Backesto Block Bldg ~ Grey Area

 What Color Was the Backesto Building?

Studying Historic Paint Color Charts and Deciphering Black and White Photographs for Color Information.

There won't be a definitive answer as to what the color of this building was. So I'm going to have to make an educated guess.

The Latest Historic Colors.

By Bernard Gagnon - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25747618

Tan-grey with white trim and blue-grey accents. Despite using historical colors, I don't believe these are the original colors of the building. Grey is a very trendy color these days (Millennial Grey) for clothes, cars, houses, etc. So the owners, wanting to attract tenants, have pushed the colors toward grey. The designer as well seems to have made some artistic choices such as the corner pilasters being the same color as the main body of the building but with the 'unexpected' white accent in the mid-section. Also the dark blue grey accents below the windows doesn't seem to be a historically accurate choice either.

By David Lyman - Backesto Block Building c1980s

Light tan with dark tan trim and oxide red accents.  Here is a photo of the building I shot some time in the 1980s.  It appears to me that the buildings of the Gaslamp Quarter during this time were a bit over-painted. Very colorful.

But What Color WAS the Building?

Somebody knows. But I don't know that somebody.  Looking at historic photographs though I can glean some clues.  Such as...

The building was definitely two-tone. In this 1910 photo the frieze (facia?) and cornice appear lighter than the body of the building.

In this (unfortunately low rez) photo the corner pilaster and quite possibly to window hoods also appear lighter than the facade. Also notice that the recesses of the corner pilaster are not painted a contrasting color as they are in the 1980's color photo.

And finally, the window frames are clearly a dark color which was common in that era.

So my takeaway from the old photographs are a light facade with a lighter trim and dark window frames.

Historic Colors

Looking at a lot of historic color charts as well as restored historic buildings I have a pretty good idea of what the colors were being used back then.  So using this knowledge I'm able to formulate a reasonable color scheme for this model:

 

Cream Body

White Trim

Oxide Red Accents.

Yes sir!

A reasonable color scheme!

Dandy

SDERy Class 1 Car #135 ~ Tru-Colorization

Mahogany and Golden Yellow Paint for #135 

#135 went to the paint shop for some color:

Tru-Color brand paint is the paint of choice for this car:

TCP-256 Light Primer

TCP-069 Reefer Yellow

TCP- 082 Rich Oxide Brown

TCP-010 Black

TCP-730 Metallic Copper

TCP-288_Brass

Battleship Grey was tried for the roof but it was too dark. So I reverted to Light Primer which seems to be a ringer.

The front end prints of the car include a trolley controller! I painted the top of the controller Metallic Copper.  The Brass paint is used for the grab-handles next to the doors.

It has occurred to me that painting the car may be easier while it's still in its kit form.  This would simplify painting the interior, as well as installing window glass and gate screens.  If this car is a successful runner on my layout I will most likely build some more of these cars. I will give painting and detailing before assembly a try.

Color Theory

Photo: Just a car guy.

After their useful service life, three SDERy Class 1 cars were pushed together to make a "triple wide" house in El Cajon, California. A few years back these cars were "rescued" and one of them was cosmetically restored. But they painted the windows green. I don't think this is correct. 

Newspapers and magazines back in the day liked to write accounts of new streetcars. This article written for the Electric Railway Journal by H. M'Nutt, Superintendent of Motive Power San Diego Electric Railway describes the cars; "Selected cherry is used for all doors, sashes, moldings, etc, the surface being rubbed down and left with a dead finish".  

This leads me to believe that the window were painted green by the residence to help the cars feel more "homey". So I stuck to the Yellow and Brown scheme without the green.

Next comes the stripping and lettering.  Which include gold!  So this will be a new venture in decal making for me.

Yes sir!

Special decals!

Dandy

Recolorizing a Berkshire Valley Models Buggy Photo

Build a Berkshire Valley Buggy.  Take Photo of Buggy.  Decolorize Photo of Buggy.  Have AI Recolorize Photo of Buggy.

Artificial Intelligence is getting kind of smart.  I came across a site for colorizing old black and white photographs and I wondered how well it would colorize "old" photos of my layout:

Recolorized. I just finished building this Berkshire Valley Models Buggy in HO scale so I thought it would make a good subject for trying out AI colorizing.

