Sheet Metal Class

When most of us think about historic buildings, likely we think of wood. Old log cabins, timber framed homes, or simple balloon framed houses that are so common. Where here's a question for you, what do the following pictures all have in common:




All of the these elements, the cornices, the posts and the cupola tower, are all made of metal. That's right, these are not wood structures, like I initially thought, but they're made of metal.
The abundance of metal work in historic American buildings was a total surprise to me before I started my Sheet Metal class this semester. Though the use of metal has been around for thousands of years, the new found land in 1492 was filled coast to coast with trees (minus the Southwest). Of course wood was the most common building structure among the new European inhabitants, though there were certainly other materials used, like brick and stone etc., depending on the precedent of the settlers.
Nonetheless, metal made its way to American buildings. Its use became popular in the 1800's, especially among tinplate, tern-plate, cast iron, lead, copper etc. The benefits of using metal were that it is inexpensive, decorative, lightweight, and resists the elements well. Decorative you say?? Check out this metal wall from a restaurant right here in Leadville:
Pretty cool huh? There's a lot of these impressive metal workings in Leadville. The next time you're in a building you think might be around 100 years or so, look up. The ceiling very well could be made of metal, in a similar kind of fashioning as this wall. Again, they're lightweight to use, sanitary (much more so than wood), and can be quite decorative as you can see. Metal may even be used as a faux finish in many ways, look at this stone wall:
Got ya, that's metal alright! Looks pretty convincing though don't you think? And it will last for quite some time, at least longer than wood does.
Metal can be used for so many things, its really quite impressive. Most of us walk by metal structures everyday with no idea that they're actually metal. I've definitely been fooled. The closer and closer I look, the more I see metal, all over the place! Don't be fooled, check out some of the buildings around you, and see where you can pick up on a piece of metal here and there, I guarantee you'll be surprised!