HO Scale Brick Building - Factory or Dairy

HO scale model based on a 19th century industrial building located in St Mary's, Ontario.

Originally built in the 1890s as a millwork shop, the building was a dairy and creamery by 1919 and until the 1970s. The building is now a restaurant. The model is selectively compressed to fit on a typical FDM printer, omitting one of the bays on the long side of the building and adjusted the width proportionally. The windows and doors and roofline are based on early photos showing the original woodworking business. The building was heavily damaged by a wind storm in 1933 and window and roof details changed significantly at that time.

My interior details are pure guesswork. Photos of the 1933 storm damage show very shallow roof trusses centered on the brick pilasters, suggesting that the trusses were wrought iron. The interior beams and columns are a simplified caricature of wrought iron framing, designed to look more-or-less right and for easy printing and assembly. The addition is based on murky photos and guesswork and is assumed to have housed a boiler, steam engine, and coal bunker - I might add those details in the future.

The model features interior wall, door, window, and framing details and removeable roofs. Parts are separated for printing in different colours or for easy painting.

glazing.zip contains an SVG file for the door and window glass. Print the file on overhead projector sheet and cut out the door and window glass manually, or send the SVG to a Cricut machine for easy cutting.

The parts are designed for a close fit, so some light sanding will be needed to get parts to go together.

Printing

Print with 0.4mm extruder at 0.2mm layers:

walls.stl - print 1

Print with 0.2mm extruder at 0.1mm layers:

floor_addition.stl - print 1

floor_main.stl - print 3. One of these becomes the ground floor ceiling plank detail; print one of these in a suitable ceiling colour.

roof_addition_frame.stl - print 1

roof_addition_interior.stl - print 1

roof_addition_sheathing.stl - print 1

roof_addition_subroof.stl - print 1

roof_beam_one_column.stl - print 3

roof_beam_two_column.stl - print 1

roof_gable_frame.stl - print 2

roof_gable_sheathing.stl - print 2

roof_main_cap.stl - print 1

roof_main_fascia.stl - print 2

roof_main_interior.stl - print 1

roof_main_sheathing.stl - print 2

roof_main_subroof.stl - print 1

window_addition.stl - print 2

window_office.stl - print 1

window_sill.stl - print 1

window_typical.stl - print 23

Supports

walls.stl - In your slicer, manually paint supports on the underside of the door and window openings.

column.stl - I print these with supports to help ensure bed adhesion and vertical stability.

No other parts require supports.

Assembly

Glazing

glazing.svg contains outlines of the door and window glazing. I get excellent results cutting these parts out of overhead projector sheet on a Cricut. The SVG file readily imports into Cricut Design Studio and the parts cut cleanly.

You can also print this file onto overhead projector sheet and carefully cut out the glazing material with a sharp hobby knife.

Sills

The door and window sets include the sill part for each door and window. window_sill.stl is a single sill intended for the second floor window within the addition.

Glue the door and window sill parts into the openings, with the flat side of the sills facing up and the face of the sills pressed into the recesses under each opening. Press the sills down firmly on the opening bottoms.