Modelling C. E. MacPherson

C.E. McPherson, a steel manufacturing operation began business in 1913 on the west side of Rideau Street, south of the intersection with Montreal Street. Currently operating as a division of Conrex Steel, they manufacture head shields for pressure vessels and tanks. CP crossed Rideau Street to reach the plant, at bottom centre of this 1950's aerial photo:

An 'early-Photoshop' relettered ground-level view of the MacPherson building when it was operated by McKelvey & Birch, a local hardware firm:

A major windstorm struck downtown Kingston in early 1950, peeling off the roof of MacPherson. This interior view (above) shows the roofless plant being inspected, with head shields on the shop floor, an overhead travelling crane, and a power shaft providing belt-driven power to the various machines in use. This vintage building disappeared sometime between 1998 and 2004, based on the city's Snapshot Kingston website. Comparative views 45 years apart:

In model form, I'm using the Walthers/POLA Cornerstone American Millwork structure as a basis for my model. This was a $12 train-show find! This structure fits the space available, and I'm going to mainly modify the roofline to represent MacPherson.

The Before photo...notice the central, short clerestory on the kit as built:

Ideally, I would have increased the footprint of this building, making the two outer 'wings' wider - if I had space! I decided to keep the original intact, removing the old clerestory, and preparing to add a new, full-length one made of styrene:

The clerestory is added, with a hole for some end-windows. I found some suitable styrene from another kit for the clerestory roof. It included skylight windows:

 Another roof view:

Instead of cutting holes and adding windows under the clerestory, I simply glued some printed images of windows on paper. I still wasn't happy with those end windows:

I painted the structure a lighter grey and added three paper windows to the end. The prototype included several smokestacks and a couple of end smokestacks:

There was some painted white lettering on a black background on the end of the building, between the three upper windows and the main-storey windows:

My photos of two small photos from Gordon Smithson's At the Bend in the Road - Kingston book  This second photo shows the lettering:

The After photo - I added three windows to the end, also gluing the hand-painted sign on the end, largely imagined from the above two prototype photos. Just some final scenicking remains to be done.