Buy the book at E. L. Moore's Bookery

Photos courtesy James L. Dixon

I know, I start a lot of these posts saying how surprised I was, or how pleased I was to see a particular model, and I'll say it again, I was surprised and pleased to see that Uncle Charley's Bookery has survived.

I didn't build this as a teen; I didn't even know about it back then. It was a good ten years ago (yikes, time flies!) that I found out about it and decided to make one of my own. What was the attraction?

Walls and walls of books.

Not to mention the charming little building and walled garden.

The deal was sealed and I started to work.

First, a little shameless self-promotion: all my Bookery posts can be found tagged with The Bookery, and final glamour shots can be found here. 

The flowering vines are a nice touch. I also like that curved path from the gate that sweeps over to the side door.

That's not a shed in the garden, but an outhouse.

The bookery dates from an age before central heating, as well as indoor plumbing, so a substantial fireplace was needed to keep the place warm.

I followed his directions on making the books. It was a bit tedious, but the end result was fine.

As you can see, his interior is highly animated. Looks like there's a policeman having a chat with Abraham Lincoln. 

Outtakes from The Bookery

Some extra pictures I took while preparing the The Buddha, The Bookery and the Man Cave. 

I used The Red Apron model as a prop beside The Bookery and I was surprised that they went well together as neighbours. I'll have to remember that if I do some repositioning of buildings on the layout.

Speaking of locations, Gecko Records is temporarily located on a shelf with The Grizzly Flats Depot as its neighbour. I was really struck by how small the depot is in comparison to its looming HO scale companion.

The E. L. Moore Files: The Buddha, The Bookery and The Man Cave

[My attempt at building E. L. Moore’s Uncle Charley’s Bookery from the December 1965 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman]

While down by the railroad yard one day who should I come upon but Uncle Charley, standing in a weedy, vacant lot. “I own this lot,” he says, “and I want to build a little shack here so I can sit and mediate in peace. You’re a builder. Build me something.” Just like that. Uncle Charley has always lived with his brother George; but George’s wife, Ma, is sometimes short tempered about having two retired railroad men underfoot. I could understand his wanting a place of his own....

[And so E. L. Moore opens the story of Uncle Charley’s Bookery and its construction.]

I usually start these sort of posts by saying how back in the ‘70s I tried my hand at building such-and-such a project by E. L. Moore, and moaning about how it was too much for me then, but how decades later I tried again, and lo and behold, I could build it and had a good time doing so. Well, this time, the last part is true, but the part in the ‘70s isn’t. I didn’t even learn about this Bookery thing until a couple of years ago, but when I tried it, it turned out to be one of my favourite projects. Still is.

Here’s the letter of introduction E. L. Moore sent along with the Bookery manuscript to Railroad Model Craftsman. The transcript follows.

October 2, 1965

The Honorable Carstens,

R. M. C. Ramsey, N.J.

Ye Editor . . . 

I dunno if Uncle Charley’s Bookery will interest you or not. The idea germinated years ago ... thinking of an ideal place where one could get away from whatever he wanted to get away from, thumbing one’s nose at customers and all such. Then I found, not being encumbered with a naggy wife, indeed, no wife at all which is still better, that I didn’t have to get away from anything. My two cats are not naggy except at meal time. So I turned over my idea of a hideaway to Uncle Charley and he liked it so I built it for him.

I found some dope on a sorghum mill, a slightly ancient brick one, powered by a steam threshing machine engine. I’ll get around to it one of these days.

I suppose the little heir is becoming quite a hellion these days -- makes life interesting on the home front. Yeah, I went through it once -- mine’s seventeen now. Then too, I go through it twice, three times a year with flocks of kittens.

Just me ...

E. L. Moore,

525 Oakland Ave., Apt 3

Charlotte 4, N. C.

The Bookery manuscript accompanying this letter appears to have been reproduced without changes in the published article. Given that the article was submitted in October ’65 and published in the December ’65 issue, maybe it was used to fill a hole in a production schedule and there was no time for the niceties of reflection and editing. 

Story-wise, it’s right up there with his classics. I read it again and one of the asides deals with how he based the structure on Benjamin Franklin’s Printing Shop in Philadelphia. Mr. Moore spins a bit of tall-tale and notes that he got the plan for the building when he bumped into Mr. Franklin himself at the post office, and during some grumbling about the price of stamps, got Franklin to draw it on postcard.

