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Post by valerobowie on Jul 16, 2009 5:45:15 GMT -5
i am currently building a model of the alamo as it looked in 1836 in 1/72 scale,and my main source of reference is mark lemons new book,upon looking over the book,i came upon a few questions about the construction of certain buildings for example,i was observing the southern and northern Castaneda house and compared to this house every stone/adobe building within the mission compound has the water gutters installed below the roofs except the Castaneda house,why is this?,the water had to go somewhere.Also the Sacristy and the other rooms in this area appear to have flat roofs,yet there are no gutters in this area either,is there a reason for this as well,if anyone out there can help me with this i would be most grateful,thanks so much-Valerobowie
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Post by marklemon on Jul 17, 2009 15:04:10 GMT -5
This was an oversight on my part. The "flat" roofed buildings along the west wall should have a wavy profile, not strictly flat. At the lowest part of the "wave" should be the aperture through the parapet for the canales to pass through. These should be on the outer , or west, face of the house, not the inner face, as the patio/porches which had originally been placed on the eastern faces of the Indian houses would preclude the placement of canales facing inward.
The same basic thing applies to the Sacristy roof, as well as the Baptistry, and Confessional. Their roofs should also have troughs which channel the water to a canale. In fact, in several very early Alamo drawings, one by Maverick, one can see what may be such a canale on top of the confessional, and projecting over and into the "alcove" north of the confessional.
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Post by valerobowie on Jul 18, 2009 2:19:18 GMT -5
so what your saying is that on all the west wall buildings,there should be canal holes on the western wall,though this isn't true for the low barracks considering is was not a building built during the mission period,correct.and on the church rooms the water would have flowed east.so would there have been gutters installed along the west wall as well as the church buildings like what was placed on the northern part low barracks for example?
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Post by marklemon on Jul 18, 2009 10:34:32 GMT -5
The tops of the Sacristy, Confessional, and Baptistry would have most likely, being groined vaulted, have had low spots at the four (or in the case of the Sacristy, 8) corners. Of course, there could not have been canales at some of these spots, as that would mean water was being dumped toward, not away from, the church. So what most likely occurred was on the confessional and baptistry, the inner low spots toward the nave were filled in, and the top concrete layer was made higher toward the nave, which would have channeled water down and toward the outer wall, and then onto the two low spots, where there were most likely two canales. On the sacristy, which was a double groin vault, there would in theory be 8 low spots at the corners of each section. But there could in no way be canales at all of these spots, for obvious reasons. Therefore, the same basic thing would have been done as at the confessional and baptistry, ie, the inner low spots would have been filled in, leaving probably only the northern two at that end of the building, where there were most likely two canales.
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Post by valerobowie on Jul 19, 2009 7:24:21 GMT -5
oh ok that's very cool,i will try to implement that in to the model ,so what about the west wall buildings,would they have had the wooden gutters protruding out of the outer wall like the low barracks and long barracks only pointing west instead.
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Post by marklemon on Jul 19, 2009 10:30:02 GMT -5
Probably the only West Wall house that would still have the protruding drains (canales) would be the Southern Castaneda House. So much had happened to the others (gabled roof added to the Trevino House, interiors gutted and roofs removed from others) that it was the only house along the west wall that still had its "flat" roof intact, except, perhaps, the second, or middle room of the Northern Castaneda House, the room which housed the "Northern Postern," as this seems to have been the only other room in any house besides the S. Castaneda, which was intact.
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Post by valerobowie on Jul 20, 2009 6:24:53 GMT -5
oh ok cool that makes sense,so how thick would the usual roofs had been at this time in between the canals and the horizontal support beam of the roof,and also is the low barracks built differently as a result of it not being part of the original mission complex considering it was built later on,i say differently as in the canals are reversed compared to the other mission buildings.i really appreciate all your help,i absolutely love your book.
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Post by marklemon on Jul 20, 2009 9:08:14 GMT -5
The thickness of the concrete roof should be about 2 feet, a little more (maybe 6 or 8 inches) at the high end, in order for the water to flow towards the canales. I don't know why the builders had the drains on the inner side of the low barracks, unless it was to facilitate the collection of water in makeshift barrel cisterns placed underneath them. All I know is that all early drawings show no drains on the outside. The only artist who readily comes to mind, Theodore Gentilz, drew them on the inside, and he should have known, as he frequented the place many times over many years, beginning in the 1840s.
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Post by valerobowie on Jul 30, 2009 2:42:30 GMT -5
wow you really know your history,i was wondering one more thing about the roofs,would they have been the color of the plaster or the same color as the stones used to construct the particular building,and i was also curious on what kind of paint you used on your model,i had a chance to see it at the history shop in June and it was particularly amazing. oh and one more thing,why is it in your book the the pecan tree on the northwest corner appears in some pictures but not in others,just wondering,absolutely love the book,very good work.
