how about railroad modeling scenery out of micro-masonry

[Anonymous]

Hi, I am a brickmason by trade, work with real size brick and block building real size homes, but ever since recently I have this persisting idea of micro-masonry, and the first thing I thought of as to where I could apply it was railroad scenery modeling. So, if anyone is interested in having, say, a model railroad station actualy BUILT out of REAL mini-bricks (half of an inch, maybe even quater of an inch) with REAL mortar between them feel free to e-mail me at [e-mail] What I can do is basicly mail to whoever is interested a small section of a wall so that one could get an idea of how it looks. And I can assure you it will look terrific!
Alex

[Jetrock]

Such a size would be suitable to larger scale garden railroads than the smaller model railroad scales--a quarter-inch long brick in O scale (1:48, the largest model railroad scale not considered 'large scale') would be the equivalent of a foot-long brick, which might look okay for a cinderblock building but not so good for a house. In the most popular scale, HO, a 1/4" brick would scale out to nearly two feet long.

In a garden scale, however, a 1/4" brick would be about right. 1/2" bricks might be good for dollhouse scales or someone modeling 1:20.3 or larger scale stuff.

[ndbprr]

The military modlelers have been using bricks for many years now. Their purpose being different from ours is to show a wall that has been hit by a shell and destroyed. There is no question it would look fantastic and anything done prototyically is going to add to the realism. I give you tremendous credit for being able to do that however I have to consider the time factor. To build a wall brick by brick sounds like it would take much longer and time is my enemy. Maybe on one or two front and center detailed buidlings but I woudn't have the time to do many of them.

[Anonymous]

Doll house modelers also use mini bricks, unfortunately, they are HUGE compared to the scale most people model railroads.

[Anonymous]

I've been thinking of modeling some of the old Adirondak Great Camps in N scale. using real stone for the foundations & sticks for the log walls. Even a stone 16" across scales down to 1/10th of an inch. This will take some delicate stonework to get it right!

Wayne

[jrbarney]

Alex,
Based on your posting, I'm assuming that you don't read Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette. I think you would be interested in a firm that advertises there named Stoneworks:
http://www.RRStoneworks.com
Admittedly, it's stone instead of brick, but you may find their booklets and other products of interest.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

[DSchmitt]

There was an article (years ago) in either Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsman in which individual scale bricks were used to build a structure.

[Anonymous]

either last month or the month before, there was an article in MR about painting bricks with a mortar color first and then using cosmetic sponges to apply brick color. I painted 2 buildings with this method as of yet and once you get your pressure on the sponge right, it looks GREAT[:D]. i got perfect mortar lines and it looks just like brick-by-brick construcion. This is less time consuming and the bricks are to scale. I would reccomend this over actually building a model like you would a real building[2c]