[from Explore PA History and the image is credited as being donated by Corbis-Bettmann]

I seemed to be plum out of postcards, so I tried asking Mr. Google instead, and in the process stumbled across this interesting image that is noted to be the facade of Franklin’s print shop. That section with the bay window and front door bears a striking resemblance to E. L. Moore’s model.

.... but I was thinking in terms of a tarpaper shack, so when he showed me a history book picture of a brick-fronted shop ... “But the cost?” I protested. “Hang the cost,” says Uncle Charley expansively.

[The full scope of Uncle Charley’s project is sinking into our narrator-builder.]

I also found the idea odd. A substantial brick building for what would today be called a Man Cave, maybe along the lines of the ones shown in this book about Australian men and their sheds I bought from a used bookstore years ago.

[Blokes and Sheds by Mark Thomson. Published by Angus and Robertson in 1995.]

They aren’t tarpaper. They’re built mostly from metal and wood. Not a brick one in there. No bookeries either. Mainly various types of workshops, with a rumpus room and a boxing ring thrown in for good measure. E. L. Moore, being located in the southern USA, might find that these sheds from Australia would likely fit the climate, although all that metal construction might get pretty hot in the summer.

And that sorghum mill he mentioned in the letter? My guess is that it’s the Moe Lass’ Old Sorghum Mill project that appeared in the April 1966 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. I built that one too - but, again, not in the ‘70s :-) - although I converted it to a Barbecue restaurant. Mr. Moore must have liked that building’s shape because he basically used it again, but with larger windows, as the basis of Uncle Peabody’s Machine Shop that was published in the June ’72 issue of Railroad Modeler.

Uncle Charley’s Bookery: Done

Last weekend I finished reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. I finished Louis L’Amour’s The Daybreakers. I finished cutting the lawn. Finished getting the plumbing to work. And I finished The Bookery!

This last phase of construction was focused on building the courtyard and associated exterior detailing.

The base is cut from a sheet of 0.080 inch styrene that was sized so that it fit snuggly into the centre of Scarboro Square. This meant that the courtyard was considerably larger than the one shown in Mr. Moore’s article. He never specifies its exact dimensions, but it looks to be about the same square footage as the Bookery. Mine is around 2 or 3 times bigger.

The sidewalk and concrete areas on the base were scored with simulated expansion joints and then painted with a loose mixture of Polyscale concrete, gray and flat black. The courtyard lawn is simply a piece of Woodland Scenics grass mat cut to fit the area and glued down with superglue.

The courtyard’s perimeter wall stands 4 feet tall and is built up from pieces of 0.040 inch styrene covered with the same brick-paper used to cover the Bookery’s walls. I placed the outhouse in the far back corner because, well, it’s an outhouse, and it didn’t seem right to place it beside the public sidewalk  I also changed its roof to a slant-style to make it a little more outhousey.

One thing I should note is that I mixed a thin wash of Polyscale concrete, a little gray, and a dab of flat black paint to tone down the brick paper a bit. Be careful if you do this so as not to obscure the mortar lines and lose the fine brick detailing. Keep a tissue at the ready to quickly soak up any excess paint. The wash also helps to hide the white edges of the brick paper wherever they might standout.

I built a second ‘roof’ for the Bookery: a simple piece of clear plastic to allow the interior to be viewable, but help keep dust out. The ‘real’ roof –made from a piece of 0.060 inch styrene with a piece of fine sand-paper bonded to the outer surface – can simply be placed on top of the clear roof when a more realistic look is desired. The clear roof wasn’t glued in place so that the interior can still be accessed if necessary.

I figured the courtyard needed a few trees, and I decided to use some sold by Bachmann in their Scene Scapes line. I had used some of these for the Deroalow grounds, and was happy with them; however, I was surprised by the branch structure on these ones I bought last fall. I should have looked closer at them in the store because when I took them out of the box I was surprised by the flat, ribbon-like branches. The trunks are ok, as are the fine branches that connect to the ‘leaves’, but the internal branches are simply twisted, ribbons of metal. If you don’t look too closely, the foliage helps obscure them, but, overall, they detract from an otherwise nice product. Some judicious placing and orientation helps to come-up with an acceptable tree arrangement in the courtyard, so something was salvaged.