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Post by marklemon on Jul 30, 2009 19:46:48 GMT -5
wow you really know your history,i was wondering one more thing about the roofs,would they have been the color of the plaster or the same color as the stones used to construct the particular building,and i was also curious on what kind of paint you used on your model,i had a chance to see it at the history shop in June and it was particularly amazing. oh and one more thing,why is it in your book the the pecan tree on the northwest corner appears in some pictures but not in others,just wondering,absolutely love the book,very good work. Thanks, but much of what I know I learned form folks like Craig Covner, whose Alamo knowledge is second to none. The roofs being concrete would have originally been a very light beige, almost white (lots of sand and lime in that mortar) but as the years rolled by, would have darkened considerably, especially in the low areas, or channels, leading to the canales (drains). As water collected in these channels over the years, dirt, dust, and mineral deposits would have eventually darkened the low spots to a dark grayish brown. The pecan tree issue is an unfortunate result of the photoshop process not being able to "paint" the sky between the tiny branches. As a result, the CG artist had to eliminate the tree altogether. In those shots where the tree was seen against a background of the mission wall, or background terrain, it could be left in. Thanks again Mark |
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Post by marklemon on Jul 31, 2009 2:00:38 GMT -5
I forgot to answer your question about the paint used on my model. As I recall (as the 5 months I spend round the clock in my garage building it is sort of a fuzzy haze) I used Model Master hobby paints (made by Testor) in the spray can. They are available in most good hobby shops. They offer a good variety of colors, and (thank God) don't melt the hard foam board ( that I used to make most of the compound) like other brands of spray paint do.
Mark
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Post by valerobowie on Jul 31, 2009 5:02:23 GMT -5
so on the subject of the roof again,you said they were colored light beige,now in comparison to the color of the stone work,would it had been lighter,darker or about the same.So that's the story of the pecan tree,and now i know,very interesting and understandable.i am actually quite familiar with that brand of paint,i have used it on many occasions on past models but not this one.i am quite curious and impressed how you constructed the church front,so much detail,was it foam board as well,i really appreciate all your help,ever since i got you book i have wanted to talk to you or any alamo expert on many details that seemed unanswered at times,this is truly an honor for me,thanks alot
Dustin
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Post by marklemon on Aug 2, 2009 18:09:37 GMT -5
so on the subject of the roof again,you said they were colored light beige,now in comparison to the color of the stone work,would it had been lighter,darker or about the same.So that's the story of the pecan tree,and now i know,very interesting and understandable.i am actually quite familiar with that brand of paint,i have used it on many occasions on past models but not this one.i am quite curious and impressed how you constructed the church front,so much detail,was it foam board as well,i really appreciate all your help,ever since i got you book i have wanted to talk to you or any alamo expert on many details that seemed unanswered at times,this is truly an honor for me,thanks alot Dustin Dustin, Thanks for the kind words.... The roof would originally have been quite light, almost white, but would have rapidly weathered after a pretty short time, certainly by 1836, the upper surfaces would have been rather dingy, especially in the troughs leading to the canales. Whether it would have been lighter or darker than the stones on the walls, etc, that is anyone's guess. I'd say they'd both be in the same ballpark of the light/dark spectrum. The church front was built first, and was constructed of a combination of high-density foam board (carried by most hobby shops), hard-setting clay, and balsa. The detailed floral work around the niches and doorway was done by an auto-cad computer program. I took digital images of the actual Alamo church facade, and had them fed into this program, where you can trace the details with the cursor, and then feed that data to a laser cutter, which was slaved to the computer. It then laser-cut the designs onto a sheet of basswood. I simply cut them out, and glued them on. Good luck on your project, Mark L. |
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Post by cantador4u on Aug 2, 2009 18:38:43 GMT -5
Mark
Maybe it's just me but I wish you had had a camera crew documenting the construction of your model. It would be a chance to talk about the history of each item as you worked on them.
As I think about it a little more I guess it would probably be a pretty small target audience, but what they lacked in numbers they would make up for in enthusiasm! They would be glued to the TV, and then buy the DVD copy of it.
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Post by marklemon on Aug 3, 2009 0:10:36 GMT -5
cantador4u,
Yeah, that was also the thinking of Gary Foreman, who photographed most of the images in my book. But logistically it posed too many challenges. Gary wanted to shoot a documentary of the model's construction, but he had such a busy schedule, as well as being at the other end of the country from where I was, it just never got anywhere.
But other similar-themed projects are in the offing with Gary and me, and there may be a documentary along the lines of what you suggested one day.
Mark
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