Building Calamity 5 - Row House

Today ate up some serious time on the Row House. As I have said before (and actually pointed out by Lasgunpacker in a comment) I need these to go together relatively quickly. That would indicate commercial products for the windows and the doors and cutting the openings to accommodate those detail parts rather than an opening I have scaled off of a plan. I spent time going through the Grandt Line catalog online and after making a lot of calculations (and a spreadsheet to track it all) I was off to Caboose Hobbies to pick up some S scale parts. I went through the O scale parts but overall those were just to big for this building. Doors in particular are just huge in O scale. I also found some S scale doors and windows from the Tichy Train Group but I'll have to mail order those.

So I spent a lot of time shimming openings that had already been cut to get good fits from the commercial parts. There are going to be some visible seams I think but it should just add character. I also made some of those changes to the parts I have cut out for the second Row House as well. It will be easier to hide those changes on that model. That one should also go together much faster, its almost like a kit at this point.

I also thought about adding a shack/extension to this one but I'm going to pass on that for now. The second one may get one just to add some variation between the two of them.

I need to do a little more painting on the interior and then I'll do the exterior painting. I pulled out my shingles and I have a set picked out for this first row house. Shingles are another way to add some variation to the row houses along with adding some decorative gables. I'm also thinking they maybe a bit on the large side, I think that they would look better if they were narrower. I think I should go back and check my measurements.

I started with the front door and made the front door opening smaller to accomodate the transom door (Grandt Line 4039, RGS Style Depot Door)

And a little shimming on the front window so the top of the window is sitting on the same line as the new door.

The shimming as seen from the inside

I didn't have to make any changes on the back openings. I found parts that mostly fit. The window just barely covered the already cut opening. These detail parts are also from Grandt Line;  36" door 4025, 8 Pane Window 4027

Pulled out the airbrush and primed the trim and the components that I had already mounted. I really need to create a list of the order I should be doing things in.

Here you can see the front window finished, all done with strip styrene. You can also see the side windows which are Grandt Line; 4 Pane Station Window 4056. The width for this window was just about perfect but I had to make the opening taller to accommodate the casting,

Weathering paint work is done. Now on to the finish painting. I'm definitely going to lighten up the inside and I'm going to have to touch up the white interior trim.

Calamity Gets a New RR Station - Part 1

If you have been following the construction of my wild west town of Calamity you are thinking that I already have a railroad station, and you would be right. I built the Sarissa Precision railroad station and if you dig back far enough in my blog you will find the series of posts that I wrote about building it.

I have never really been happy with the Sarissa kit though and I pretty much intended to replace almost as soon as I had finished it. I have been periodically going through my plan books and collection of railroad modeling magazines and I finally settled on the new station for Calamity. Its a bit on the fancy side, but I figure that if Calamity really wants to bring new settlers to town they might well start with a fancy new railroad station.

The station I picked out was drawn by Pat Harriman and appears in his plan book "Early Wood Frame and Stone Structures" and appears on page 129. I scanned the plans for my own use since I need to "scale up" the station to fit in with the rest of Calamity (the infamous 1/56th scale that I have settled on). Pat's book is spiral bound which makes it really easy to use since the pages always lay flat.. There are 45 buildings in the book which retails for $29.95. I highly recommend it even if you just use it for reference. This station was built in the town of Phantaci, Oregon by the 
Shelter Bay Railway Company

With this model I elected to skip my standard matte board prototype stage. I'm building this one out of styrene plastic (like the newspaper office I built back in January of this year) and I start marking up the plastic. I had some O scale windows that I thought would work quite well, but they turned out to be to wide. I spend some time browsing at Caboose Hobbies and purchased some S scale windows that, initially, I liked better. As you go through the pictures you can see that I have had a hard time deciding which windows to actually use on this build.

Here are the pictures of stage 1:

Pat Harriman's Depot from "Early Wood Frame and Stone Structures"

Here were the first windows that I had picked out. O Scale versions from Grandt Line.
These are just to big for the look of the building from the plans.

Here's a selection of S scale windows instead. I like the look quite a bit better. Still hadn't decided on upper story windows at this point. And, yes, the bottom floor windows are upside down. This is the right side elevation.

These are the four sides that make up the "bay window" sections. I'm not sure what else to call them. This is the point that I decided I wasn't sure I liked these windows. Something a bit thinner or at least taller might be better.

This is one portion of the front and trackside elevation. The three window will face the tracks the two window section faces the front. At this point I had have settled on the upper windows.

This is the portion of the front and trackside elevation. I like the door but its going to be a little short for some of the miniatures but it matches up nicely with the windows.

I only had the one door so it had to do double duty.

The left side elevation with the freight door.

I found another S scale window in my bag of parts. Its a bit taller than the door so you can see the window is hanging down into the section of vertical planks. If I raise it into the right position the door is to short. At this point a little light bulb went on. I would put the window in the proper position and just modify the door to be a little taller, which will look better with most of Calamity's citizens. 

