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What color Red for Brick?

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  • Member since
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  • From: Sandusky, Ohio
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What color Red for Brick?
Posted by NSlover92 on Monday, January 7, 2008 6:08 PM
What is a good shade of paint to get for red brick? From Polly Scale, or some other RR color company. Thanks Mike
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Posted by dehusman on Monday, January 7, 2008 6:40 PM

Any of the reddish browns used for boxcars would work.  Oxide red, freight car red, mineral brown, zinc primer, light oxide red, oxide red, etc.  You can also use reddish brown primer paint.

Dave H.

Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com

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Posted by NSlover92 on Monday, January 7, 2008 7:13 PM
Thanks Mike
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Posted by dstarr on Thursday, January 10, 2008 10:27 AM

 NSlover92 wrote:
What is a good shade of paint to get for red brick? From Polly Scale, or some other RR color company. Thanks Mike

I use spray cans of red automobile primer, from your auto parts store or hardware store.  Dries dead flat.  Is opaque enough to cover anything.  Will stick to anything, although a good washing in hot soapy water is good for removing mold parting compound from plastic and grease and oil from metal.   

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Posted by steamnut on Thursday, January 10, 2008 1:01 PM
Its not easy to find, but THE most realistic brick color paint is Humbrol matt enamel brick red.
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Posted by dehusman on Thursday, January 10, 2008 2:06 PM

 steamnut wrote:
Its not easy to find, but THE most realistic brick color paint is Humbrol matt enamel brick red.

Unfortunately there is no ONE color for bricks so no ONE color is THE most realistic color for bricks.  They range in color from creams and oranges to reds to browns to almost black.  It is not uncommon to have several colors of brick on the same building.  It is very common to have the fronts and street sides of a building a decorative reddish brick and the off street and  back sides of the building a brown or lesss uniform common brick.  The larger the city the more chances the bricks will be different colors since there will be more than one source of clay for the brick and more than one brick kiln to produce them.

Dave H.

Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com

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Posted by Medina1128 on Thursday, January 10, 2008 2:11 PM
 dstarr wrote:

 NSlover92 wrote:
What is a good shade of paint to get for red brick? From Polly Scale, or some other RR color company. Thanks Mike

I use spray cans of red automobile primer, from your auto parts store or hardware store.  Dries dead flat.  Is opaque enough to cover anything.  Will stick to anything, although a good washing in hot soapy water is good for removing mold parting compound from plastic and grease and oil from metal.   

I think dstarr said it all. I use the same thing. Then colored pencils for coloring invidual bricks to kill that monocolor look. If you look at clay bricks, they are not all the same color.

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Posted by mobilman44 on Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:07 PM

Hi,

  That's a good question, one that probably has a lot of answers!

All of the brick structures I've ever built - and that is more than a few - were first painted with a thin coat of "mortar color" - greys primarily.  Once dry, the bricks were "dry brushed" with the brick color.  Goodness I searched and searched for a suitable "red", and finally figured out the best thing to do was to mix my own.  Of course this is a "color to taste" situation, and I used Testors or flat colors of dark red, red, brown, and I believe a little black or grey and mixed a different batch for each model or groups of models.  This way the color suits me, and most of my brick structures are "the same - but different" in color.

The above also hit me in trying to figure out "what color is concrete", and of course the answers are more than one can imagine.

ENJOY,

Mobilman44

ENJOY  !

 

Mobilman44

 

Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central 

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Posted by markpierce on Thursday, January 10, 2008 8:40 PM

As previously mentioned, bricks come in many colors and shades.  Check out this site on California brick makers which includes many color photos of bricks they produced.

http://calbricks.netfirms.com/brickmakers.html

Mark Pierce

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Posted by loathar on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:54 AM
 markpierce wrote:

As previously mentioned, bricks come in many colors and shades.  Check out this site on California brick makers which includes many color photos of bricks they produced.

http://calbricks.netfirms.com/brickmakers.html

Mark Pierce

Yep. And it really depends on the color of the clay in the area that the brick maker is located in. Not all colors are available in all areas.

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Posted by jkeaton on Friday, January 11, 2008 11:57 AM

For example, where I grew up in eastern Canada, grey and yellow bricks were just as common as red.  Where I live now, in central Canada, one sees a fair bit of pink brick as well.

 

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Posted by KingConrail76 on Saturday, January 12, 2008 3:40 AM
I also use "red" automotive primer. Different manufactures have slightly different shades. once dry, you can rub white, or grey, or off white chalk across bricks to fill the mortar joints simulating the Pointing. After rubbing on, carefully "dust" brick surface with a stiff brush or clean cloth on your finger tip, add colored pencil "odd" bricks and then spray again with clear dull-kote to "fix" chalk and pencil in place.
Steve H.
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Posted by dstarr on Saturday, January 12, 2008 2:27 PM

 KingConrail76 wrote:
I also use "red" automotive primer. Different manufactures have slightly different shades. once dry, you can rub white, or grey, or off white chalk across bricks to fill the mortar joints simulating the Pointing. After rubbing on, carefully "dust" brick surface with a stiff brush or clean cloth on your finger tip, add colored pencil "odd" bricks and then spray again with clear dull-kote to "fix" chalk and pencil in place.

I do that too, with one exception.  The powdered chalk looks very good as mortar, BUT, when I DullCoted it, the DullCote married with the powdered chalk and made it disappear.  So, next time I will skip the DullCote.  Structures don't get handled much, so the chalk will stay put without DullCote.  

Brick color changes a lot from place to place.  For instance Montreal has a lot of very dark brown brick.  Boston brick is red with a hint of brown to it, whereas Pennsylvania brick is very pink, little to no brown.  Sometimes the masons mixed brick dust into the mortar to make the mortar lines blend into a solid looking brick wall.  The extremely handsome three story main building of Westtown school (1882) was done that way.

 

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Posted by KingConrail76 on Saturday, January 12, 2008 5:38 PM
 dstarr wrote:

I do that too, with one exception.  The powdered chalk looks very good as mortar, BUT, when I DullCoted it, the DullCote married with the powdered chalk and made it disappear.  So, next time I will skip the DullCote.  Structures don't get handled much, so the chalk will stay put without DullCote.  

Very good point. I have not actually "kote'd" my structures yet (dullkote to protect was the plan), but you brought up something I completly missed. I wonder then, How would diluted "white out" perform? Maybe do a wash like with india ink, only with the diluted white out? Any thoughts?

Steve H.
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Posted by NSlover92 on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 9:20 PM
I always heard that dull coat fades it you just have to do several coats of caulk, coat, chalk, coat, chalk, coat, etc. I heard lots of work but worth it. Mike
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