# A Nifty Building Begging to be Modeled



## rhyman (Apr 19, 2009)

Here is a photo of the Kilpatrick Brothers Grocery Store in Broken Bow, Nebraska taken in 1886. In addition to groceries, they also carried railroad supplies for the workers who were building the Grand Island & Wyoming Central Railroad through Nebraska to reach the Black Hills in South Dakota. I think the lettering is what makes this structure so interesting. I would love to see one of you scratch builders put one of these together.


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## Dick Friedman (Aug 19, 2008)

Very nice looking building. Any idea about its size? How big are the windows?


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## denray (Jan 5, 2008)

Dick how big do YOU want it to be? 
28 ft wide 
36ft long 
How do I know ,i don't, close though, that would be what I would make it, I usually make them what I want them to be. in the space i have them to fit in. 
Dennis


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

There are several things in the photo that will give you clues to the actual size.

The clapboards probably have a 5 to 5.5 inch exposure. Count the boards and multiply by the estimated exposure and that will give you an estimate of the actual height of the building.

Measure the height of the building on the image (best to print it out on paper as measuring on the computer screen can be very difficult). Divide by the estimated height (converted to the same units as you measured the photo... in inches more than likely) and that gives you the scale of the photo.

Do some double checks using other things that you can guess the height of. The porch ceiling is probably at between 7.5 and 8 ft above the ground. The door is probably 7 to 7.5 ft tall. The steps on the exterior stairway are probably 10 to 11 inches high. The men out front are probably around 6 ft tall including their hats, so double check by measuring their height in the image and multiply by the scale of the photo. If these answers come close to an educated guess as to the real height then you probably have the photo scale right.

You can calculate the height of the windows (or anything else) by measuring them on the photo and multiplying by the scale of the image.

Figuring the width and depth of the building is just slightly trickier. 

Measure the front side-to-side dimension of the building and the front-to-back of the side of the building. You cannot just multiply by the scale just yet. Here you must take into account that the photo is a flat representation of the building at an angle. It appears to me that the photo was taken directly off the corner of the building so the side and front are at about 45 degrees angles from the plane of the photo. So divide the front and side measurements you took of the photo by the sine of that angle -- sin(45) = 0.707 and then multiply by the calculated scale of the photo that you determined from the height. This will give you the width and depth of the building.

You can do the same thing for the width of the windows and other things on the front and side of the building.

The only thing I have not taken into account here is the fact that items in the background will measure smaller than items in the foreground. But you can figure that the windows are probably all about the same width so work with the one nearest the camera and assume the farther away ones are about the same width.

There are ways to take into account the perspective of the image, but since measuring a photo like that is not going to be very accurate due to the indistinct lines between objects, it is probably not worth the additional math to do it.

I count 53 clapboards up the front of the building, times 5.5 inches = 24-ft 3.5-in tall. I calculate the width of the building to be about 21-ft 9-in wide and 25-ft 1-in deep. But I was measuring on the computer screen and not able to measure very well with a stiff ruler.


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## Dick Friedman (Aug 19, 2008)

Thanks. I knew the trick about doors being 7 feet high and at least 3 feet wide. Didn't think about clapboard overlap. That's a good one. I usually line up my big windows with the top of the door, and leave at least a couple of feet between the bottom of the window and the foundation.


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## SRW (Jan 13, 2010)

This is a great 3/4 view photo of a building that would suit many model RR layouts. 

I was looking at the stairs as a reference for height/scale. This building was surely built prior to code but just for the sake of discussion... If they built those stair risers to 7 inches and I count 17 stairs to the base of the platform that works out about 10' to the base of the platform. That might make the wall to the roof line about 12'. Guessing that those gentleman are average height for back 'in the day' I would speculate the bottom of the porch roof might be about 8'.

Those men might have been about 32-34" from the tip of their hats to their belt lines so the bottom casement of the windows might have been about 36" tall but counting the clapboards the lower casement may have been more like 40". Judging by the clapboards the windows might have been about 2 feet off the ground. 

I would speculate the porch posts to be 4x4s. The planks on the sides of the porch roof may have been 1x12's. I may be in error but I also think dimensional lumber was a bit different back then, 2x4s and 1x12s may have actually been 2x4 and 1x12, not like today. 

Just as a guess from some of those other guesses, I'd say the building was about 18' deep x 16' wide. +/- Can't tell by those other guesses if the roof is 6 or 8' above the top of the wall from what i can measure on the screen so I won't speculate on the pitch. If my stair riser math is correct and the outside wall is 12' and if they also put the second floor window 24" off of the second floor decking like they appear to have on the first floor then the interior roof would be about 10' tall. somewhere about the middle of the "Kilpatrick bros." lettering on the front of the bldg. but they may have put the bottom of the second floor window flush with the attic decking making the interior roof more like 12' tall. If my stair math is wrong and I go by a possible 8' to the bottom of the porch roof then the wall may have been taller by about two feet and the interior ceiling may have been as much as 14' tall.

Jus' guessing. 

S


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