20's brick buildings

[LynnB]

Hi
I got a kind of simple question, on the hill of my layout I plan on putting 3 brick structures all in there own fensed in area in the late 20's era as well as a few other wooden structures . Question is most brick building like in the dpm gold series kits show as red bricked, were these old buildings always red colored weathered darker?

[MasonJar]

Depends... probably not the answer you want, but that's the way it is.

In the 1920s, many brick buildings would be less than 40 years old - depending on location. Brick structures would most likely be present earlier in larger urban areas than in smaller or semi-rural areas. In either case, the DPM series seems to represent late Victorian era structures well, so that would be my starting assumption.

Then depending on location, the weathering could be dark, light, so anything else. If the buildings are in a heavily industrialized area, they may be blackened by soot. Other sources of weathering include airborne dirt and dust, rain, and the bricks and mortar deteriorating. This last one may be less important in a "younger" building.

Hope that helps.

Andrew

[Brakie]

Hi
I got a kind of simple question, on the hill of my layout I plan on putting 3 brick structures all in there own fensed in area in the late 20's era as well as a few other wooden structures . Question is most brick building like in the dpm gold series kits show as red bricked, were these old buildings always red colored weathered darker?

As a rule yes..However,I recall seeing 2 white brick buildings in Columbus in the 50s.IIRC both was bakeries.

[MasonJar]

Brakie raises another good point. Just because the bricks are almost always assumed to be a "red" type doesn't mean they are. Location will also have a bearing on this, since bricks are often made locally and not transported very far.

Example - Woodstock, ON features many late-1800s houses and commercial buildings in yellow brick. It stands out as very different from other Southern Ontario towns which have more traditional red brick buildings.

Andrew

[LynnB]

Some very good points, it would seem that the red brick would be the norm and if the buildings are say in the same district chances are the same supplier would be supplying the bricks especially if its in the back woods. I guess also the bricks may have been painted a different color as well.

[BR60103]

When the Hales were giving a seminar for DPM, they pointed out that buildings might have 2 types of brick (or other masonry). The front would be done in an expensive or imported brick, while the sides and back, which weren't very visible from the street, might have a cheaper, local brick. We have buildings in Brampton where the front is stone and this goes a few feet around the side while the rest is rough brick. Very noticeable on on downtown building where the buildings between it and the corner have been demolished.
Brick colours will depend on the local clay. Lots of red, but also yellow. Brits have a blue "engineering brick". I suppose other colours would be in a really expensive brick or a glazed tile.

[MountainMan]

Bricks range in natural color from yellow to red to brown, depending on local supplies of raw materials.

Around 1895 - 1900 at the latest, all of the old wooden Western towns finally burned down for the last time and were rebuilt in brick to cut down the fire hazard.

When Cripple Creek burnt down for the last time, numerous factories were built right on the spot, clay was dug up locally and bricks were turned out like crazy to meet the enormous demand. The Cripple Creek bricks fired to a natural red, the common color for the local material, but other colors are notable around the state.

The truth is, you can have whatever color bricks you want to have.

[Russ Bellinis]

Bricks range in natural color from yellow to red to brown, depending on local supplies of raw materials.

Around 1895 - 1900 at the latest, all of the old wooden Western towns finally burned down for the last time and were rebuilt in brick to cut down the fire hazard.

When Cripple Creek burnt down for the last time, numerous factories were built right on the spot, clay was dug up locally and bricks were turned out like crazy to meet the enormous demand. The Cripple Creek bricks fired to a natural red, the common color for the local material, but other colors are notable around the state.

The truth is, you can have whatever color bricks you want to have.

In most western towns buildings were put up as fast as possible, with no regard to a fancy front. You would find the fancy stone work on the front of buildings in San Francisco, probably Denver, and Seattle in the 1800's. Los Angeles was pretty much a village until oil was discovered in the early 1900's at the same time the movie industry moved out here to get away from Thomas Edison and his patent on movies. I'm not sure when businesses would have started to paint brick. Unreinforced masonry was a common construction method until the Long Beach earthquake in 1933 caused brick and stone work to fall onto the sidewalk.

[LynnB]

Just got home from or local layout club, I knew there were quite a few dpm style buildings on the layout some brick and some brick building and some board ( plastic ) I did notice many differnt colors that actually looked very good , yellow was popular or a sage green color. Do water color tpye paints work well on the plastic kits?

[Russ Bellinis]

If you wash the plastic models to remove all grease, oils, or traces of parting material used in the casting process, water based paint works fine on styrene. I like to use water based acrylics from the craft store or "Wally World" when specific railroad colors are not needed since the price is about 1/2 for twice as much paint compared to model railroad specific color paints from companies like Floquil at the local hobby shop.

