Bath Queen Square

[bécasse]

Ah but how dirty were these buildings at the period being modelled. The older among us tend to remember the fifties which did seem to be rather dirty. I dont remember cleaning of buildings until later. If Jerry is modelling Midland locos in Midland livery in the early 1900s that would be about halfway through that timescale so giving the full fifties look may or may not be correct. Was it all down to burning coal or did the rise in motor traffic have any impact. 

I do remember visiting Bath in the early 60s (not Queens Sqare through) and the buildings seemed a lot cleaner than the ones in London and Reading.

Don

 

There are plenty of Edwardian period post cards, particularly of tourist destinations such as Bath, and although they are obviously black and white (the coloured ones were hand-tinted and can't absolutely be relied on), the dirty, stained state of buildings tends to show up quite well if you look carefully. It was definitely coal burning that had the major effect, places that had a lot of industry (Stoke at the centre of the Potteries comes to mind as a particular example) often had buildings that were actually encrusted in soot.

[CF MRC]

Beware that sooty buildings should not be black in 2mm scale, as distance will have a toning down effect. Colours should not be too saturated and pure black is best avoided. I think CF is probably not grubby enough, but when you look at aerial photos of the era, the tones are not as dark as we might perceive in street level photos. My opinion anyway...

 

Tim

[Yorkshire Square]

One of my pet peeves are layouts at shows with masses of black everywhere. Black walls, black tarmac, black ballast. I'm usually amazed that the trees aren't black too...

[bécasse]

Beware that sooty buildings should not be black in 2mm scale, as distance will have a toning down effect. Colours should not be too saturated and pure black is best avoided. I think CF is probably not grubby enough, but when you look at aerial photos of the era, the tones are not as dark as we might perceive in street level photos. My opinion anyway...

 

Tim

 

You are right, Tim, CF isn't black enough. By shear coincidence, it was the first thing I noticed when I looked at the (very nice) photo that was posted on here a few days ago. However, bricks and rendering generally went less black than porous stone so there is more excuse for CF.

 

I use black powder poster paint applied dry with a large soft brush and I keep brushing, generally up and down, until most of it has come off again. I also have some pale grey powder poster paint which I often use subsequently to the black to tone it down further (and produce those "distant viewer" effects). These powder poster paints are rather like weathering powders with the important difference that both colours are in large tins which probably cost a few shillings when they were purchased for an upper sixth project at school 53 years ago, and, even though the grey is getting a bit low in the tin, I think that they will see me out. They were used to weather Bembridge almost 50 years ago but they have been used as recently as this week preparing a reroofed model for Trainsmania.

[Branwell]

One of my pet peeves are layouts at shows with masses of black everywhere. Black walls, black tarmac, black ballast. I'm usually amazed that the trees aren't black too...

You are Eric Olthwaite and I claim my £5.

[Phil Copleston]

You are Eric Olthwaite and I claim my £5.

 

I thought it was "You are Lobby Lud and I claim my five pounds". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobby_Lud

 

But more fittingly in this instance, perhaps it ought to be "You are Mrs Queenssquare and I claim my go with the controller"! 

[DLT]

Eric Olthaite was one of Michael Palin's characters in "Ripping Yarns", see:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STl224mhlA8

 

Is it time we stopped hi-jacking Jerry's thread?

 

Dave.

[bécasse]

Returning to the relevant topic of the blackness of buildings, I have trawled through relevant books on the buses, trams and trolleybuses of London in my library to find contemporary photographs that show buildings well. It is clear from them that even brick buildings were well blackened - and, yes, I have made allowance for the fact that most photographic emulsions of the period didn't record red well, there are several shots that show the odd new building, and they are substantially lighter.

 

In the case of Bath, this web page has several photos which show the effect well http://www.keytothecity.co.uk/postcard.php?Id=36&CityId=8&From=Key

[phil_sutters]

Returning to the relevant topic of the blackness of buildings, I have trawled through relevant books on the buses, trams and trolleybuses of London in my library to find contemporary photographs that show buildings well. It is clear from them that even brick buildings were well blackened - and, yes, I have made allowance for the fact that most photographic emulsions of the period didn't record red well, there are several shots that show the odd new building, and they are substantially lighter.

 

In the case of Bath, this web page has several photos which show the effect well http://www.keytothecity.co.uk/postcard.php?Id=36&CityId=8&From=Key

I think that you need to be a bit cautious about the degree of blackness. I have had several dozen old prints from the late 1800s and early 1900s, which I inherited from my grandfather. Almost without exception the overall effect was dark, whether the scene was town, country or coast. They are almost all now with the relevant county archives. In the Bath photos, some of the lighter ones had lettering on, which suggests that they had had their walls painted. So the contrast seems greater.

