I needed a small industry to give purpose to a siding on my line. After seeing some of the stores served by a rail spur on the WW&F railway I thought that would be perfect. Some Years ago, I had sketched up a store at 1:20.3 scale but it would have been too large in 7/8th and it didnt have a loading dock for box cars. I went out with a tape measure and sized up the spot and took pencil to plywood. I made some windows of suitable scale dimensions which helped me layout the building. (properly proportioned commercial scale windows in New England styling dont exist)
here is the front of the store cut out of 1/2" pine plywood from Lowes
I milled the plywood to resemble clapboards using my table saw…
with a Dado blade set so it just sticks up and is angled 3 degrees…it takes “several” passes to make a whole wall. I run each wall through before adjusting the fence by one clapboard…3/8" in my scale.
I use the table saw to mill special peices like this corner post. another odd one is the one at the top of the side walls under the eaves.
here is how the corner posts fit.
a specially milled eaves board mates the roof and the side wall above the dormer windows.
here is the basic assembly. Next I installed the windows and door.
the building needed a front porch for the old coots to sit on while discussing the day’s news over a cup of coffee. five square posts were cut to length marked and beveled to 8 sided. they were then pin nailed to the header and 1/8" Stainless pins drilled into their feet and the floor.
Posts would interfere with work on the loading dock so I made brackets instead.
I used brass screws so that I could remove them for painting.
This is what it looks like this evening.