In the end I have decided on the 8-pane window for the upper story, the 2-pane window for the 1st story and the commercial door and the freight door. The next step is to cut out all this plastic and start cutting out the window and door openings.

I'll be using the following parts from Grand Line:
4024 - 30x78 2 pane, double hung window (17 of these ouch!)
4027 - 27x38 8 pane window
4039 - RGS style door
4040 - RGS style freight door
Everything else will be made from sheet plastic either from Evergreen or Plastruct.

The one thing I will do different this time is to build and paint the interior walls before I start putting the whole thing together. The inside of the newpaper office was really difficult to finish off nicely once I had put it together.

And one last thought. Since I build in an odd scale no scale rulers are available. I built up this reference sheet so I didn't need to do scale conversions in my head all the time.

Calamity - Newspaper Office - Doors and more!

Things are moving along quite nicely on the Newspaper Office for Calamity. I was able to stop by Caboose Hobbies today and picked out some doors. They are O Scale which goes okay with the Reaper and Black Scorpion miniatures they are a bit big for many of the other minis. However, after seeing some pictures from Bodie CA of people standing in front of a building and seeing just how big windows and doors could be I think I'm okay with it. The doors are cut in and glued in place and I finished off some of the interior detail. At this point all the interior needs is wallpaper and paint and then I can assembly the walls and finish off the exterior details and it should be ready for the table, well mostly ready for the table.

Three different doors

The back door

The original back door

The Front door

Exterior front door with some finishing details completed

The door to the addition

The original back door in place, more details to come

Interior wall with paneling and chair rail

The other interior wall with paneling and chair rail

Extra details added representing both the original exterior with board and batten contrasting with the paneling and chair rail.

Interior of the back wall

Interior Front Wall

Interior back wall of the addition.

Interior wall, door side, of the addition

Interior wall of the addition

Using my magnetic clamps to dry fit everything together and a few citizens for scale

A nice overview of the whole building, more or less together. I'm thinking of a couple of different roof treatments, tar paper with battens for the addition and shingles for the main building.

Calamity - Prototype Buildings - Moving Forward

I was able to take some time and do some basic assembly with the Silver Plume Bakery and the Crested Butte Newspaper Office (Pilot). I pulled out some minis and judged them for scale and I'm pretty happy with the result so I think I can move forward with these two buildings. While I enjoy scratch building structures I also believe in making it as easy as possible so a trip to Caboose Hobbies took place. There I was able to directly compare the windows and doors from Grandt Line for both their O and S scale lines to my templates. While I talk a lot about scale when building Calamity, its not nearly as big a factor as I make it out to be. First I can't let it dictate everything since I'm working in our odd 1/56th scale. All I really need our windows and doors that will fit the openings that I have what "scale" they actually are is irrelevant. There are a fair number of manufacturers out there that make windows in doors in the various railroad scales. The reason I went with Grandt Line is that they give actual measurements of their products in the their online descriptions. With good measurements I can at least get close and ultimately that's all I really need to do, if the proportions look right then it should work just fine. Caboose Hobbies stays pretty well stocked on Grandt Line parts so I have ready access if I need it and if they don't have it I can order it pretty easy. Doors look like they are going to be a bit more difficult to deal with and I may have to actually make all the doors, we can't have everything!

The next decision is what material to use for the construction. I'm leaning towards plastic right now. I could go with the wood and use the matt board as a core, but plastic is pretty easy to work with and I have a lot on hand. I'll have to dwell on it a bit.

So a few pictures of what I ended up with:

This makes a nice odd corner for an ambush

This corner could be a problem, fortunately there is a window to dive through.

Looks good, will still need a front porch though

The Bakery, I seem to have misplaced two of the side pieces that help fill in the doorway. The door is set at an angle across the opening.

My prototypes side by side

Sitting next to my Battle Flag Saloon

And here is how some of my Grandt Line parts might work out:

The results of the shopping trip to Caboose Hobbies. Calamity Citizens checking out the purchases.

Masonry Window, usually used in a brick or stone wall but its nice because it doesn't have any kind of ornate frame so its pretty flexible. A bit tall for the Bakery though

Pretty good fit on the Pilot though. A little wide, I'll have to see if there is a narrower one available. Tiche Trains Group is another parts possibility,

That's almost a perfect fit and I like how it looks.

With a Brigade Games mini standing outside the window.

Still a bit large for the Bakery

Two different styles in the RGS pack

The larger RGS window might be a good fit for the Bakery. Maybe add an a narrower window on the right or left and make the building a bit wider to match.

A little small for the opening I scaled from the plans but its a good look none the less.

I love these windows, I used them in a Halloween Diorama once.

Not a bad look for the Pilot

Way to big for the bakery

These good work on the Bakery

Adjusting the sizes a bit these good work for the Bakery front as well.

Works nice for the front of the Pilot as well.