Brick/stone Cladding

[Tas devil]

Gidday mate

Y

Yeah, the fence makes the track and locos look rubbish. I was wondering about mosaic or stone effect bathroom tiles, the ones mounted to a net?

Do t know about Angleland, but our Bunnings Hardware stores in Oz have packs of genuine stone in smallish bricks, but glued into sections. Not the kind with the netting. They would be fairly expensive to cover a full fence.

However, they have been kind enough to donate to me, some with a broken piece or two in the pack.

 

[G-force1]

As promised, though a touch later than I thought, a piccy of my dilemma. With care you can see my initial attempts at a 'Mike' but lack of accuracy and effect had it's affect on me. Due to the closeness of the track I have not a lot of room for any thickness of cladding. I suppose (?) I could nick a little (very) by moving the track over few mm.

 

[Tas devil]

I've looked at your photo. It would be a lot to cover with the rock cladding I was thinking of. I wonder if you'd consider a board covering (something weatherproof but as cheap as possible, and then treat it like a backscene on an indoor layout. A nice sky blue and maybe some painted hills and clouds.

You could even experiment with a 3D effect by having painted hills on an another piece of board stuck onto the main board?

These are just thoughts as I am only building and wondering how I might disguise the dreaded fencing as well. I did see the painted backscene done on a Getman garden layout. They painted a wall and it certainly looked better than just a plain wall


Hope that helps

 

[G-force1]

Above the 'wall', between it and the fence, is the stockyard, so hills and scenery wouldn't really look right. There are probably some surfaces that would be easier to paint than the soffit board. I keep coming back to brick or stone finish.

 

[Tas devil]

My third and last two penny's worth of thought. You mentioned the stockyard. Could your backscene have an abattoir rather than the hills etc I mentioned? I was thinking that when you are standing reasonably close watching your trains run round, your clear field of vision will be limited, so it would not need to cover the whole height of fence.
You'd only need see the whole fence when standing well back.

 

[trammayo]

Could you cast some concrete panels? A simple wooden mould - could be lined with polythene to make release easy - you would be OK with 20mm thickness. Use a lightweight weldmesh type for re-enforcing, cut up wall plugs for fixing when cured (cut the ends of the plugs to 20mm length then screw in the required place in the mold). For fixing, I'd recommend stainless steel wood screws. The embedded wall plugs also help prevent cracking the finished product.

I would just use river sand (coarse stuff) for the mix. When the mix has been laid in the mould and floated smooth, just scribe the floated surface to represent stonework. I did all my bridges and stonework this way - lasts a lifetime!

To disguise the joints in the panels, you could cast pillars which would just go inbetween the panels.

Sorry I cannot post a pic from Firefox (for some strange reason) but will post from Chrome after breakfast if I remember.

The extra thickness would be about 10mm over and above the uPVC (which you would have to remove).

 

[trammayo]

I finally remembered ...

Modular bridge or viaduct arch ...



Tunnel mouth ...

 

[trammayo]

Slab side ....



and viaduct



All just (crudely) scratched in when wet.

 

[G-force1]

All good ideas that will be hoarded for another time, but this is the problem : -



and that isn't the widest stock, IOM pairs are. The soffit board is structural support for the fiddle/stock yard above and was used to gain as much width above as possible. Brick paper would be suitable, but impractical, I need it on vinyl. I just wish I had Mike's patience and perspicacity with brickwork, it's brilliant. It's probably going to finish up being sprayed blue Engineering brick colour and left at that.

 

[PhilP]

If painting it..
Could you cut a stencil? Get a light-grey (or buff) primer as the base, then hold the stencil, and spray a dark-grey / blue-brick pattern over the top??
Any paint may not last too long though??

 

[G-force1]

It is tough stuff to get paint to stick to, even plastic primers eventually seem to break away.

 

[trammayo]

All good ideas that will be hoarded for another time, but this is the problem : -

View attachment 209432

and that isn't the widest stock, IOM pairs are. The soffit board is structural support for the fiddle/stock yard above and was used to gain as much width above as possible. Brick paper would be suitable, but impractical, I need it on vinyl. I just wish I had Mike's patience and perspicacity with brickwork, it's brilliant. It's probably going to finish up being sprayed blue Engineering brick colour and left at that.

Now I see!

