Some Masonry and Carpentry Work
Now for a bit of detail on the brickwork. Remember, the idea here is to make it look like a 1930’s style high rise building…and, a little on the ritzy side.
I turned to my dremel tool for both the brick and masonry work ( on the outside ) and the carpentry work ( on the inside ). Some time ago, I purchased a plunge router base for the dremel tool from Lee Valley. It was a bit pricey but well worth the quality of the tool.
With a decorative bit, I outlined the masonry pieces to give them that finished look that you see in older, upper end buildings. I wasn’t too particular that everything looked perfectly straight as I wanted it to come across as masonry and not milled wood. I’ll add some roughness to these pieces before I paint them to make them look a bit porous.
I then drew in some mortar lines and, just by hand, used the dremel tool to follow those lines. Again, I didn’t use a straight edge as a guide as I didn’t want it to look too perfectly square. With a combination of banging on the brick surface with a couple of different size hammers and rasps, and finally poking it a million times with an awl ( looks like an ice pick ), I created what I think looks awfully close to a brick. Once I put multiple colours on this surface, I think it’s going to really pop out.
For the inside, I set up the dremel tool so that I could pass the baseboard and window trim between two clamped edges and made my own little wood mill. It was actually a lot of fun.
So, that’s where I’ll finish up on a very cold ( -23 C ) day. If you’re reading this post from somewhere that doesn’t measure temperature in Celsius…that’s cold.
tributesinwood 