I'm spending a lot of time on the streets at the moment. And I will confess to being a little concerned about how much still lies ahead of me.

"The road goes ever on and on..." Tolkien wrote and when I look at my plan of Green Town Illinois and consider how many miles of brick streets there are to model; "on and on" is about right if you multiply that by the nth degree. 

I used balsa as the road bed, then used plaster to coat the balsa and fill up to the track. I then carved it with a scorer tip to form the bricks. I was pretty happy with it at the time although they looked more like large cobbles than bricks. Even on this readily accessible piece of test track it was tricky work leaning over the road, lining up the ruler and scoring straight lines. I realised I was going to have to come up with a somewhat easier solution when I tackled the layout proper.

The balsa had proved a good option for the road bed, easy to cut, light and fairly tough when coated with dope or sanding sealer. So I just needed an option for the bricks. I looked at a number of molded brick sheets available from the local hobby shops. They were generally expensive, difficult to cut, and almost impossible to shape for the curves. Then I saw a link to Monster Model works and their range of laser cut basswood sheets. The photos certainly look great, but the cost is outside my current roading budget. But it did get me to thinking about how I might be able to create my own brick basswood sheets, not with a laser cutter (refer note about roading budget) but with my trusty carbide tipped scorer, a jeweller's straight edge screwdriver and a steel rule.

I use sanding sealer on the basswood before scoring. 

By rubbing a pencil over the top of the track then pressing the uncut sheet down in position I get a neat and fairly accurate cutting line for any curves that are required.

Then comes the scoring of the bricks themselves. I start by running three rows of bricks parallel with the track along the edge that will lie against the rail. Then I score the horizontal lines. Six words but my what a lot of work. Each row is about 2mm high. So five lines for each centimetre.When I've completed a reasonable section, I finish marking the brick pattern with the tip of a jewellers screw driver, pressing it lightly into the wood to create the individual bricks.

The plan is to paint and weather the sheets before they are glued in place on the street. And there lies the rub. I have quite a collection of black and white photos and a large number of references in Ray Bradbury's books and stories to the streets being bricked but nothing about what colour they were.

I found an interesting website:  Gavin Historical Bricks which has a wealth of information about brick pavers. 

After some deliberation I decided on a fairly dark antique Purington brick. My plan was to be able to create a fairly easy paint mix for the base coat and then add highlights with weathering and by colouring some individual bricks in foreground areas.

Finding the right combination of colours took some experimentation and a couple of trips to the local art supply store but I finally got something I liked that used just three colours mixed together in almost equal proportions. It didn't quite match the original image but gave the right feel.

But Then... I had just painted the first three strips of brick sheet when I happened upon this postcard. Artistic license aside, there was no way the street was paved in the antique Purington brick I had chosen. 

A check of the other colourised postcards I had of Waukegan indicated an orange or yellow shade to the streets.

Quick rethink and I'm now thinking a simple terracotta might do the trick, though I'm happy to get feedback on this from anyone who may have more insight than I. 

Here's where I'm up to, sans weathering and without any further detailing. Straight terracotta out of the tube. Think it might do the trick, but I'm not going to go too much further down the paint track until I'm certain this is the way I want to go on and on and on....