 

[mike]

The foambord I used. ..is a lot easier to use. ..and it's 3mm thick... if you could get some.. stick it on top of the sofit bord u all ready have..it's a lot softer and easer to scribe ect

 

[railwayman198]

At the Peterborough show I noticed that Kent Garden Rail were selling brick embossed plastic card by Plastruct. It looked to be about 600mm long by about 250mm high. Although not painted it was in a brick red colour plastic and looked pretty good.

 

[James Day]

Excuse me going slightly off topic, but I saw Cain Howley mentioned earlier in the thread.

Does anyone know how to get hold of him? His website does not seem to be working right now. A PM would be appreciated if anyone does....

Thanks,
James

 

[beavercreek]

Precision Products do some really nice 15" square textured plastic sheets in a range of scales including G scale and 1/2 inch.
They are really 3D especially the planking and walling.
Many designs including large stone retaining wall blocking.
The late and lamented Steve Warrington used to stock them.
The sheets are available from USA from various retailers like Ozark Miniatures, Caboose Hobbies etc.
They cost only $9.00 (about £6.25) each sheet.
Quite a few sheets together can be shipped for about $25 (about £17.50), Which does keep the cost per sheet still with in reasonable cost bearing in mind that they are 15" square and brilliantly textured.

This is the large block sheet each block is about 1.25" wide



For one project (the building in the foreground of the photo) I was using the PP cedar shingle (shake) sheets for the roof but did not have enough. So I had to use some real miniature shakes to finish it off. Once the sheets were painted and the shakes stained it was hard to tell them apart from three to four feet away.

 

[Botanybay]

Many model shops stock embossed plastic card. Try Jackson Miniatures.
www.jacksonsminiatures.com

Thanks so much for this link, I've been scratch building my first building model (my house in half relief) and have been working my 3d printer overtime to make tiled roof panels. The next houses will be so much easier!

 

[dunnyrail]

All good ideas that will be hoarded for another time, but this is the problem : -

View attachment 209432

and that isn't the widest stock, IOM pairs are. The soffit board is structural support for the fiddle/stock yard above and was used to gain as much width above as possible. Brick paper would be suitable, but impractical, I need it on vinyl. I just wish I had Mike's patience and perspicacity with brickwork, it's brilliant. It's probably going to finish up being sprayed blue Engineering brick colour and left at that.

I would seriously think about Resin Casting, you could use some relevant Stone Plastic as a Master to create your Mould. Then casting a lot of what you need would be quite cost effective and more importantly long lasting. With the exception of Piko, Pola and LGB Plastic I have found that all of the bought Plastic Brick Stuff is not at all long lasting outside, probably 2-3 years at best. Less if in full sun all day.

 

[Tanker man]

Thought I would update with some pictures of the 'wall' . Most of it was built a couple of years ago. I made a mould with the wall section shown earlier in this thread, I packed it out by about 6 mm to make it stronger. I used a mix of sharp and fine sand at a ratio of 2 parts sand, 1 part cement, 1 part lime and 2 big tea spoons of buff cement colouring powder. No reinforcement added, left to dry naturally ( I usually make these mounds in the summer when it is warm) . The joints are trimmed up with a tile file, after about 10 days and the tiles are set in concrete. When I am happy with the finished line, I shutter up behind the wall and fill with more concrete to give strength. The corner posts are from a garden centre, they are drilled and plugged and drywall screws fitted to create something for the concrete to bind to.
As the rubber mould is flexible, curved sections can be cast, either concave or convex, buy raising either the centre or the outer edges of the mould when filling, the weight of the material keeps the mould in place.
I read somewhere, that the addition of the lime helps to strengthen the mix and make it more durable to frost............I'm sure, someone on here, who knows better, will either confirm or not! .......but it seems to work for me as they have been through a couple of winters without signs of damage.
Dave

 

[dunnyrail]

As promised, though a touch later than I thought, a piccy of my dilemma. With care you can see my initial attempts at a 'Mike' but lack of accuracy and effect had it's affect on me. Due to the closeness of the track I have not a lot of room for any thickness of cladding. I suppose (?) I could nick a little (very) by moving the track over few mm.

View attachment 209368

Thinking a little more you actually have another inch or so where the Fence is. Not a lot but may help if you put whatever between the Posts going below the track with a joiner there. You could then think about the Wicks Boarding

STS Professional Tile Backing Board - 10mm x 600mm x 1.2m | Wickes.co.uk

this should give you enough surface to do some thin strata on to represent Rocks.