Building the Barbose Mining Co. Stamp Mill - Office and Boiler Room - Part 2

We continue on with the Barbosa Mining Co. Stamp Mill build. After the main building its time to build the office and the boiler room. The kit is designed for the office to be on the left (as you look at the front) and the boiler room on the right side. You can swap them but that would put the door to the boiler room on the back of the building instead of the front. If you do the swap keep in mind that you will also need to swap the location of the water tower and the walkways and their supports (which filters all the way down to the ore bins by the way).

This section is very bare bones in the booklet. It simply tells you what length to cut the timbers that support the deck and to brace the interior of both structures like the main building. Six pictures are provided to help you figure it out. All of which is fine, these are pretty basic little square structures after all.

There is one thing that I would change. When you cut the timbers they are basically sized for a walkway that's 5/8" of an inch wide which scales out to 30". That's pretty narrow even with a rickety railing to hold on to. I went ahead cut mine to extend out 3/4" for a 36" wide walkway. This does eat up more 5/32" square stripwood as well as stripwood for the deck itself. I just felt like it looked better with the wider walkway.

Let's just move to the photos and you can see what I did, first the office:

The bracing begins. I framed it the same way as instructed to for the main building.

I used the front as a template to build the roof support for the back side (this will butt up against the side of the main building)

Since there isn't a wall, as such, on the back I added two additional braces across the back to keep everything square.

Here I started adding the support timbers. I didn't measure anything I just sort of eyeballed their placement. Mine buildings tended to be on the quick and dirty side as far as measurements were concerned anyway. You may or may not need the support timbers depending on how you intend to install the building on your railroad. Note; the support timbers extend out beyond the edge of the office on the right (non-walkway) side. You can get away without this extra bit of length and simple go flush with that side. Then measure again...twice...to get the proper length. The timbers should extend at least 5/8" (30") away from the walkway wall for the walkway itself, I went with 3/4" (36") instead.

One thing I discovered is the need for an extra beam to support the walkway on the door side. You can see that extra beam in the FMM photos as well. The instructions basically tell you to cut five beams and I ended up with 7. And what the heck supports that beam just sitting out in space?

The answer is the decking itself. Again important to keep this stuff square especially the decking on the door side of the office. I started with the long boards on the window side, then got out the chopper to cut the shorter boards for the door side. In this shot you can see the floor, not to provide a floor for detailing the interior, but a floor to keep interior light leaking out, well except through the windows (which will likely be frosted)

Here is the decking all in place. Before you start to glue on the short deck pieces, find the door frame from the parts bag and test fit it. With the door frame in place draw a line on the top edge and glue your decking in place. Now you don't have to adjust the fit later when you permanently install the door. Now, using the line as a reference shave off the portion of the battens above the door. This way the door frame will sit flush with the wall rather than flush with the battens.

I do plan on painting the floor black. It is a scrap piece of foamed PVC sheeting that I cut to fit. Also note that my walkway on the window side is five boards wide instead of four. Also note the addition of a roof peak brace.

That wraps up the office, let's move on to the Boiler room:

The boiler room goes together the same way the office did. One caveat, if you are looking at the FMM pictures the window side is flipped, i.e. the bottom of the window is closer to the ground than the top. I didn't like that look so I flipped it the other way, so the window is closer to the top than the bottom.

Simple internal bracing, again added braces to the back and the roof rafter is not quite all the way to the top. I didn't want to trim it.

In theory you only need four support timbers. The spacing is off because of the door location.

There is machinery that rests on the back side of the boiler room so you do need those supports to extend out beyond the back wall.

Added another roof rafter across the middle of the ceiling, an additional support bean, the decking and a "floor". Like the office I pulled out the door frame and temporarily put in place to make the mark for where to shave off battens and to cut a slot in the walkway board where the door frame goes. 

The Boiler Room is simpler than the Office. Both will get a goose neck exterior lamp and one light in the room. There is no intention to add interior detail so windows will be "frosted" and likely, for these smaller extensions, window shades.

Despite instructions to the contrary, I have not done to much weathering at this point. I'm working on the process to get those nice brown/orange patterns in weathered wood. I'm closer to that, picked up a few more colors and I think I have everything I need. Just need to do a bit more experimenting.