Garden Railway Forum

Hi all. I'm starting to gather materials for quite a long suburban scene that will require quite a lot of red brick plastic sheets. I can 3d print 200x200 panels and back them onto corflute but this would be about 6 weeks of printing and maybe $200 worth of filament. I would really rather buy sheets of 1:24 or 1:22 red brick and build the panels that way.

Whats everyone using for brick sheets? I know JTT make packs of 2 sheets which are 6" x 12" (I think?) but given I need to build around 8 meters of panelling that could end up pretty pricy!

You might find some out of scale dolls house brick sheets, but I don't know of any 16mm.
When I built my post office, back in 2014, I scribed foam board to make my own. Its a long tedious job that really makes your hand ache, but it wouldn't take as long as 3d printing and is certainly a lot cheaper. In my case it was made worse by the fact that the bricks were in panels in a timber framed building, but being able to score the horizontals in reasonable lengths against a ruler, would speed it up a bit.
I did detail my build at the time:
https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... ice#p97202

The post office has been out in the garden now, 24/7/365, since March 2014 and looks a bit weathered but the brickwork has survived.

Thanks Phillipy I knew someone on here would have the answers! In this case I have a slight advantage as working in 1:24 scale does mean I can share a lot of parts with the dollhouse groups but unfortunately here at least they seem to prefer paper as the material of choice!

Will get some of that foam and give it a try though. I now recall Rik doing something similar with some of his buildings which turned out superb just like your post office. thanks for that

Another vote for foamboard!

Admittedly I still haven't done a brick building yet..

Bunnings carries it, but you'll find a plastics supplier is likely cheaper per sq. meter.

Tropic Blunder wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 4:11 am Hi all. I'm starting to gather materials for quite a long suburban scene that will require quite a lot of red brick plastic sheets. I can 3d print 200x200 panels and back them onto corflute but this would be about 6 weeks of printing and maybe $200 worth of filament. I would really rather buy sheets of 1:24 or 1:22 red brick and build the panels that way.

Whats everyone using for brick sheets? I know JTT make packs of 2 sheets which are 6" x 12" (I think?) but given I need to build around 8 meters of panelling that could end up pretty pricy!

How thick is the corflute you are using: consider using 4.5mm fibre cement (Hardie flex) covered in acrylic render, coloured with oxides with a carved the pattern.

This is what I use for my backdrops
https://ringbalin-light-railway.blogspo ... ting+Walls

All available from the big green shed.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/james-hardi ... s_p0714506
https://www.bunnings.com.au/dunlop-20kg ... r_p0760242
https://www.bunnings.com.au/dulux-avist ... g_p0760498