Original Photo. This is the photo I took on the layout. It's interesting to compare it with the AI photo (top). Since I gave the ai a black & white photo (below) it had to guess the colors. It nailed the horse color. It assumed the street was concrete and colored it grey. I kind of like what it did with the brick color. It guessed the mans jacket was red rather than green. And really didn't do much with the yellows.

The black & white photo the ai had to work with. I took the original photo into Photoshop and took out the color and then uploaded the result to the MyHeritage site. And just like the old timey photo tinting studios from back in that day, it had to make educated guesses with the colors.

 

Interesting results. And I can assume this technology will only get better as time goes on.

Yes sir! The technology will only get better!

Dandy

№ 9 ~ Straight Outta Paintshop

№ 9 Gets A Fresh Coat of Yellow and Brown Paint.

TruColor Reefer Yellow for the body color, Roof Brown for the trim, Foundation for the roof and trucks.

But first, the brass was cleaned and primered with TruColor Light Primer (to help the yellow show up).

After the interior and body were painted, I masked the whole thing except for the window frames and platform for the TruColor Roof Brown. 

Yikes! A lot of paint pulled off with the unmasking! Either: TruColor is a delicate paint, or I didn't wait long enough for the paint to cure (24 hours), or I should have sprayed a sealer coat on first. Anyway, touch ups required.

But, the whole reason for this exercise, what initiated this project in the first place, was to try out TruColor Reefer Yellow as SDERy Yellow. And you know, its pretty darn close if it doesn't actually nail it!

Yes Sir! Might of nailed it!

Dandy

Dirty Poles

Painting and Weathering Line Poles

I didn't get anything done on the layout this week :-( . So since I frequently come across photos I took but never shared, I thought I would share one with you.

 I take photos like these so I can remember how I did things. In this case the poles were painted with Floquil Light Green and weathered with Bragdon Rust and Weathering powders. So should I ever lengthen the boulevard and need to match to poles, well, here you go.

I was afraid I might have overdone the weathering on the poles, but recently I came across this picture of Broadway in San Diego and just look how dirty those line poles are!

 Looks like I nailed it after all! Yes sir! I nailed it after all!

Dandy

Wonderful World of Color

Painting the Streets and Sidewalks

 I've been staring at plywood and plaster for so long that even the new concrete coloring looks exciting!

 I grabbed some buildings and posed this little scene. Two of the streets on the layout represent the pre-paved era of streets. So they were painted Floquil Earth.

 But for the most part the rest of the layout is painted Floquil Concrete. And of course Floquil came out with "Aged Concrete" right after I painted it! But it doesn't really matter anyway because...

Another case of "if I were to do it again". Because if I were to do it again, I would have used Durhams Water Putty tinted with concrete coloring. In the photo above the effects of track cleaning and chipping on painted plaster can be seen. Bright white plaster peaking through. Tinted water putty would fair much better.
You guys are so lucky to be learning from my mistakes. Yes sir! Your so lucky!

Dandy

Say Mister! Ain't You Forgetting Something?

I know what your thinking: "One minute your building cars, the next your installing the overhead. What happened to laying track?!"

     Well, the truth is, this layout was begun years ago (decades actually!). And as it turned out, traction modeling is not an entry level endeavor. The basics of model railroading should be mastered before delving into traction. So the layout languished in storage for well over a decade before conditions were right to dig it out, dust it off, and pick up again.

Historical photo from the time of no color. Brass car, lead folk, white plaster. We've come a short way over a long period of time! Photo circa 1988 Dan D. Sparks.

The track work was done way back then. So to help fill in this "track gap", I was able to locate some old construction prints. So in between wrapping wires and repairing poles and fine tuning track, I will scan some of these and post them for your eyeballs to devour. Yes sir! Post some old layout construction photos for your eyeballs to devour!

Dandy

Tarnation Supply Warehouse

Building a Good Ol' Fashioned DPM Style Model for an Upcoming Project.

A bit of a diversion, how good does it feel to build one of these type of models again! Its been years for me!

The idea is to butt two of these "Schultz Garage" by Woodland Scenics models together to build a larger building...

Like this! They went together easily enough... except where the cement overflowed and dissolved some of the brickwork on the nearest corner. No worries! I'll think of something to hide that. The back of the facades don't have any detail, so since I have some left over wall material...

Sweet! This beefs up the wall and adds some more detail to the building.

