# Brick wall (on luan)



## Jfisher2008 (Sep 2, 2008)

hello everyone.

was wondering if anyone have a idea of how to make a brick wall on 3/4 or 5/6 ply or even luan sheet.

i have read somewhere (not on controlbooth) about making a brick wall by using carpet padding.

cut out the carpet padding in to 4in x 8in and hot glue or liquid nail it to a (luaun)sheet to make a brickwall.

anyone have a good idea or easier way to do this?

any suggestion is good



you can see the sketchup of the model by the Resident Set Designer.

ControlBooth - Jfisher2008's Album: Fences - Picture


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## Van (Sep 2, 2008)

Couple of really quick solutions, depending on your budget, your 30ft factor, and skill level.
Easiest way, by far, is to simply base paint the the Luan or whatever surface you are doing, with a grey color or whatever color your grout is designed to be. 
Then tape out a brick pattern with 1/4" or 3/8" masking tape. Like to make a big criss cross pattern then go in and cut out the cross from every other brick. Now mix some brick colored paint with some Acrylic latex caulk, a touch of drywall compound and some "play sand" Stir well, apply with a roller, after the paint has set for about 15 minutes pull the tape then let the paint cure for 8 hours. Next day come back rag roll a couple of different colors , add graffiti, use a liner brush to add shadows and give the brick depth. 
This is an effective technique for medium range audiences, 15 - 20'.
Next method is to go get Vaccu-form brick and paint it, then staple it or glue it to the flat, or whatever surface. Several companies sell Vaccu-form brick, one of the best and cheapest is located here in Portland. Seeing as how you're in DC, shipping might eat you alive but Acme Scenic & Display has given me some great prices over the years. Something on the order of Half of what Rose brand or Norcostco chargers. 
Vaccu-form is a great 0' - Infinity audience fooler, However the illusion si blow the first time someone kicks a sheet loose , accidentally brushes against it and you here that os so familiar " plastic" sound. 

Another Really REALLY Boring way to do it is to cut out individual bricks of LDF, EPS, MDF, Foam rubber, whatever, then adhere it to the surface then paint . The problem is you still need to coat it with some sort or scenic dope. For this I recommend doing a search on the Booth for VSSSD < vans super secret scenic dope> it's essentially what I described in the first technique. He
this helps


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## DaveySimps (Sep 2, 2008)

I have used celotex cut into life sized bricks glued and stapled to make a very realistic wall. I really think it is the final paint job that matters most. A good senic painter could paint a convincing wall on just a flat sheet of luan.

~Dave


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## Jfisher2008 (Sep 3, 2008)

thanks.

looks like my TD and i are going to do the painter job method. 

now its all down to getting the Set designer to accept it.... 

he is usually involved in building the set. (totally different subject to discuss <muttering>)


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## Van (Sep 3, 2008)

You should be able to get really good results even just using flat paint remember it's all about the final touch ups. Rag rolling, adding sahdows to the mortar lines. If you go with a red brick use a blue or light gray as a "spatter" either from a sprayer, or brush. Hmmm Maybe I should add a few scenic painting technicques to the WIki.....in my spare time.


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## jwl868 (Sep 3, 2008)

Another painting approach that we used for a set of chimneys (rather than a large area like a wall) was to cut the shape of a brick into a large sturdy sponge, and then used that as a stamp with paint. We drew lines on the surfaces to line up the bricks. The sponge stamp produced a consistent shape, but with minor variations from brick to brick. The sponge didn’t leave a solid and even layer of paint, but rather darker and lighter areas for a textured appearance. It had a natural look to it and didn’t have the man-made “lines” from other painting methods (at least from our talent pool). After that, we “weathered” it with dry brushing or rags.

(It’s flat, but I had the full “30 feet” to work with.)

Joe


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## Van (Sep 3, 2008)

jwl868 said:


> Another painting approach that we used for a set of chimneys (rather than a large area like a wall) was to cut the shape of a brick into a large sturdy sponge, and then used that as a stamp with paint. We drew lines on the surfaces to line up the bricks. The sponge stamp produced a consistent shape, but with minor variations from brick to brick. The sponge didn’t leave a solid and even layer of paint, but rather darker and lighter areas for a textured appearance. It had a natural look to it and didn’t have the man-made “lines” from other painting methods (at least from our talent pool). After that, we “weathered” it with dry brushing or rags.
> 
> (It’s flat, but I had the full “30 feet” to work with.)
> 
> Joe


 
Joe ! That's Beautiful! I completely Forgot the Sponge Technique ! It is very effective and easier with a shallower talent pool.