The bench outside the courtyard wall is built up from wire, styrene and balsa wood. It’s based on a bench design the city uses at some of its bus stops; however, mine isn’t an exact replica. The fire hydrant is a detail item from Walthers. I added a snow depth indicator arm because it is, after all, Ontario. The bookcase outside the Bookery’s bay window is built up from balsa scraps. I added some steps to the side-door because it seemed like a long drop to the ground without them. Also, I added a brick planter for the tree outside the front of the Bookery – it seemed that a tree was needed on the left to give some visual balance to all those trees in the courtyard. The planter is also built-up from balsa scraps. The nice little picnic tables in the courtyard are laser-cut kits I had bought awhile ago, but unfortunately I’ve lost the manufacturer’s name.

Well, that wraps it up for Uncle Charlie’s Bookery. Even though I flubbed a few things along the way, it’s been a fun project that I’d highly recommend to anyone looking to get started with old school builds.

Uncle Charley’s Bookery: Site

I plan to place Uncle Charley’s Bookery in Scarboro Square. In some ways it seems like an odd location – being so close to the renovated Chapters store as well as being located off the main roads and accessible only by sidewalk.

I look upon the Bookery as a building that has survived generations of redevelopment with some combination of stubbornness, savvy maneuvering, and good luck. The neighbouring buildings from its era have all been torn down and replaced with gentrified retro-modern homes - except for the Chapters which is located in a renovated building from the Art Deco era. One of the reason’s Uncle Charley’s Bookery has survived is that passengers waiting for their train at the Scarboro Square Station can drop in to browse for a few minutes, and later rest in the side garden. It’s become something of an icon to generations of travelers and commuters.

As well as the Bookery, Scarboro Square is also going to be outfitted with many more trees to give it a more settled look. I’ve got around a dozen or so on the shelf waiting to be planted.

Uncle Charley’s Bookery: Basic building finished

I don’t particularly like vines and ivy on buildings. When we bought our house, the first thing I did was strip-off and kill the ivy growing on the garage walls. I was amazed at how well it had anchored itself into the stucco and it took a lot of effort to remove it all. But, some strategically placed ivy has helped to hide a brick-paper seam on the most prominent corner of the Bookery. From the looks of Mr. Moore’s article, he also used some ivy, so it’s in keeping with the spirit of thing, and it’s ostensibly an old building, so some ivy doesn’t seem out of place.

The reason I used this ruse is that I messed up applying the brick paper at this corner. I cut the paper on the side wall too short and it didn’t go all the way to the corner of the end wall, so you can clearly see where the piece ends. If you measure things more-or-less properly, as I did with the other three corners, the edges don’t look too bad. This is a good example where you shouldn’t give up when you encounter something that didn’t quite build-up as planned, but just change course a little to fix it up.

The roof is cut from a piece of 0.080 inch styrene. It has a piece of fine sandpaper glued to its outer surface to simulate some sort of gravel roofing. Mr. Moore states he simply let the roof rest on the top layer of books. I decided to add a rail above the top book shelf and around the inner wall perimeter for roof support – it’s made of styrene channel.

The half wall – which will eventually become part of the larger courtyard perimeter wall – was built-up from styrene and covered with brick-paper. The concrete caps are also cut from styrene. The decorative spheres are 1/4 inch diameter acetal bearings superglued to the wall caps. The corner seat is wood.

Well, that’s it for the basic structure. It was fun, and at times frustrating. The next step is to site it in Scarboro Square, and build the courtyard and outhouse (which is shown in the photos in the original article, and hinted at in the text, but not described in much detail – it’s more of an afterthought).

Uncle Charley’s Bookery: Furniture

I’m starting to think that if you are going to build some of these old-school projects one thing that needs to be reconsidered is the story around it. On the surface that seems somewhat trivial – and maybe a even a non-starter because although E.L. Moore often had an elaborate fictional back-story for many of his projects, many other writers from that period did not, and their works were simply straight ahead miniaturizations of prototype structures – but it helps to bring these projects into the present, and also sort of help with thinking about how they might have changed and evolved in order to survive into our time.

This update-the-story idea developed when I started to work on the furniture and siting for the Bookery If the Bookery were mine, I’d change the furniture, and since it is, I did. I’d have a big library table to spread out reading and writing materials; so I built one. I’d have a couch so I could stretch out and read a book; so I built one. I’d need some ladders to reach the upper shelves; so I added them. Well, you get the picture. You certainly could rebuild the interior exactly as Mr. Moore pictured it in his article, but I didn’t want an exact period piece, but something that was old, but had been changed a little here and there to better fit with my view of the ‘retro-future’.

The library table is made from 1/32 inch sheet basswood for the top, balsa for the legs and some 0.010 in styrene for the table-top base frame.