I want a good old fashioned red brick color for the building. A lot of guys are using Americana craft acrylics for these sort of projects, so I thought I would give it a try. I went to my local Micheal's crafts store to get a bottle of "Americana Heritage Brick", but of course they were out, so I got the next closest thing, "Rookwood Red" with "Fawn" as the trim color. It doesn't really matter what color I get anyway, weathering will alter these colors dramatically.

See? Just adding a mortar mix already changed the color quite a bit. For the mortar I just rubbed on some Durhams water putty tinted to a light grey into the cast-in mortar joints. The building looks quiet stark this way, so its going to need to be toned down.

I gave the building a weathering wash which really toned things down and really brought out the detail (including the melted brick smudge on the near corner!). Most folks use an India Ink / Alcohol mixture for this, but I prefer a Bragdons Weathering Powders / Alcohol mix. It gives me a more dusty and dry look that I like for my Southern California set buildings.

For the windows and doors I used the same "Fawn" trim color.

And they were cemented into place. I'm thinking of doing something different for the freight door, so I skipped it for now.

There is a popular technique among craftsman where paper signs are sanded tissue thin so when applied to the side of a brick building they look painted on. So I thought I would give it a try. Its pretty tough to do and when my sign finally ripped, I stopped and glued them on. But I think it was too soon, they still look kind of thick.

I have some doors left over, so I thought I would experiment and see if I can make one look partially open...

I carefully cut out an opening and then filed it smooth up to the door frame.

The new freight door was painted and installed.

 Then the doors and windows received the same weathering powder / alcohol mix that the bricks did. Look how it really brings out the details. But now with that open door, I'll need some interior detailing.

With the last of the leftover wall material, I cemented them together to make an interior office space. I hate to waste, so this makes me happy.

So easy and effective.

The roof was constructed as per the instructions, but with longer pieces of styrene. But I'm not entirely happy with the plain roof, I mean, what kind of roofing material is that supposed to be anyway? So...

 A scale 3' strips of 600 grit sandpaper was cut and glued to the roof to simulate tar paper.

The "tar paper" was weathered with the Bragdon Weathering Powders.

Also of note is how thick the windows and doors are. The model comes with clear styrene to fit behind them, but I think it will just highlight that thickness. So...

 I've experimented with using Micro Kristal Kleer for windows in the past and wasn't too impressed, But for an industrial building like this, I think it might just be perfect! And it fits IN the window openings, not behind them. Its messy work, so it was applied from the back of the windows.

Micro Kristal Klear goes on white, but will dry clear. Being IN the window frames, this should help the window frames look thinner.

And there ya go! I'll come up with something to hide the melted brick thing when this building is put into its scene. But until then, this has been a fun little diversion. Yes sir! A fun little diversion indeed!

Dandy

Tower of Light and Color

Now that this junction tower has got its business all straightened out, its time to get its business painted.

The lesson that Thomas Kinkade has relentlessly banged us over the head with time and time again with each successive painting is that light glowing from windows gives a building a very warm and inviting look. However, we are not painters of light. Actually quite the opposite. Us modelers have to paint where we don't want the light to emanate from! Judging by the iridescence of the plastic that this tower is printed from, I'm guessing that this building would glow quite brilliantly when lit from inside. So to help eradicate this problem, I have painted the cupola an undercoating of Floquil Engine Black inside and out.

I'll let that dry for a day.

Back to primer grey. Colors would have a heckofa time showing up over that black. So the tower is recoated with Floquil Primer. I was sure to paint every surface since the printers caution that the print material is sensitive to UV light. Somehow I managed to bust off the ball final on the roof. So now I have to find a way of replacing that.

Let this dry for a day as well.

Floquil Rust is one of my favorites in that its a pretty good color for replicating a mahogany color. These towers were built during the age of when mahogany (or similar) was a common building material for streetcar interiors. So I'm willing to bet these towers had this type of interior.

Again, a day of drying.

 Masking off the cupola, the ironworks are painted Floquil Pullman Green.

To prevent the mask from adhering to the previous layer of paint, or chipping the new layer of paint,  I pull off the mask as soon the paint begins to set and is still somewhat flexible.

Another day, another dry.

The ironworks and interior are masked off for a nice coat of Floquil Depot Buff.

 Well hey there handsome! Oh wait! I forgot something...

 Some Floqul Brass for the gong. We can't forget the bling! No sir! Can't forget the bling!

Dandy