Bindery Done

There was once a bindery in Berlin that was situated under railroad tracks... Incorporating that into my train layout seemed like a wonderful way to combine interests...

This is the concluding post of my "bindery" thread, wrapping up my big push in the last week or so to outfit the interior of the bindery. Shelves and cabinet fronts downloaded from Scalescenes, a few shelves ordered (3-d printed and laser cut) that still require work, but the heavy lifting of workbench, counter tops, board shear, Prägnant stamping press, and standing press were all scratch built to 1:87 or thereabouts. As a frame of reference most figures are just under 2cm tall, and "standard" bench height is about 1cm high.

Counters and shelves assembled. That dropped section is
that way for a reason. 😉

Bench assembled. It has storage shelves
underneath for board and paper.
The black things are parts for the board shear.

No, that's not a Star Wars TIE fighter... Just board shear parts.

The assembled board shear, really just a massively over-sized
paper/sheet metal cutter. Note the blade...

Bindery staff debating the position of the blade when not in use...
Down like above, ...

..., or up like here. Most colleagues seem to say down.
I have mine up, so it's ready to use...
Yes, the blade moves.

Next piece of equipment, the Prägnant stamping press.
I loved using this as an apprentice because it was very easy to
adjust and you could see exactly where the type was going...
More here on Instagram.

See where the Prägnant stamping press goes.
Lower than the counters is the ideal working height.

Last big piece of equipment, a standing press. Still want to make
some hand-/finishing-presses, but yikes...
Note the posters on walls.

Pulling together a lot of threads from my bookbinding related life,
from Ernst Collin and W. Collin, to Babette, to Werner Kiessig, to apprentice
journal cartoons and bindery advertising. Several also reference women binders,
and this is a woman run bindery.

The bindery has a copper clad roof, too. And, yes, it is removable to get the best view of the details,
and light it up, sort of. Still some details to add like awnings over the side door and windows.

Replaced the windows. I liked the griminess,
but when sealing it with mat spray, it got too cloudy.
It's good to have cleanish windows, and this is Germany, after all.

Looking in through the new windows.

And more windows you can see through. Also added some window boxes an awning above.

We're closed now, but it looks like someone left their bike outside.
Hopefully, it'll still be there in the morning.

Still to do beyond the things already mentioned, making some Potemkinish stacks of work in progress, and hanging a shingle from the facade. Loving how this looks, and glad to have this model on my train layout, especially as it ties together so many personal experiences and research interests.

Getting the windows washed for the public opening of Buchbinderei..
The bike seems to have made it through the night unscathed

Buchbinderei at night. Everyone is working late...

Buchbinderei is also no more, the space having become Tipico, a betting salon. As can be expected, the facade was repainted as well. I will imagine that the original Buchbinderi is just hidden beneath the sign... 

Tipico, formerly Buchbinderei, in Berlin.
Photo by https://buchrestaurierung-berlin.de/.
Danke für die Aufnahme.

Ready for the Bindery's Interior

Framed out the interior, walls up, floors sanded and sealed but wanted to retain the essence of the original  bindery.

Interior walls up. Used Scalescenes' clapboard for floors and walls, but in n-scale to make it finer,
less like the exterior of a structure.

Doors are from Gleimo, a Germany card modeling vendor/site. Sadly no longer around and I lost
all my original downloads when my drive crashed...

Looking in from the street. This is one of the very few structures I have with interiors.
As the sun never sets, and it's always summery, no real point fiddling with interiors.

Looking in to get a sense of the space.

Overhead view of the space. There is a toilet and wet room on the other side of that diagonal wall,
Also stairs to the 2nd level where the binder Gertrud Jannowitz will live.

Now comes the hard work of detailing the interior with shelves, benches, storage, a desk, stools, a board shear, presses... We'll see how I make it work. 

Construction on the Bookbindery Begins

 A week or so ago, I shared my initial ideation for adding a bookbindery to my Papphausen layout. Well, today my "journeyman" Fritz Otto began taking measurements onsite and figuring out how best to fit the structure on the oddly shaped site.

The site. The pigeon shack will move, as will some of a tenant's BMW 2002 collection.

Measuring with a printout of the facade scaled to 1:87.
The woman in the yellow dress will be working  in the bindery when completed.

An overhead view with the Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn passing above.

The bindery where I apprenticed in Gelsenkirchen will serve as a model for the interior if I can
pull off scaling them down to some form of viable 1:87.
Otherwise, flat printouts cut to the contours will be glued in place at various depths
to give the illusion like a "peep show" or "tunnel book".

Facade elements isolated in Photoshop.

Elements pasted onto a scaled pattern sheet from Scalescenes. Once the primary image is mounted,
windows, doors, and other details get cut out, new images get mounted,
and all is layered to build depth.

Mounting the door, so it can be set behind the facade.

Rubbing down the threshold after putting the door in place.

Rubbing down the window sills.

Gluing the clear lower window in place. The upper will be opaque.

Just taking a look to see how it's coming. Ok?

VERY loosely positioned on the building site.
The binder is standing in front and having her picture taken... For the local paper?

The same from a different angle.

Made a lot of progress on a lazy day. Still need to figure out the roof and interior. The latter can be added later if the roof is made removable.

Adding a Bookbindery

 Back in 2014 I had shared images of what used to be a bindery located in an arcade under the Railroad and S[tadt]-Bahn tracks in Berlin. They weren't beautiful brick or stone arcades, but brutalist concrete on what is a kind of island between busy streets.

Yesterday, while surfing Google Maps I found that they had updated the images in that area, this time with an S-Bahn train overhead.

Buchbinderei near to Jannowitzbrücke, Berlin.

I think I will interpret that idea on my layout but opening a bindery in the lot below to the right of the gate and going back at an angle. The pigeon shack and BMW 2002s will need to be relocated...

The lot for the new bindery.

The facade of the bindery I apprenticed in Gelsenkirchen could also easily be adapted to the lot, and I have views that I can use to create the interior details regardless the facade. Rather than running on top of the bindery, the mainline runs above.

Bindery I apprenticed in 1985-87.

Should be a fun and relatively easy project to distract me from the main project of redoing the Bw and finishing the Schrebergärten next to Posten 210...

Buchbinderei and Berlin Stadtbahn

Several years ago I found this image floating around the web with no attribution, date, or description but was immediately drawn to it because of the stark imagery, the decay, and the fact that it was (once?) a bindery...

Searching in Flickr just now, I found another image of the same bindery, in color no less, that provides a bit more context in the form of the concrete protrusion at the top right. Image below by Markus Mayer from 2009 with the same graffiti and a similar reflection of a Plattenbau in the windows...

Flickr had a few more images of it such as this one that clearly show a railroad trestle above... A bit more searching brought me to Berlin, right near the iconic (for train geeks) Jannowitzbrücke and the Berlin Stadtbahn. This is along the Spree in what was once East Berlin.

A link to a quiz of the "where is this" sort provided a bit of history from a genealogy forum. This indicated that this was once the Buchbinderei Scholz. Interesting story for those that can read German ending with success in tracking down a relation/ancestor.

Click Google Maps Street View to view this July 2008 image,
spin image around to see the reflecting Plattenbau...
The TV tower at the Alexanderplatz is at right.

Click Google Maps Street View to view this July 2008 image,
spin image around to see the reflecting Plattenbau...

Would love to have a bindery at that somewhat desolate location. Combine to passion at one location, books and trains.Could even be something to model...