The Roger Malinowski Tribute Part 1 - The Gunshop

I have been missing in action for the better part of the month, not intentionally but sometimes the days just fly by. I have been slowly working through a couple of projects so things have been happening but life just got in the way of actually blogging about anything. I couldn't even keep up with Cartoon Wednesday! On the plus side the garden is in and we didn't have a hail storm right after we finished like last year. It did take a lot of time though.

So recently I discovered that Roger Malinowski had passed away from cancer all the way back in November of 2022. I only found out when I visited the website for Stoney Creek Designs to see if there was anything new. I have been slowly accumulating his kits for years and have about a dozen in the cupboard waiting to be built and my intent has always been to build them not collect and resell them. There are still 3 or 4 that I would like to acquire but the prices have gone through the roof if they come up for sale at all.

That leads into my decade + fascination with On30 and the search for the Bachmann 2-8-0. Recently I have managed to acquire not 1 but 2 of these engines and have been scribbling designs for a small (ish) On30 layout to run them on. This would not replace the D&RGW HO layout (which is set in the late '50s) but would share the same basic space so it has to be something I can take down and store away when I need to scratch the HO scale itch. At this point this layout will, primarily, showcase the Stoney Creek Design kits so I anticipate operations being somewhat limited with a focus more on scenes and photography those scenes.

I figured I could, at least, go ahead and start putting together the kits on hand so I opted to start with one of the "easier" kits; The Gunstore from the Crossroads Collection. This series of four kits were not limited editions like his regular line of limited edition kits and his intent was to keep them in stock. I didn't really take a lot of pictures of this build so I'm just presenting everything that I have in somewhat the correct order.

I used Clever Creek Model texture files for the floor and walls on the inside.

The basic building finished and the roofs being test fitted.

Shingles!

Tar paper on the back addition

The finished building sections. The white door is the interior door from Grande Line (now owned by San Juan)

A look inside. Since all the models will be up very much in the foreground I want to be able to detail the interior. That required modifying both roofs to be removable. I also plan on adding lighting.

From the front. The miniature is a prospector figure from Reaper Miniatures. Despite being a 28mm Heroic sized miniature he is still on the short side maybe 5’4” or 5”

The base is a piece of gatorboard. It’s about 1/2” wide all around the building and only has some basic scenery completed. The front porch is scratch built from coffee stir sticks.