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## Jfisher2008 (Sep 3, 2008)

yeah. from my first post above. you can see the link i made to see the sketchup of the model. 


you can see the wall Stageleft and Stageright. also upstage left. those walls need to be bricked.

yes van, its all about the final touches. i'll be looking foward to your scenic painting technicques... in the future (smiles)


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## Jfisher2008 (Sep 3, 2008)

Van said:


> Joe ! That's Beautiful! I completely Forgot the Sponge Technique ! It is very effective and easier with a shallower talent pool.



i would call this shallower talent pool... at the place where i work. heh. 



the sponge sounds fun thing for Lab students to do.


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## derekleffew (Sep 3, 2008)

Taking the "sponge-stamp" further, use three different shades of brown/red. A simple way is to take the base color, divide it into fourths. Add black to one fourth, and white to another fourth, leaving half true. Mix a little of each on the sponge each time it needs refilling. Bricks are seldom uniform in color across all bricks, and often variant with one brick.

Snap a blue chalk line every few courses to help keep everything level.


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## jwl868 (Sep 3, 2008)

I went back and took a look at how I did the "brickwork". I didn't have my description quite right. We used the sponge cut out, but the brick detail was added in "negative", so to speak. That is, we started with the panels painted completely brick-red. But the paint on the sponge was (variously) grey or pale yellow or white. No attempt was made to show mortar/joints as a lighter color. We added some 3-D effects (like the lip of the chimney or other ornamental brick or stone work) using foam. The effect worked well for what we needed (part of a "set" for some Mary Poppins dance numbers for a recital.)


Joe


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## Jfisher2008 (Sep 22, 2008)

ok heres what GallyTD and i have decided to do.

1. 1/4" luan as base
2. use 1/8" luan as bricks themselves (3" x 5")
3. use Stucco to give realistic gout feel after it dried out (pretty fast under 5min)

we are going to pain the 1/8" luan base coat of red, then cut to 3inch strips and cut the strips to 5inch size. 

will use Liquid Nail to "nail" it to the 1/4" luan.

hope the method is understandable or GallyTD can clarifiy it, as he is doing the working draft.


we tried Woodglue (too long to dry), also staples, couldnt find anything smaller then 3/4" staple in stock. we went ahead with Liq Nail, less messy and dries quicker.

heres the layout with painted 1/8" luan on top of 4'x8' 1/4"luan


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## icewolf08 (Sep 22, 2008)

I am surprised that no one mentioned one of the great ways to do bricks. Take 1/2" or larger homosote, cut into brick shape, and then split each brick in half (on edge). Apply the bricks to whatever surface you need. As homosote is a paper product, it isn't that hard to split and you get a nice organic texture. It is also pretty easy to paint.


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## derekleffew (Sep 22, 2008)

icewolf08 said:


> I am surprised that no one mentioned one of the great ways to do bricks. Take 1/2" or larger homAsote, cut into brick shape, and then split each brick in half (on edge). Apply the bricks to whatever surface you need. As homAsote is a paper product, it isn't that hard to split and you get a nice organic texture. It is also pretty easy to paint.


1)The dust created when working Homasote® with wood power tools is particularly nasty. Wear all applicable PPE. 2) It will suck up more paint than you can possibly imagine.

Just curious, Jfisher2008, how did you settle on why 3"x5", as 3-ish x 8-ish is much more common?


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## Van (Sep 22, 2008)

I think that's going to look neat. When you're done you'll understand why most of the techniques provided were suggestions of paint, or dope techniques. 
I don't wanna be a Brick layer no mo'.