The chairs started out as items from an HO-scale Airfix control tower kit to which balsa legs and styrene cross-bracing were added.

The end-table has a basswood top, and a base made from a bolo-tie component.

The couch is built-up from 0.100 inch and 0.080 inch styrene.

[Jet Scott and Tawney Potter chat in Professor Potter's library]

The lady-on-the-ladder-reading-a-book was inspired by this panel from Jet Scott, Vol.1 by Jerry Robinson & Sheldon Stark (published by Dark Horse Books)– which I highly recommend.

Well, a lot more detail could be added to the interior, but I decided to leave it at this. I’m in the process of closing up the Bookery by adding the remaining side-wall and the removable roof.

Uncle Charley’s Bookery: Books, books, books, and more books

1965 must have been quite a year for E.L.Moore. As far as I can tell, he published 6 articles about building structures in RMC, and I think that was the most articles he had published in a single year until then:

Ye Olde Corner Drugstore

Tonsorial Parlor

Small Manufacturing Plant

Major Hoople’s Brick Warehouse

Yard Blacksmith Shop

Uncle Charlie’s Bookery

I thought publishing 6 construction articles in one year was pretty impressive, but I later found out that Mr. Moore was just getting cranked up in ’65, because the following years typically saw 8 or 9 articles per year! An impressive legacy of fascinating scratch-building projects to say the least. I wouldn’t have time to build 6, let alone 9 in a single year. I find that his projects seem deceptively simple; and they are with respect to technology, but not in the number of steps and phases of construction.

Interestingly, 4 of the ’65 projects also had interiors of one sort or another, which I’m finding really adds to the total build time. They’re not all loaded up with HO-scale books, but they do have their unique construction challenges. I haven’t really built all that many interiors; in fact, I think it’s just one: the ersatz servicing area in the engine house – and that was many years ago! Well, ok, now that I think of it, there was the viewing area / interior in the Buddha’s Overlook project, although it’s far from a full interior.

The Bookery’s shelved books were rather pleasant to make. I followed the instructions in Mr. Moore’s article, but instead of painting the book spines with brush and paint, I used a selection of coloured, fine-point Sharpie pens. This made the task easier and faster. I also considered skipping the step of indenting the book strip at each spine edge with a knife. This didn’t work out because the indentation prevents the ink from bleeding between spines and gives you a nice sharp division between books.

Window blanks ready for trimming & inking.

Where the books gave some pleasure, the windows took some away. Well, the flat windows were a chore, but, surprisingly, the front bow window was rather easy. Mr. Moore stated he used commercial windows for the flat ones since he had some suitable ones around.

Inking a window on a template.

I tried to make the flat ones look sort of like the ones in his Bookery using his old-school inking method. My window openings weren’t quite square  so there was some fiddling and finessing needed to get each window to fit properly. The window beside the side door was particularly troublesome and required 4 attempts to get something that was acceptable - over enthusiastic trimming and sloppy inking on my part conspired to try my patience. On the other hand, the bow window was very easy to make and install, and went in on the first attempt. I made my version in 3 pieces; whereas, Mr. Moore made his from a single clear sheet with folds to make the bow. All my windows are held in place with Micro-Krystal Clear.

This poor thing donated the fireplace horns.

Mr. Moore’s Bookery has a clock above the fireplace mantel. The fireplace reminded me of the one in my father’s house, but his has a set of steer horns on it from a long ago trip to Texas. I liberated a set of horns from a donor toy cow leftover from a project in a larger scale, painted them a bit, and glued them above the row of oversize books on the mantel.

I think I’m in the home stretch now. I’m in the process of standing up the walls, attaching them to the base, and adding some furniture.

Uncle Charley’s Bookery: Beginnings

I’m not familiar with E.L. Moore projects prior to his Cal’s Lumberyard build that appeared in the April 1973 issue of Model Railroader, so it was a pleasant surprise to read his Uncle Charlie’s Bookery article in the December 1965 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.

I found both the article and the project charming. And, I caught myself smiling throughout the story, so it was pretty clear I needed to build this. It seemed like a simple and fun project, and, after doing a little measuring, it looked like it was going to fit rather nicely into a vacant lot in Scarboro Square - a unexpected bonus.

Repeated readings of the article started to make it seem a little like an archeological expedition. Mr. Moore had an unconventional style – well, at least by today’s standards – where the rather sketchy instructions are embedded in a fictional story. That’s ok with me, but if you’re not used to it, there does seem to be a lot of knowledge assumed of the reader as far as building structures goes, which the narrative glosses over a bit.