[MountainMan]

In most western towns buildings were put up as fast as possible, with no regard to a fancy front. You would find the fancy stone work on the front of buildings in San Francisco, probably Denver, and Seattle in the 1800's. Los Angeles was pretty much a village until oil was discovered in the early 1900's at the same time the movie industry moved out here to get away from Thomas Edison and his patent on movies. I'm not sure when businesses would have started to paint brick. Unreinforced masonry was a common construction method until the Long Beach earthquake in 1933 caused brick and stone work to fall onto the sidewalk.

Depends on the town. Cripple Creek was rich, and appearances were considered important. The old brick buildings are still there, and the decorative touches and architectural flourishes are quite noticable. Same thing in Canon City and Florence. This is the front of the Victor undertakers.



Raynolds Bank Building, Canon City:



Two views of Main Street, Canon City - note the decorative fronts:




The Old Sante Fe Depot in Canon City:



And Main Street in Cripple Creek - again note the architectural embellishment:

[BR60103]

A couple of observations on Mountainman's pictures.
The street in Canon City doesn't have 2 buildings in a row with the same colour of brick. In the one picture I don't think any brick colour is repeated at all.
The first picture: a building with the remnants of its old neighbour still in the wall. This would take a lot of effort to model. (impressive when done)
We had a talk from a fellow who's family used to own a downtown hardware store. In the 50s the neighbouring bank decided to demolish and rebuild. Then they found that the hardware store didn't have any walls of its own; it had been hung from the walls of the existing next-door buildings. The bank had to scale back their plans by a couple of feet to leave the hardware store standing.

[MasonJar]

Some more comments on the pictures...

Nice!

Also, there is a lot of paint on some of those buildings, especially the white and green ones.

The point about neighbouring structures is good, but does not have to be overly complicated. Even a black tar line, where the roof of a lean-to addition used to be can be easily done.

The other thing that is interesting in that top photo is the handpainted advertising. In the 1920s, you'd see a lot of this, and it would be in fairly good shape. The older/faded ones would date from the late 1800s...

The fancy parts of the roof lines and other details in MM's pictures are quite likely terracotta or other carved/moulded details that were often added to the buildings.

One of my favourite resources for these kinds of pictures is ww.forgotten-ny.com.

Lastly,

In most western towns buildings were put up as fast as possible, with no regard to a fancy front.

While this may have been true of the first generation of structures - some were even simple tents - second generation wood buildings often had false fronts. These are the high, square fronts that you see on western saloons and other important buildings. It gave a good first impression and also room to advertise, even if the structure behind was less than impressive. Many of these second or third generation buildings were the ones that gave way to newer, more fire-safe brick buildings.

I recall two prominent wood buildings in Orangeville that lasted into the 1970s and 80s (well over 100 years) before succumbing to demolition. One was a long-serving department type store, and the other was a bank.

Andrew

[LynnB]

Ok I gotta ask this question although I\m kinda embarrassed to ask what combination of colors go well together?

[doctorwayne]

As pointed out previously, most brick structures, at least in the early days, used locally-made brick. Its colour and quality would depend a lot on that of the local clay. Often, building fronts would be built of better-quality brick, if not available locally, then brought in from elsewhere.

Part of this (half) house used to be home, many years ago, and was the same colour as all of the other houses in the neighbourhood, along with a late-Victorian-era school two doors to the left and another school a couple of blocks to the right. While most of the brick here has been painted, there's a small area over the door where the former porch roof has been removed, revealing the original brick colour. Peeling paint on the grey building next door (formerly a fish & chip shop) reveals more orange brick, as do the backs of the row houses beyond:


I attempted to duplicate this colour using Floquil Reefer Orange:






Many brick buildings were painted to preserve the brick, either because the brick itself was too porous, or because the wall had been re-pointed, with paint being used to cover the patchwork appearance. Early mortar was often quite white, due to the high lime content, but coloured mortar later became more common. If you paint two structures the same "brick" colour, then apply different-coloured mortar to each, you might be surprised how much the appearance is altered.

Here's a building of the former Cockshutt Plow Company, in Brantford, Ontario. One of the older buildings still remaining, it's built of locally-made buff brick, very common in this and surrounding areas, and used for factories, stores and homes, both grand and modest (looks like DPM gone wild in this example ):



Immediately adjacent is this newer brick curtain wall structure (I'm guessing 1920s-era), in red brick:


A similar, if not identical brick was used on the main office building and Time Office:


This Brantford house makes use of orange brick, with quoined corners and windows of buff brick, and what appears to be a redder brick on the chimneys:


The Brantford train station uses a different version of buff brick (there appears to be a repaired area, too):


And, on the same property, the former Express building, now used by the MoW department - same brick, I think, but not quite so clean:


In Goderich, Ontario, the CNR station, on one side of town...


...appears to be constructed of brick similar to that of the CPR station on the other side of town:


In the latter picture, note the differences in colours between the brick beside the windows at the top of the turret, the brick under the eaves, the brick revealed where the former platform roof has been removed, and the brick nearer to ground level, where it had been protected for many years.

Wayne