I suspect that the sooting varied considerably, depending on the presence of heavy industry, the density of housing, the distance from open country or coastline and even the prevailing wind direction. There are books of local photos for most areas and periods, which can give a guide to how much blackening to apply to your own layout's buildings. One thing that comes through from many old photos is that the pointing can still remain visible, especially where lighter cement has been used with darker brick or stone. So don't use black washes that will run into the pointing.

[2mmMark]

Whatever the layout, urban or rural, 2mm scale benefits from a lighter pallette of colours than larger scales. So soot blackening could be done with a medium to darkish grey shade and still have some emphasis.

[2mmMark]

One of my pet peeves are layouts at shows with masses of black everywhere. Black walls, black tarmac, black ballast. I'm usually amazed that the trees aren't black too...

 

[Yorkshire Square]

Whatever the layout, urban or rural, 2mm scale benefits from a lighter pallette of colours than larger scales. So soot blackening could be done with a medium to darkish grey shade and still have some emphasis.

I'm sure some of the exhibitors at York this weekend are on hallucinogenic drugs. Electric blue backscenes, tangerine rockfaces and emerald foliage all searing my retinas. And then that Jerry Clifford guy with his hookah in the corner...

[Fat Controller]

There are plenty of Edwardian period post cards, particularly of tourist destinations such as Bath, and although they are obviously black and white (the coloured ones were hand-tinted and can't absolutely be relied on), the dirty, stained state of buildings tends to show up quite well if you look carefully. It was definitely coal burning that had the major effect, places that had a lot of industry (Stoke at the centre of the Potteries comes to mind as a particular example) often had buildings that were actually encrusted in soot.

My wife's from Stoke; her mother used to tell of going to work in the (coal-fired) potbank, and having to hold on to the railings walking down the street because the smog was too thick to be able to see where she was going. This would have been from the 1940s into the 1950s, when the factories started cleaning up their acts.

[JohnBS]

Returning to the relevant topic of the blackness of buildings, I have trawled through relevant books on the buses, trams and trolleybuses of London in my library to find contemporary photographs that show buildings well. It is clear from them that even brick buildings were well blackened - and, yes, I have made allowance for the fact that most photographic emulsions of the period didn't record red well, there are several shots that show the odd new building, and they are substantially lighter.

 

In the case of Bath, this web page has several photos which show the effect well http://www.keytothecity.co.uk/postcard.php?Id=36&CityId=8&From=Key

Bécasse,

Yes, your photos clearly show the relative darkness of the masonry. Bath stone, the well-known warm golden colour when new, weathered to almost black where sheltered from driving rain. The photo of the Grand Pump Room Hotel demonstrates this very clearly. However, areas of the upper levels are fairly light in tone, even the outer faces of the columns, but the sheltered areas are much darker.

In London, it was similar. When new, the ubiquitous Lodon Stock brick was a strongish yellow colour, shot with pink, but again weathered to a near black. Portland Stone, used for prestige buildings and for dressings on other work, again weathered to near black.

I think that, in each case, the key factor is contrast - the lightening effect of driving rain compared with the darkened sheltered areas.

I find that the most effective technique in 2mm scale is to wash the masonry with dark greys, then dry brush with a significantly lighter tone on the areas exposed to rain wash - pale gold for Bath Stone, light yellow for London Stock brick and a light grey/bone white for Portland Stone.

Of course, good reference photos are invaluable.

Perhaps we should open a new topic on buildings and weathering?

Best wishes,

John

[Vanders]

There are still plenty of buildings in Bath that show the effects of weathering on Bath Stone. This is one (two?) of the more extreme examples:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.3833273,-2.3664816,3a,75y,156.91h,88.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sa3bTaKfmDb-n9pM_S-hauA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

[bécasse]

There are still plenty of buildings in Bath that show the effects of weathering on Bath Stone. This is one (two?) of the more extreme examples:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.3833273,-2.3664816,3a,75y,156.91h,88.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sa3bTaKfmDb-n9pM_S-hauA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

 

Precisely, and those of us who were around, and observant, 50 plus years ago will remember that these examples weren't untypical.

