Painting brick curtain buildings

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Here are two examples of this type of building:

Walthers George Robers Printing Company

City Classics 103 Smallman Street

Is it best to paint the concrete first, tape, and then paint the brick or the other way around - brick first, tape, paint the concrete?

2

I airbrushed the brick first, then brushed on the concrete. However I don’t think there is any right or wrong way, just whatever works best for you.

Joe

3

Hi Rick,

I think that the obvious answer would be to paint the brick first simply because masking the brick after painting it would be far easier than masking the concrete. The brick can be masked with simple flat strips of tape. Masking the concrete will require that the tape be fitted around all three sides of the concrete columns. That would be much harder to do.

[2c]

Cheers!!

Dave

4

Thanks. After asking the question I thought of that. When doing the brick first even if there is some leakage under the tape it will be close the to the color of the mortar so I am thinking it won’t be very obvious.

5

I originally painted this structure with red brick…

…but later realised that the prototype had orange brick, which was very common in much of Hamilton, Ontario.
I re-painted the brickwork with orange paint, applied with a brush, then, after the paint had dried, added mortar (pre-mixed drywall mud), which had not been part of the original version…

Even though the HO model is fairly large, it’s nowhere near the scale of the real one, which was torn down quite a few years ago.

This one’s even bigger, but only a freelanced version of one of the five Westinghouse factories that were located in Hamilton…

I don’t recall if I painted the brick or the concrete first, but applying the mortar was more onerous due to the thickness of some of the concrete pilasters

Wayne.

6

Hello All,

I kitbashed two (2) Walthers Northern Light & Power kits into one large structure.

The two (2) kits were identical in size but the “brick” color of the plastic was slightly different.

I used rattle-can red primer to even out the brick color of the two (2) kits.

Next, I masked off the arches and lintels and airbrushed those a separate color.

Once everything was dry I finished all the panels with a spray-on matt finish coat.

To highlight the morter lines, I spread a thin coat of lightweight patching plaster over them.

Before the plaster set, I used a sponge to remove the residue on the brick face.

Scrub harder, the more subtle the effect.

Leave more plaster in place mutes the brickwork.

Depending on the size of your structure, you can use both effects on the same structure.

Hope this helps.

7

I’ve built the roberts printing kit and American hardware 4 times now for myself and others. The first two times I used a paint brush and did the concrete first. I then set the pieces flat and painted the brick by “pushing” the paint into the corners and along edges. tried masking originally but it damaged the brick paint or paint bled underneath

Later assembly, I spray painted the kits entirely a concrete color and then came back and painted the brick with a brush the same way.

There’s no right or wrong way. Whatever you’re most comfortable with and the method of painting. I’d recommend testing with a small wall piece first.

8

Back when building a modified Walthers Northern Light & Power kit I painted the wall panels before assembly. Brickwork airbrushed, then sills & top edges of the cornices brush painted. Foundation laminated with Monster Modelworks concrete sheet.

Tried a technique from the Trollyville School, Modeling Tips, Room 6, Lesson 3, Paving Streets (part one), “painting brick sheet” by George Huckaby & Charles Hepperle. School House Basically, airbrush misting a few different colors in succession, and from a distance far enough away to lay down a slight grainy finish that gave some texture to the brick. Though not sure how such a finish would affect a mortaring process.

Lesson 3 also includes some good info about simulating concrete colors. Though I only applied the above techniques with the recommended (and now discontinued) Floquil paints, seems that other piants would also work, or as mentioned, spray cans too.

Btw Doc Wayne, your structures are Dy-No-Mite!

Happy masonry modeling. Regards, Peter

9

^ what did you use to make the varying bricks? Looks great!

10

Mixed some paint a few shades lighter and darker than the primary color and randomly brush painted a bunch of individual bricks.

Thanks and regards, Peter