For example, he refers to a product called Northeastern yellow brick. I did a little internet searching and couldn’t find anything, but reading between the lines in the article it seems like some sort of sheet material made of 1/16 inch wood that has an HO-scale embossed brick pattern on one side. This was used for making the walls.

I substituted 1/16 inch balsa with Micro-Mark yellow brick paper glued to one side. The Micro-Mark brick paper is very nicely printed, and even though a 8 15/16 in x 5 7/8 inch piece cost me $10.99, it was well worth it, and I’ll probably get a few projects out of it.

Like I said, I cut the walls from 1/16 inch sheet balsa. I could have substituted sheet styrene, but I wanted the interior wall surfaces to have a little texture, and it is an E. L. Moore project after all, so sheet balsa keeps with the spirit of the thing. The foundation is another story though. I cut this piece from 0.080 inch styrene because I wanted a stiffer and more impervious base than 1/16 balsa could provide.

The inside floor – which is attached to the plastic foundation piece with thick super-glue – is still 1/16 inch balsa as per the article. Now, even though the balsa is superglued to the relatively thick styrene foundation, when I stained the floor, it still caused the combined structure to warp a bit as the stain dried. I had to carefully unwarp it back to flat with finger pressure. It restored ok; just something to keep in mind.

I was chatting with an old friend back in February and he commented that the way I laid out walls on sheet stock was old school in the extreme. The advent of laser cutting and CAD design had rendered this old method embarrassingly obsolete. All quite true. Laser cut kits have completely changed the landscape of building model buildings. But, I’m not sure if it’s economical just yet for one-off projects like I work on. Maybe I’m making the same assumptions that Mr. Moore made in his articles that readers just know how to do this stuff, and it can pass without being noted. Maybe this is a mistake on my part. Maybe these crafting techniques need to be illuminated a little. I think I’ll go into this in a future post (although it probably needs a short video), but here are some tips that come to mind that help me achieve an accurate layout.

1. Always draw the layout with a sharp pencil. I use an HB and keep two or three pre-sharpened at hand so I can replace the one I’m using with a sharp one as soon as the one in use becomes a little dull.
2. Same with the knife you use for cutting out the layout: always use a sharp knife. It’s safer because you don’t have to press hard as you do with a dull blade, and it’s more accurate. I buy blades in 100 count boxes so I always have a ready supply of sharp blades on hand. Yeah, it’s expensive since a box costs around $25, but compared to buying a half-dozen at a time, it’s far more economical in the long run. Also, when you have a lot around, you’ll be more inclined to replace dull blades right when you need to.
3. Use a steel ruler when you score the layout for cutting out the walls from the stock. Don’t use a wooden or plastic one – you’ll damage the edge and won’t get straight cuts. I like to use a steel ruler without an attached cork backer so the ruler will lie flush against the sheet stock and the knife blade won’t get under the ruler while cutting.
4. Whatever type of sheet stock you’re cutting, use several light passes of the blade instead of trying to make the cut with just one or two passes while pressing hard on the knife. There’s less chance of slippage and you’ll get a more accurate cut.
5. When cutting styrene you don’t need to cut all the way through the material. Cut around 1/3 to ½ through the sheet, then snap it along the scored line. Use a sanding stick to clean-up any rough edges on the cut piece.
6. When cutting balsa sheets, you’ll need to cut all the way through. Remember to use numerous light passes and keep the blade perpendicular to the ruler. Be extra cautious when cutting with the grain because it’s easy for the blade to catch a grain path and wander away from the ruler’s edge.
7. Check your measurements. Check your measurements. Check your measurements again. Always check the layout lines you’ve drawn on the stock to make sure they’re drawn as per the plan and they look right. If something looks wrong, or not square, check it before cutting. Check it again. Check it even if it looks right – maybe you’ve overlooked something. I know I do. Sometimes I’m extra lazy, skip checking and assume everything is fine, and then, lo and behold, I find I’ve made a cutting mistake and have to start over 
8. Keep practicing. Don’t give up. These seem like a lot of steps, but with a little practice they quickly become almost second nature.

Even after all this I still don’t always get everything right. I keep trying. I must admit that I find the early stages of building a model building old-school style – drawing out the walls and roofs on sheet stock, cutting and test fitting the pieces, and the initial gluing and forming – almost meditative.