Long time lerker first time poster. I hope that I have done this right. (if not it is the members gallary)

My way of making brink walls from a home made mould

Materials needed on building brick walls.

Silicon
Plastic Container
Air drying clay
1/35 scale brick components
Vaseline (from supermarket)
Brush
Plaster of Paris (£1.50 per kilo) or Dental Plaster
Water
Stick
Cup


Step 1

Roll out the clay (fairly thin) and place in the container

Place the brink components on top of the clay a push in only slightly.
You can either wait overnight for the clay to dry or pure the silicon straight away into the container to make the mould (I got my silicon off E-bay, but I am sure you can buy it from craft shops) Wait a good few days for the silicon to dry or place somewhere warm so speed up the process

http://photos.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/113060/cat/500/page/1


Step2

Once the mould is dry remove the mould from the container and peel off the Clay. Remove the bricks components off your mould and start cutting away imperfections on the mould (as you see from the picture I have already pre-made some)

http://photos.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/113059/cat/500/page/1


Step3

Once the mould is cleaned get a brush with Vaseline on it and coat the inside of the mould (this helps with lubrication).


Step 4

Mix the plaster in a cup of water and start to mix until you get a cream like feel and look (don’t know exact measurements) Then pure the plaster into the mould. (You may need a pointy object like a pen to push the plaster into the crevices of the mould, , once done leave for 45min to a hour to dry and take the plaster away from the mould

http://photos.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/113055/cat/500/page/1
http://photos.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/113056/cat/500/page/1

Step 5

You may need a knife to cut off the excess plaster.
To make more bricks carry on the process form step 3. (just add some more Vaseline for lubrication after about15th go). After a while you can start building up for plaster cast bricks and you can start building various constructions.

http://photos.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/113058/cat/500/page/1
http://photos.kitmaker.net/showphoto.php/photo/113057/cat/500/page/1

I have started to build some houses that I will show you at a later date. I have just moved house so everything is boxes at the mo.






:-)

Nice post and glad you came to the posting side. Welcome aboard.

I made the links hot links

Excellent sbs. Thanks for posting it.

something new we've learn...

Never mind. Having a bad case of the Mondays...



Shaun

Ola

Nice walls Gary, but I'm afraid that the seams are too visible. That is of course only my opinion, but I think that some of the modellers here will agree with me. It really depends on what you want to achieve. If it doesn't bother you than it's ok:)
I prefer to make most of my stuff pretty realistic, so visible seams aren't really great for me.
I've tried to create a lot of wall panels which were planned to be used for building bigger walls, but the results were not very good. I know it's pretty hard to create smaller walls which will fit together nicely, that's why I'm focusing on creating a huge wall panel, which should be easy to use when building bigger walls and which eliminates the problems with visible seams (as there are none).

A big thanks for the tutorial, I'm sure it will be helpful to a lot of people.

Take care,
dsc.

Hi Gary!

Nice "How to" post!

I just Have one question about the "Silicon" you're talking about. If the product you've used is the one on the first picture, it is LATEX not SILICON. Latex is a natural product (it comes from exotic trees) and silicon a chemical one.
Latex can be used to make molds but should be used in several layers to let the milky like product dry (it becomes then light brown). One big advantage is that this product is "easy" to work with and cheap... but it take ages to dry! Your mold must have needed weeks!? The mold also tends to shrink while getting dry, so making precision parts is almost impossible with it (I know, I tried). I also don't know if it is really suitable for resin castings...
Silicon is a chemical product and comes usually in two parts: the silicon and the catalysator. It it used for making molds and "hardens" in 24 hours (faster with accelerator or thixotrop agent). The advantage is that it doesn't shrinks and is very precise allowing you to do very small details (see aftermarket resin products). The bad side is that it is not easy to work with and very, very, very expensive compared to latex.
Looking at your pictures it seems you used Latex (silicon is white) and I think for making walls it is a good alternative. If you plan to use it for many years or to make a large number of precision pieces, I would recommend silicon though...

Jean-Luc

Nice tip Gary!!
Welcome to Armorama.This will prove usefull in the future!
Thanks for sharing!Waiting to see what you built out those bricks!!
Cheers!!

Tedmamere, well spotted you are right it was the latex ,my mistake.


DSC, I know what you mean about the seams, What I have been trying to do is put dry plaster down the seams and pure water over the seams lightly to hide the seams, it does work a little bit put it is slight noticeable once painted.

Ola Gary

It's a simple idea with that dry plaster and water pouring. I will have to give it a try. Thanks mate:)

cheers,
dsc.

Nice idea.The bricks themselves can also be sanded back in various places alittle so the wall doesn't look too fresh and grout too evident.Some of the corners could be chipped away alittle for an aged effect.
I will be trying something like this for my current dio.
cheers Shay

Ola

Sorry to kind of steal your topic Gary, but here's a sample of my work. Two wall panels, made by me some time ago, the seams are pretty visible, but creating to wall panel in the same time, would probably eliminate this problem, check it out here:

- side by side

sidebyside

- on top of each other

ontop

Looks pretty well (those panels aren't great I know) but the seams are still visible.

cheers,
dsc.