Raggs to Riches F.D.Works Buiding with Scratchbuilt Interior


M

mdcustom

Bridge and Building Dept
Next project is the Ragg's to Riches laser cut kit for the F.D.Works Building in Telluride, Colorado. Piece will have a scratchbuilt interior on the first floor, both in the sales area and the stockroom off the side loading dock. 8-10 figures will be modified to 1895's appearance to compliment the structure. Lower floor will also be lighted to make it easy to view the interior.
 
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A bit of progress on the Work's building. Started building some of the scratchbuilt wall cabinets, stained out a nice cherrywood. Also got the floor mounted on the base and test fit some of the walls after the interior faces were painted.
 
Some more of the wall cabinets built today for the sales floor along with some of the rougher shelving for the large back room. Painting started on the "merchandise" for the shelves, which is a combination of Berkshire Valley, Grant Line and mostly scratch.
 
Assembly start on the walls. Since I am opening up the back room freight doors I had to add an interior wall and put in the floor at dock level. In the front room the wainscotting around the stockroom door was scratchbuilt and more of the wall cabinets built. Works was a hardware/mining supply dealer so some of the cabinets have bins being built for nails/spikes/screws. The phone near the back door is a Berkshire Valley casting which has had added the phone cord. Note that the sales counter is not being used, it is also a Berkshire Valley casting which I will replace with scratchbuilt pieces of 1x12 and 1x6's so that the wood staining matches.
 
Very nice work on staining those shelves. Stocking those shelves should be a full-time job for awhile. :)
 
Added the drawers to some of the wall cases, the drawers are complete with brass handles and a couple of them are poised open. Built the sales counter and a display counter. Started adding the "product" to the shelves. A nice brass cash register along with a pair of scales to help the clerks make some sales in the future.
 
Holy cow! How did you make those bottles? They look great. Any plans for making cans? Things like this have always been a b*tch for me to make.
 
Attached "labels" to the drawer fronts and bins, otherwise it was just adding details here and there as the interior works its way to finish. The detail photo show some of the wire reels that were built from scratch for this, they are made from a piece of Evergreen tubing and a pair of discs cut from sheet stock then wrapped with some thread to simulate wire. You can see some of them that have been painted on the shelves over the bins. The raw metal machines are a small shop engine and a steam pump which are going to be on display.
 
Some of the "boxes" being painted. These are small pices of Evergreen strip which are held on the painting stick with small drops of white glue. That way they can be painted in bulk but can easily be removed with no damage to the paint simply by a slight twist. The subfloor for the second floor was attached today along with the right hand walls. Started attaching the wall cases to the structure as they are completed starting with the those on the left hand wall and working across the back wall. Built the rack for shovels from 1x12's and filled it with some shovels.
 
I am lovin' all of the detail you are putting into this building....

BUT, don't you think you made that electrical plug a little out of scale.:p
I think a regular 15A 120v circuit would have been fine... not 1million gigawatts of power!!

View attachment 8834

It just fit so nicely into that window.
 
Completed more of the wall cases today, tomorrow should see the last bits done on the interior, other then installing the most of the figures and the three rolling ladders to reach the tops of the shelving which extends almost to the 11 1/2 ' ceiling. Note that the figure of F.D Works clerk is only 5'3" tall (taken from a photo of the staff standing infront of the building in 1905).
 
Where are you planning on putting this on your layout? It would be a shame to not have it right up front somewhere so viewers can appreciate all the work. Is there a way you can make the front of the building removable? Even with good lighting, it would be hard to appreciate all that detail and it's too good to be hidden.
 
Jim: This is going on a client's layout, I am making it so that the roof and second floor will lift off. With the lighting that I am planing on installing and the entire front wall of glass I believe the interior will be viewable, remember this piece is O scale so we are talking about windows which are 2 1/2" tall on the store front. As for location it is going to be installed about 3' in from the layout edge both from the building front and the left side in a turnback loop(which is why I also opened up the stock room off the back loading dock). If it was closer I would have used actual labels for the boxes/cans to get a museum qualtiy look.
 
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