# Paint/weather bricks



## MikeB (Feb 11, 2016)

My son is starting to build a 3 stall roundhouse. He wants to know how to paint and weather the bricks. 
Should he do it before assembly of the walls, or wait until the building is complete?
Can any please pass along some picture and hints on how to proceed?

Thanks very much.


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## Mark VerMurlen (Aug 15, 2015)

I'd encourage you to search You Tube for brick building weathering techniques. Generally, you use a dilute color wash to color in the mortar lines of the brick. You can then add in some powders or dry brushing to get additional distress/weathering effects. I've seen some people do the weathering before assembly, but that seems like too much work to me, so I've done it after assembly. I'm still learning and refining these techniques, so hopefully others with more experience will chime in with their favorite methods.

Some models come with extra panels in the kit. If you have any extra panels, they are a great way to run some experiments before you work on the actual building.

Mark


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## J.C. (Dec 24, 2016)

whether to paint before is dependent on how complex the brick work is if plain walls with a minimum of things like corbels or columns than I paint after assembly if not then paint before assembly then scrape off paint under add-ons. I begin by painting a basic brick color if entire building is made of number 1 brick then use same color over entire building if (and it was a common practices to use off colored brick on non public sides of buildings ) not then paint surface with a slight variation of color. after the paint is well dried I use spackling colored to a mortar color to represent the mortar lines and it also mutes the brick color giving it a patina of age. there are many ways to do motor lines I'm sure that others will add there way.


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## Deane Johnson (Sep 19, 2016)

I have a Walthers Modern Roundhouse under construction (24 stalls) and had the same dilemma when I began. How to get rid of the plastic look and get the mortar lines to stand out. I experimented with various materials for creating the mortar lines and finally settled on white shoe polish as the easiest to use and best end result. Takes about two coats, plus some touch-up. I wipe it off the surface with a paper towel, damped a bit with water. It still leaves a slight weathered look to the surface of the bricks. It's pretty forgiving in terms of errors.

Any concrete areas are then painted before continuing with the weathered look described below.

In my case, the molded plastic color was about right after putting the mortar lines in place, but it needed the smokey, sooty look. Solved that problem with a little Grimy Black thinned about 10/1 with rubbing alcohol. I keep the air brush back about a foot and go real slow so the effect is almost like soot rather than a paint coat.

I didn't experiment originally with technique on the roundhouse components, but rather had a piece of styrene brick material to use for testing. All of the roundhouse components are painted and mostly weathered before assembly. I never let any plastic surface show on the model, but rather paint every piece before it goes in place.


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## MikeB (Feb 11, 2016)

Thanks for the replies. I will pass this on to him and see what turns out.


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