Flight of fancy

 Helena G Anderson, the project photographer and I spend a couple of days boxing up all the remaining retail stock, display fittings and then set about removing the pegboard panels. The result was a series of interior views of the shop that had not been seen for decades. It started to become clear just how open-plan the original shop must have been.

Helena take the opportunity of photographing newly-exposed views of the vast shelving structure. Note the lovely period lamp post across the road - still going strong.

At last, a single view that takes in the complete shelf/drawer storage installation

Another major feature of the shop is the original Victorian staircase. Until about a week ago, the staircase we almost completely clad in pegboard with products covering almost every part of the structure.

Modelling the staircase begins with with a solid block of lightweight foam. The profile layout is glued to the surface as a guide to cutting to shape.

Extended guidelines allow the bandsaw to be accurately set up for each cut.

0.8mm thick birch plywood in the form of tiny planks is used to clad the riser and the sides of the staircase, whilst the treads are fabricated in 1.5mm thick obeche. This allows a certain amount of sanding to emulate long-term wear and tear.

By staining and then sanding the leading edge of the treads, a real sense of wear can be achieved.

Now the basic carcase has taken shape, it is time to start putting the spindles and handrails together. Rather than re-invent the wheel - yet again, I am happy to employ some commercially available components in order to speed things up a bit. I was careful to design the model at 1:24 scale, or in doll house parlance - 1/2 scale. In this way, I will be able to employ some of the readily available tiny accessories that would be way too time-consuming to make from scratch.

Even though I bought the spindles and newel posts ready-made, a portion of them required extending in length, due to the design of this particular Victorian staircase, there are 2 spindles on each tread, so in each case, the rear one is longer than the front one.

The rather tall newel post on the half landing was easily extended with a nice piece of Lime wood and a couple of careful butt joints, but after failing to make an effective butt joint to extend the 2mm diameter spindles, I used very fine brass tubing to slip over the modified spindle end. Wood stain will obviously not work on brass, so I will resort to acrylic paint to colour these components.

Having solved the main issues on the first flight, the second flight came together surprisingly swiftly.

The handrails were fabricated from three fine strips of Lime wood, assembled to form a U-shaped groove. When turned upside down the groove provided a location channel to keep all the spindles in alignment. The top surface was then sanded to give a pleasing curved profile.

Staircase assembly completed, awaiting staining/painting. The temporary foam support will remain in place until the major assembly process begins.