Hey

For my latest dio i need to build some half destroyed walls with alot of rubble round them.
Now i thought it was about time i scratchbuilt something to get exactly what i want.
My only problem is what i should use to build the walls.
What in your opinion is best and easiest to work with?

Thanks.
Scott

I think plaster of paris is the best material for walls. Here's what I do;
Roll out a sheet of plasticene to about 1/2- 3/4 cm thick and cut it to the shape of your wall. Turn the plasticene sheet over. Now use a brick shaped object to impress whatever pattern you want. I use different sized paintbrush handles or brick shapes carved from sprue. When you've finished making your pattern, build a retaining wall around it. You now have a mould of the wall. Mix up some plaster of Paris adding a suitable brick colour, water based paint. Pour the plaster mix into the mould and shake it gently to make any air bubbles rise out. When it dries you can peel off the plasticene and there you have your brick wall. If you're careful you can reuse the mould a few times. The method is adapted from the book "Roy Porter's Model Buildings Masterclass" which is well worth getting.

Cheers pat.

I'll try it out & report back.

Whilst Pat's method is very good (I think I might use it!), when I asked this question I got quite a good reply:

Grab an old CD case and pour plaster into it. When it has dried use a screw driver to engrave your desired brick/stone work.

Harry

What kind of walls were you looking to build? Cobble stone, brick, or plastered over brick?
Plaster of paris is the easiest to use and cheap to buy at any craft store...usually sells in big and small buckets{hobby lobby}.
You can make loose bricks the old school way by making a box frame to the desired thickness, filling it with clay, rolling it smooth, remove the frame and use a knife, tight wire or a wide putty knife to cut into the desired sized bricks, letting them dry thoroughly, paint, dye wash them to the color you like and play blocks...sorta.

Someone on here posted a good article on this before. They used old sheet rock aka drywall to make walls. First, you wet the paper side of the drywall and once the paper is fairly saturated, you can peel it right off leaving some exposed sheet rock. Then, cut the sheetrock with a razor knif or such to your desired shape. ONce the sheet rock is dry, you can use a pick or an awl to carve in any details you want. I only experimented with this twice, but I found it fairly easy to do and the results were nice. Do a search on here and I am sure you will find the article about making walls from sheet rock. Good luck

hey i am also trying to build some walls for i dio and i like the sound of harry's idea with the cd case! i was just wonderin how exactly you go about it as all the cd cases i have are in two separate parts..

Hey guys,

First of all i'd like to say thanks for all the help, Thats one of the reasons why this place is so great.

Secondly, I've decided to try all of these methods as i have all of the needed materials.

I shall return with results soon, but i must say, the CD case & Drywall idea's sound brilliant.

Cheers again

Scott

The sheetrock/wallboard, then scribe method works really well. It is easy to "customize" with knocked out bricks,holes and damage. Soak it for several days and the paper backing will lift off in one piece.

Hi
This is how i use to do, I make a wall of plaster about 15mm thick and the outside measurements i want, i then cut out windows and doors and sketch out the brickpattern.
Next step is to carv away the area to be scribed with brickpattern (carv away to appr. 0.5mm depth see pics)
Then take a sharp needle and scribe the desired pattern in the plaster.





Hope this can be to help for someone

I think I'd do the drywall (sheetrock) method, myself, if it's for a thick wall. A 1/2" sheet of drywall would give you a wall that would roughly represent sixteen inches, so it would be pretty close for, say, the ruins of a castle, or bunkers. At some hardware stores, you can get 1/4" drywall, also, which would give you a roughly eight inch wall, or fairly standard brickwork.

Now I'll throw out another question: what would you folks do for a lath-and-plaster wall?