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## Jfisher2008 (Sep 22, 2008)

derekleffew said:


> 1)The dust created when working Homasote® with wood power tools is particularly nasty. Wear all applicable PPE. 2) It will suck up more paint than you can possibly imagine.
> 
> Just curious, Jfisher2008, how did you settle on why 3"x5", as 3-ish x 8-ish is much more common?



ok first of all. we do have few sheets of Homastoe (3/4"), due to the amount of dust and the sucking of the paints. decide not to go that method.

from the first row to the first wall with bricks is about 15-20 foot away. we are performing in Black box, also for more reality look in that close range. (based on GallyTD and mine opinion) also the bricks we have on our building (made in late 1950's) are in that approx size (3"X 5") and we wanted to follow our example as is standing right on our Shop wall. 

mainly its in a very intimated space (black box)


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## Jfisher2008 (Sep 22, 2008)

Van said:


> I think that's going to look neat. When you're done you'll understand why most of the techniques provided were suggestions of paint, or dope techniques.
> I don't wanna be a Brick layer no mo'.




we did provide our's (yours Contorlbooth) idea to the Setdeigner/Director (same person). for the painting method, he said he wont do that again too much labor invloved, wanted to go more 3D look....

we did suggest to him about VSSD, he likes that idea but wanted to do other method.. in result we created the sample (the first picture posted) of the 1/8" on 1/4" luan method. he likes it right away, and we do have bugdet for the amount of wood we need. (as you see we got the woods)


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## Toffee (Sep 23, 2008)

Our TD just had us lay a 4x8 sheet of foam or what ever we needed the brick size to be, I think we had a couple 2x8's. But any way's we just cut the foam to the dimensions we needed and then built a jig and routed out the brick pattern and then liquid nailed it to the sheet of laun we were using.

Now that I think about it I have used A LOT of foam over the past few years. haha.


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## JustAShadow (Sep 23, 2008)

icewolf08 said:


> I am surprised that no one mentioned one of the great ways to do bricks. Take 1/2" or larger homosote, cut into brick shape, and then split each brick in half (on edge). Apply the bricks to whatever surface you need. As homosote is a paper product, it isn't that hard to split and you get a nice organic texture. It is also pretty easy to paint.



Was asked by a scenic designer to use this method a few years back. it took a great deal of paint on the rough side to get decent color. it was also incredibly time consuming given the amount I had to do. somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 bricks. an alternative to the individual bricks, if you are still going for the organic look that they give is to lay out lines of a full sheet and take a router to the whole thing. a stiff wire brush will rough up the surface just a bit and the amount of dust will be greatly reduced.


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## jwl868 (Sep 23, 2008)

Another thought about the brick pattern: Many brick buildings (particularly large industrial/institutioanal type buildings) have "bonding" courses every 2 or 4 or 8 rows. (In the bonding courses, the ends of the bricks are facing outward.)

You can probably find pictures online by googling brickwork, or just walk outside and look at some buildings.

Joe


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## Jfisher2008 (Oct 4, 2008)

jwl868 said:


> Another thought about the brick pattern: Many brick buildings (particularly large industrial/institutioanal type buildings) have "bonding" courses every 2 or 4 or 8 rows. (In the bonding courses, the ends of the bricks are facing outward.)
> 
> You can probably find pictures online by googling brickwork, or just walk outside and look at some buildings.
> 
> Joe



that what we did. inside our Scene Shop one wall is the orgianl wall from early 1960's (didnt have Sceneshop by then) we followed that pattern.


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## Jfisher2008 (Oct 4, 2008)

ok guys and gals. heres the update on the walls. heres some pictures first...








ok the first picture above is the actual size of the wall. 12 foot high... long side is going to face the audience. 

the 2nd picture is the... well clearly the backside. the bracing is only temptory while the painters paint. will replace with more solid bracing once its all finished and moved in the Blackbox.


when i took the 1st pic i was standing about 18foot away about the same distance from the first row to that wall on upstage right.


what do you all experts think? 


to jwl868 : as you can see in the 2nd picture the brick wall in the background is the one we use as our example to create the wall we need.


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## tayo87 (Oct 16, 2012)

Don't know if you're still around to answer, but what did you do for a permanent brace? I'm looking at a 12-foot high by 16-feet wide wall. There are two side flats that go back around four-feet to create a three-sided structure. I'm looking to use a jack brace sorta like what you have, but then secure them to the stage floor. Any suggestions?


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