Fancy sidewalk brickwork (N scale)

[CAS]

I am thinking about laying some bricks of some sort in my larger towns, in front of like stores and other businesses on the street. Maybe planting small trees or bushes, and or placing benches in that area.
I am looking to lay the brick between my curbs and the sidewalks to beautify my commercial area. I think that area is called the easment(not sure of spelling).
I was thinking about making my curbs and sidewalks first, then pouring plaster or joint compound and then smooth it out then scribe lines for the bricks.
has anyone seen or have done that before.
some help please.
Thanks,
Cliff

 

[zedob]

Yow, scribing n scale bricks!? Not impossible, but close to it. Even in HO scale, scribing bricks is tedious, believe me. It's really hard to control without it looking like skid row masonry.


What about plastic brick or cobblestone sheets? Make up some templates out of cardstock, trim and fit them first then transfer to the brick sheet. They're not expensive, but you don't want to waste one if you don't have to.

 

[CAS]

I was throwing out a idea of mine. But now that you mentioned it would be hard to scribe the lines. Maybe i'll try printing colored brick on cardstock on my computer to see how that turns out.

Thanks zedob.

Cliff

 

[XavierJ123]

While it might be hard, they say nothing is impossible. I have scribed bricks on plaster-of-paris HO tunnel portals. Just find a teeny,tiny scribe tool and perhaps a magnifying glass and give it a whirl.

 

[ezdays]

While it might be hard, they say nothing is impossible. I have scribed bricks on plaster-of-paris HO tunnel portals. Just find a teeny,tiny scribe tool and perhaps a magnifying glass and give it a whirl.

That's quite an achievement, and takes a lot of patience, but it should be four times as difficult in N scale. Myself, I'd get a structure kit with brick walls and make a mold from it then pour plaster sheets of brick. I got a kit that was missing one brick wall. I took a latex mold of another wall and made a new one out of epoxy. I trimmed it until it fit and it turned out just fine and it painted up as well as the rest of the building. Don't know why it wouldn't work for sidwalks.

 

[MasonJar]

Just find a teeny,tiny scribe tool and perhaps a magnifying glass and give it a whirl.

Teeny, tiny scribe tools:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=31063&cat=1,130,43332,43337

Magnifying glass:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=43277&cat=1,43456,43351
or
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=40936&cat=1,43456,43351

You're all set!

Andrew

 

[Pitchwife]

Teeny, tiny scribe tools:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=31063&cat=1,130,43332,43337

Magnifying glass:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=43277&cat=1,43456,43351
or
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=40936&cat=1,43456,43351

You're all set!

Andrew

You forgot the tranquilizers to eliminate the shakes and to keep the blood pressure in check when you goof up.

 

[ezdays]

You forgot the tranquilizers to eliminate the shakes and to keep the blood pressure in check when you goof up.

I was going to supply a few links to psychiatric web sites. Not that one is crazy to try, but might be before the job is done..

 

[zedob]

You forgot the tranquilizers to eliminate the shakes and to keep the blood pressure in check when you goof up.

Just throw the goofed up piece against the wall and cuss alot. It doesn't save the piece, but it does keep the self medicating down to a minimum.

Even with those picks, their points are wider than n scale scale bricks, you'd end up with one big grout/mortar line. Actually, when scribing in HO scale, you need to over emphasis the mortar lines. I use a stereo microscope (dental lab tech by day) for scribing my stones and what looks good under it is next to impossible to see by the naked eye, which is good because working down at that size you are bound to twitch and gouge out a part you didn't want to, but when you look at it without magnification it's not noticable.