Building Calamity 18 - The "Hardware" Store - Interior Work

I am working through things that will work and things that might not with this build. Again I want to increase the complexity of the build to really push the limits and see what I can do. This time I'm adding those interior walls and I have decided add wainscoting on them too. I finished getting that in place for the first floor during this session. That did mean thinking things through especially where walls are meeting and not always running the wainscotting right to the edge of the wall, or it won't match up with the wall its meeting. Its not a super tight fit in those corners where the wainscoting meets but its close enough.

I'm going to continue the wainscoting on the second floor as well but I decided not to tackle that tonight. I have come to that decision point on how to handle the second floor and I think I'm going to make it completely removable. That makes it a lot easier to move minis around in the first floor although play in this building would will be pretty tight. I think this one is going to end up being a hero building only because of the level detail I'm trying out. Its hard to really see it as a true hero building because of its size but you never know. On the board it might end up with some great fields of fire and of course hanging out on the outside staircase is going to be pretty tempting.

Since I knew I was going to be working on the interior I printed off some wallpaper patterns. I found these as free downloads on a couple of dollhouse websites. I reduced the size and printed them out. When I got them home I sprayed them with a matte varnish to seal them. Hopefully when I apply the glue the ink won't run!

Laying in the wainscoting. Making sure there is a gap for the interior wall.

Nice! That line showing where the top of the floor is supposed to be is really where its suppose to be.

And the walls actually do fit together. I'm considering not gluing in the interior walls. If I just leave them loose then I can take them out if I need to. I also need to move that door way about a scale foot to the left.

And it fits between both walls!

And now adding in the other interior wall. This was a bit trickier for some reason. If you look closely you can see that the door on the second floor is going to end up resting to low and it needs to be moved up about 6 scale inches so that I can put the floor in. Or I could just hack 6" off the top of the two interior walls as they form the only bracing at this point.

All the wainscoting in place on the first floor.

Building Calamity 17 - The "Hardware" Store - Scribing the Planks

I still haven't decided on the wallpaper I want to use on the inside of this building. I'll probably go with a couple of different patterns since the rooms have different functions. The add on shack at the back won't get any wallpaper so I just scribed planks on both sides of those pieces. What makes this exterior visually interesting is the false front and the back shack use horizontal planks while the sides and rear use vertical planks. Should add some more visual interest on the board.

Scribing is not terribly difficult just tedious. I marked all the major planks to be 12" wide and cut those with my knife. I then used a razor saw to scribe in a bit of grain to all the exterior sides and the floors. When I have a chance I prime all of these pieces and then glue the wallpaper to the interior walls. I'll try to be a bit neater this time!

The left side, the exterior stairway is on this side.

The right side

The false front

The back

The pieces that make up the back extension.

Building Calamity 16 - The "Hardware" Store - Cutting and Dry Fitting

The next building for Calamity ups the difficulty level a bit more. This is a two story false front "Hardware" store. While it will definitely be a store I'm not sure exactly what the merchandise will be but for purposes of this build it will be the Hardware Store. This building is based on a kit from Wild West Scale Model Builders, I own and have assembled the HO scale version of this kit. Unfortunately I shifted my interest in HO from steam era to a more modern era and this building not only went unused but suffered damage when it fell off a shelf. Using the pieces I developed the measurements for my 1/56th version for Calamity.

This time I drew out the pieces directly on 2mm foamed PVC sheet. This one took a bit more than two sheets. Along with being a more traditional 2 story false front building I'm including a few internal walls just like the original kit. The only thing missing at this point is the exterior staircase that leads to the second story. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to approach that particular feature yet. The roof offers some complexities as it essentially has three dormers; two with windows and one with a door.

A couple of things that I still need to work out are if I want the second floor to lift off as a unit and how I will keep it in place and making the roof removable. I'll work these things out as I go along. The other thing I'm going to do with this one is to make custom windows and doors rather than use commercial parts. I'm thinking that the 1mm thick PVC sheet can be used to build up the doors and windows. We will see!

Once I had most of the pieces drawn on the PVC I went ahead and cut everything out and did a little dry fitting to make sure that what I drew will actually fit together. The floors and the interior walls I didn't draw until I was sure everything was lining up.

So this is where I'm at before I start adding planking and wood grain detail.

Laying out the pieces basically took two full sheets, plus a little bit more. What is missing from this initial drawing work are the floors and the interior walls. Three buildings is made a serious impact on my stock of 2mm foamed PVC sheets. Looks like I'll have to get some more of that. I have used a little bit of the 1mm stuff and none of the 3mm stock. The 3mm stock will be used on the walls of the bigger buildings like the saloon where I think I will need a lot more interior support.

Using my metal blocks to hold things in place and make sure my angles are right I lay out the floor. I need a second one for to go on the second story.

The front with the windows and doors drawn out and the roof peak penciled in so I have a guide for the back. I'll transfer this to the back side of the false front to help support the roof and lay in the planking for the back side of the false front.

The left side of the building with four windows.

The right side is actually drawn on the inside, I wasn't thinking when I layed it out for cutting. The door for the second floor is on this side and there are no windows since they would be covered by the exterior staircase.

Messing around with the floor for the 2nd story and the interior wall.

The interior walls for the first story in place

Fitting the second story into place

Second story in place and with all the walls in place. Just look at this I think I'm going to need the 2nd story to lift off  from the 1st story otherwise it will be hard to maneuver miniatures around on the 1st story.

The back extension. This will definitely look like something added to the store after it was originally completed.