the_nathan•2mo agoMost Upvoted

Overheard a guy at the supply yard say he'd never seen a real brick corbel in person

I was picking up some sand in Omaha last week and this younger guy was asking about brick veneer. He said he'd only ever seen corbels in pictures from old buildings. It made me think about how many of the fancy details we used to put in are just gone now, replaced by simpler stuff or fake panels. We spent a whole summer in '98 building a house with a full brick cornice, and that skill feels like it's fading. Has anyone else had to teach an apprentice how to lay a proper corbel from scratch?

3 comments

3 Comments

victor_lane602mo ago

Used to think it was just about saving money, but hearing stuff like this makes me worry we're losing the craft itself. Taught my nephew how to do a simple corbel last fall, and he was amazed it was actual brick and not a glued-on piece of foam. That '98 cornice job sounds like a beast, and honestly, most guys wouldn't even bid that work now. Feels like if we don't keep showing the next crew how it's done, those pictures are all that'll be left.

skyler_baker2mo ago

Wasn't there a whole article about this in the masonry magazine?

beth_stone2d ago

Are we sure that's a bad thing though? I mean, yeah, it's a shame when old skills fade away, but building codes and materials change for a reason. The stuff we used in the 90s was heavy, expensive, and took forever to install. I'd rather see a clean, modern system that doesn't leak and costs half as much than some fancy corbel that'll be covered by siding in ten years. And honestly, most homeowners don't care about the craft, they just want a roof that doesn't fall in. My nephew's generation can learn all the fancy brickwork from YouTube if they really want to, but why bother when there's better, faster ways to get the same result?