A House for San Berdoo ... but first, The Garage

[P5se Camelback]

A House for San Berdoo … well … first, The Garage.

I belong to a model railroad club that models the Santa Fe. They are serious about the prototype. Each location along the modeled route has been built using reference photos and, where available, actual drawings of the subject structures.

Such is the case in San Bernardino. The Santa Fe Depot, in all of it’s southwestern architectural splendor was built from scratch over two plus years by one of the members. We are now building a couple dozen houses for the adjoining neighborhood. In an effort to become an involved new member, I volunteered to help with the project. I was given a manila envelope with a sheet of paper containing a couple of dimensioned drawings, a few Tichy molded plastic windows and two pieces of 0.060” styrene cut to the size of the floor and the ceiling of the house.



I first looked everything over and determined what parts were to go where …


After some thought (I have not built anything from scratch in twenty years) I decided that I would tackle the garage first … sort of a “tune-up” for the house itself … a little something to get my scratch-building juices flowing.

First up, I cut pieces for the floor, ceiling, side and rear walls. Then I laid out the window and door openings. Since this is a masonry structure and the windows will have no trim around them, the windows must be a slip fit in the wall opening. The work will go slowly as the correct size opening is approached.









It becomes a situation of file and test fit, file and test fit.



I actually got excited when the window got close to being a press-fit! And then … it slid right into the hole … Eureka! One opening complete!


Then there were two window openings finished!


And then the side door opening had a door that snuggled right into its opening …


… and the sides were completed!


With the two side and the rear walls fabricated and openings completed, a front wall was needed. Rather that cut a duplicate piece of styrene like the rear wall and then cut out the door opening, I chose to cut the two pieces on either side of the garage door and the lintel above it and solvent weld them together.





The joints were then filed and sanded nice and smooth and flat.


The garage door frame was then test fit …


… and it slipped right in!


I now have a basic kit to assemble.


The garage floor and the left wall were solvent welded together first, using my trusty chamfered-edge Plexiglas block and a small machinist’s square on a piece of waxed paper to start the assembly process.


Once that joint had cured, I prepared the right side wall for attaching. Preparation involves scribing a line the width of the floor on the side wall to help “contain the solvent” in the area where it is needed.


I flowed several wet beads of solvent on the lower edge of the wall and also on the exposed edge of the garage floor, alternating between the two until both surfaces were “sticky.” Then I pressed the two pieces together and using the Plexiglas block on the inside, and the square on the outside, again on the waxed paper (to reduce the possibility of anything sticking to anything else it shouldn’t) and to insure that the joint was “square.”




The next step would bring the rear wall and the front wall into the assembly process, this time using the Plexiglas block and two small machinist’s squares, as well as the piece that had been cut for use as a “roof locator” to insure that along with being square, the proper opening was maintained.


When the joints had all cured, I had the basic fenestrated styrene box …


I had an instructor in college whose parting words as we left class were always to give our structure model an “S.O.S. … a Sense of Scale.” So in honor of George Manos, AIA, Chair, Environmental Design Department, Philadelphia College of Art …

… Four walls, a floor ... and a 1936 Chrysler Airflow Imperial Eight to give it a Sense of Scale!




Phase One of “The House for San Berdoo ... first, The Garage” … complete! Next up … a hip roof. I have never done a hip roof before, so I know this will be some sort of an adventure in odd geometric shapes and some math that I’ve probably forgotten how to do … could be trouble ... or at the very least, extremely interesting!!

EDIT: to correct a couple overlooked misspellings and to add an additional Airflow photo ... it is such a cool looking car ... you gotta love it!