"Mortar" like glue

Redfinger

Redfinger

New member
I was in my local hobby shop the other day and I found some really cool /135 scale bricks, a bag of 500! they size up real nice too 28mm figs. I want to try out a cool idea for a base, the thing is I am trying to find a suitable scale "mortar" like glue that I can use to join the bricks, I want them to look like the were put in place correctly. Real mortar has a grout like consistency, should I even bother trying to replicate that at this scale, If I dont go with a mortar like substance, how could I glue them together so that there is the appropriate amount of space between each one, I would need a glue that is like a paste, and has minimal shrinkage when dry...

Any thoughts?

Ashton
 
Aureo

Aureo

New member
I wonder if you could mix some grout with the glue? or beach sand? or some other fine grained stuff?
 
R

Ritual

New member
Vallejo has a basing product called Sandy Paste. It's a textured thick paste that sets hard. I think it could be used for this purpose. At least if you're not building something too large. I don't know exactly how durable the stuff would be, but for some basing details, like a part of a wall or something, I think it would do. I'd make one row at a time, though, so the previous row has set properly, before adding next row.
 
DarkStar

DarkStar

New member
Plaster is nice for this sort of thing. Build your brick wall on a flat surface, not standing up but have it lying flat. Place your bricks in their rows loosely using a tiny amount of soft wax to hold them in place (cheese wax is an old standby, soft, free, cleans off easily, sticky). Pour plaster on top let it set up for a bit then trowel it off the surface. It will remain in the spaces between the bricks and glue the whole structure together. Once it's drying you can chisel into the plaster any detail you wish, using a wire brush or something like that to make little chips and texture in the 'grout'. You can keep the surface of the bricks clear of the stuff as you work by using a qtip and water to clean them if any plaster you don't want gets on them. Or you may want to leave it on in certain places for extra realism.

When it's all dry, add strength to the project by applying a watered down coat of wood glue (dries clear, can be painted/primed) or even make a quick mold of the wall and cast the whole thing multiple times for later projects.
 
Shawn R. L.

Shawn R. L.

New member
Tooth paste should work quite well for this. It's thick and tacky and dries quite hard........and it smells minty:)
 
Benihana

Benihana

New member
I'm not sure it fits exactly what you're looking for, but I've used wood filler for projects in the past, and it has a very nice and realistic texture.
 
gsr15

gsr15

Member
Perhaps not the cheapest stuff around but the PC series two part epoxies are good thick pastes...PC-7 is black/dark gray (and would be harder than your bricks when cured) and PC-11 is an off white...though they're ~$7-8 a pack for two 35mm film canisters worth of the stuff. They're also slow curing (workable for at least an hour or more, full cure takes like 24 hours+) with minimal shrinkage, in my experience.
 
COG

COG

New member
ashton what was the name of the hobby store.?
me personally and i know you have had a bunch of advice already but i would go with wood filer or Micheal's has some fine sand and mix that with some white glue and maybe a light grey to dye it
 
Dragonsreach

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
Redfinger said:
I was in my local hobby shop the other day and I found some really cool /135 scale bricks, a bag of 500! they size up real nice too 28mm figs. I want to try out a cool idea for a base, the thing is I am trying to find a suitable scale "mortar" like glue that I can use to join the bricks, I want them to look like the were put in place correctly. Real mortar has a grout like consistency, should I even bother trying to replicate that at this scale, If I dont go with a mortar like substance, how could I glue them together so that there is the appropriate amount of space between each one, I would need a glue that is like a paste, and has minimal shrinkage when dry...

Any thoughts? (Ok Several...Please see below)

Ashton
Click to expand...
OK 1/35 scale bricks (UK brick standards) work out at close to 2mm in height, for 28mm (1/56th scale) its closer to 1.4mm, at those scale the average mortar gap between the bricks would be well below ¼mm. (0.25mm)
If you wanted to get the accurate effect of mortar the chances are that any sand used in gluing would be outside that scale and putting the optical effect way off.

If you really want to be putting in the mortar gaps, can I suggest an option, get some ultra thin plasticard (Styrene sheet) of 0.25mm and cut into strips 1 mm smaller that the width of your bricks. Layer this between the rows of bricks and that should get you the visual accuracy you're after.
Painting it however is a different matter and you're on your own there.
Here's some examples of Bricks I took photo's of as references.
They are British "Engineering" bricks from a building constructed in 1901, so the aging and weathering is long term.
As you can see "Salt leaching" on bricks looks good and the addition of a few bits of parasite greenery in the cracks could add to realism.
View attachment 7661

View attachment 7662

View attachment 7663

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
Redfinger

Redfinger

New member
Thanks guys for all the input, Dragon, you hit it on he head, no point in trying to recreate that effect at this scale. Thanks everyone for the advice though!

Ashton
 
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