 

I was an Oxford undergraduate in the mid-1960s and at the time there was a huge operation going on to clean up all the colleges and other university buildings. The contrast between the colour of a building before the scaffolding and tarpaulins went up and after they came down again was so dramatic as to be almost unbelievable, and, with little coal being burnt they have stayed more or less that way.

[queensquare]

There are still plenty of buildings in Bath that show the effects of weathering on Bath Stone. This is one (two?) of the more extreme examples:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.3833273,-2.3664816,3a,75y,156.91h,88.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sa3bTaKfmDb-n9pM_S-hauA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

 

 

Precisely, and those of us who were around, and observant, 50 plus years ago will remember that these examples weren't untypical

 

I was reading the comments on this topic with interest and have so far resisted commenting but feel compelled to put my case.

 

Firstly, anyone who has bothered to read all of the thread will know that my model of Queensquare is set almost 100 years ago, not 50. The levels of weathering would have been very different.

 

Secondly, the notion that wielding a brush load of black poster paint around is somehow going to make things more realistic is just nonsense. Black is a dead colour and the result would look awful, it has about as much credence in the weathering arsenal as slopping a bit of dirty turps around - we've come a long way since those days. As CFMRC, JBS and others have pointed out, in 2mm scale there is a need to tone back the colours.

 

Thirdly, the evidence - contemporary pictures of Bath, not Google street view from the 2000s or Oxford in the 1960s. Below are a couple of pictures of Queensquare in my period. The shot of the station frontage shows it to be weathered, but by no means black. The second has the Bonded stores (also Bath stone) in the background and again, the building is far from black - in fact its remarkably clean, certainly compared to the Scottie in the foreground!

 

 

 

And finally, a couple of rather cruel enlargements of the frontage of my model which I like to think is suitably weathered for the period

 

 

 

 

Jerry 

[nick_bastable]

Jerry

 

think you have it about right for 100 years ago 

 

stunning modelling as always 

 

 who is around to argue who was  alive at the time  with 20/20 vision/sight 

 

Nick

[Donw]

Looks right to me Jerry somewhat weathered but not black. As John BS says where sheltered from rain it may have been blacker. We could do with quality colour photos from the period try to judge from black and white photos it is difficult to judge and a shadow may look like a more weathered area. Besides was Bath that industrial?

 

Don

[DLT]

Looks perfect to me Jerry.

Cheers, Dave.

[Caley Jim]

I would agree with Jerry. Photographs of Glasgow from the turn of the 19the/20th centuries show much cleaner buildings than I recall from the 1960's. And yes, no black, various shades of grey.

 

Jim

[Yorkshire Square]

There are still plenty of buildings in Bath that show the effects of weathering on Bath Stone. This is one (two?) of the more extreme examples:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.3833273,-2.3664816,3a,75y,156.91h,88.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sa3bTaKfmDb-n9pM_S-hauA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Interesting. Certainly weathered, but I see very little black in that shot.

[bécasse]

Jerry

 

You didn't read my post thoroughly. I said black powder poster paint and not black poster paint. The powder is used just as the more recent weathering powders would be, the main difference, so far as I can see, is that the tin contains about 1 kg of powder rather than the few milligrams that you seem to get in a typical weathering powder container.

 

Furthermore, as you dust it down, and keep dusting it down, over model buildings, you get exactly the effect shown in those photos above, particularly if you, as I do, then dust them down further with some light grey powder paint. In fact, I dust and redust, sometimes with the brush loaded (in practice I just touch the surface of powder paint in the tin with the brush, so loaded is a bit of a misnomer) and sometimes with just the brush until I get exactly the effect I want. The beauty is that it only takes a few minutes at most. I then, sometimes, do use a few modern weathering powders to add hints of specific things - an area of wall that has some green mould on it, the marks left by a dripping pipe or gutter, or rust marks from a metal fitting - but the final effect always has subtlety as its name. I may be nowhere as good at all this as Martyn Welch, Emmanuel Nouailler or Marcel Ackle, but I have been doing it for all but half-a-century and my models do get nice complements at shows.

[Caley Jim]

I use the same technique on both wagons, especially mineral wagons, and buildings. It's true, you have to be very sparing with how much powder you put on the brush.

Jim

[queensquare]

Jerry

 

You didn't read my post thoroughly. I said black powder poster paint and not black poster paint.

I did read your post thoroughly. The point is not whether it is in powder or paint form but that you use black, a dead colour and completely inappropriate, particularly in the smaller scales. I'm happy with the weathering effects I have got and have no wish to amend them with black powder.

If you wish to start a new thread on the use of black powder paint in weathering then be my guest.

 

Jerry