applying the strips around the stack. This will reduce the “cumulative” overlap you’ll encounter by having a taper.
I bought this software and really like it.
www.modeltrainsoftware.com/model-builder.html
It was $150.00 for the whole suite but all I have to build are a couple of industrial buildings and it paid for itself.
I have made several storefront buildings so far but have not assembled them yet.
Hello well I think I have it. I got a idea from the fence thread I thought I would try that tulle stuff. First I wrapped it on the dowel and sprayed the brick red something happened it went everywhere. Then the idea hit me MisterBeasley said to wrap the paper with brick print on the dowel. So I painted the dowel red painted the tulle aged concert then wrap it on the dowel walla grout lines and it doesn’t look to bad. I think the tulle should have a little bigger squares and it would show up better but this will work to. I have a little more to do then I will post some photos . Thanks for the help Frank
Hello here are some photos I had to take them out side to get better light. These are made from oak dowel rod with a taper. The bottom is 5’ the top is 4’ and they are 42’ tall ho scale. If I am reading my scale right. They are painted brick red and the tulle is painted aged concrete. I wrap the tulle on the dowel and then sprayed with dull coat to help hold it on. What do you think. Thanks Frank
OK, I’ll be the meanie…
Maybe if the smokestacks were really, really in the background (like n-scale forced perspective background distances - i.e. pretty dang far), but definitely not foreground quality (which apparently they will be visible from as per your pictures in your OP) - you can readily see they are baggy mesh coverings and NOT mortar lines integral to the stack structure - much more like camouflage netting or chicken wire or something. The brick paper concept mentioned above would be much more realistic compared to that.
Actually, I think they look pretty good. Pretty inventive way to do it, also.
Nick
No, brick paper would be much better. [V]
Hello chutton01 you are not mean just honest and I like that. I thought it would look ok but when I put them on the layout the looked a little hazy. They are about 2 feet from the edge of the layout and can be seen right a way. When you said camouflage or mesh you are right the brick should be out farther then the mortar. But this it what I had on hand and thought I would try it. Now I need to get my printer working and to a better job next time. Thanks everyone for the input Frank
replace the stacks with metal tubes and guy wires, painted black .
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If he wanted metal stacks he probably would have done that. He seems to desire brick. He could try the hard way, painting all the individual bricks on. But here’s an idea: Put the screen on while the paint is wet, then remove it when the paint is either dry or nearly dry.
That’s what 0-6-0 stated in his OP to start with - he tried painting stacks with a metal screen wrapped around (which does seem logical), but the paint seeped around the screen wire and obliterated any mortar lines. Hence the suggestions of using printed brick paper, or buying a molded brick stack from Walthers (with brick detail) and painting that…
OK. How about putting the screen on when the paint is nearly dry and then pulling it off?