Building a Western Boomtown Part 6: The Calico Jail

[Music] howdy folks dave here at thunder mesa studio with another structure build for the wild west boom town of calico there's a structure at knotts that's very closely associated with goldy's place the calico jail and at dots it sits in the alley just back behind goldie's now unfortunately i didn't have the room back there to add the jail but i did have a little bit of room over to the right of goldie's place so i figured what the heck in for a penny in for a pound i built goldie's place might as well build the calico jail too [Music] the calico town jail is another one of walter knott's classic peek-in attractions the dates from the earliest days of ghost town it's still there today and still features poor old sad eye joe the unlucky prisoner who talks to guests with the help of a performer and a hidden microphone now if you've you've been in knott's berry farm and you've visited with sad eye joe you'll know that the jail is not a brick or stone or even adobe but it's actually made of wood slabs laid on top of each other and interlocking at the corners in kind of a finger joint and as it turns out this was not at all uh an uncommon form of uh early jail construction in the wild west and so i'm going to do something similar for my version of the calico jail except um i will be using uh railroad ties eight by eight railroad ties uh interlocking at the corners to model my version the calico jail is actually a pretty small structure um my version is only going to be 10 by 10 feet just big enough for one guy basically one prisoner and i've cut a piece of uh 1 16 inch thick uh birch plywood to act as the floor and the foundation in reality the floor would probably be dirt but we're going to fudge a little bit here also i've cut a hole i drilled a whole quarter inch hole in the corner uh right here to the left of the front door so i can bring wiring up where it won't be seen because i do want to illuminate the interior with a single yellow flickering led to simulate lantern light the first thing i want to build is actually the door frame because when i do the slab construction all the way around the outside it's going to butt up against the edge of the door frame and i'm going to make it out of the same old scale 8x8 ties that i'm making the rest of the building out of i've already cut and stained the wood i'll need for the door frame so just need to uh glue this together i like to use my uh my little cutting mat here to keep things square but i am going to eyeball it i don't want it to be too perfect i'll be adding the door itself a little bit later on i can go ahead and attach this door frame right now i think looks a little bit like stonehenge now i can put in this little two foot long piece here on the corner and this piece which is three and a half feet gluing it to both the base and the door frame this thing's going to be super sturdy and strong when it's all done those interlocking joints and these side pieces are two and an eighth of an inch long two and one eighth make sure it meets flush at the corners because we don't want anybody escaping from our jail then along the back wall a full 10 foot long piece 10 foot long or two and a half inches now i can start gluing in the second level of ties this time the full length goes on this side so that it overlaps this joint just like a log cabin just like lincoln logs we've got a little teeny piece this spot right here shorter piece here another little custom piece right there there we go and that is how the whole thing goes together all the way up only one door no windows it's a jail cell after all now i'm fortunate in that the these kepler ties that i'm using are already a scale 10 feet long so i don't even have to cut those for the longer pieces but for the shorter ones i have my little mitering jig set up with a stop so i can cut the shorter side pieces all to the exact same length my little uh japanese razor saw there so those come out to a scale eight and a half feet long and those fit in between the longer ten foot pieces just like that so right now i'm going to cut and stain a whole bunch of these so i'll have them ready to go all right i believe i have all the pieces i need to finish the walls of my jail so now i'm gonna stain them and uh this is uh an india ink and uh rubbing alcohol stain it's about 50 to 1 maybe more alcohol to india inc maybe closer to 100 to 1 you got to experiment i don't have a precise formula that i use obviously i just mix it until it looks right usually it comes out too dark at first and then you just keep adding isopropyl alcohol 70 percent until it gets to the the right color the right shade that you want just drop these in here only leave them in for a second they don't need to be in there a long time unless you want them to get really dark just drop those in and pull them right back out again and set them aside to dry you see how i'm i don't know if you can see you see how i'm separating these make sure they're not stuck together when they come out of the stain that way you don't get any weird-looking dark blotches [Music] well i finished the walls and just i'm using my sanding block now just to flatten the top make it nice and flat and square for the roof which is going to go on next i'm going to build a removable roof and i'm using some eight inch thick uh basswood to create uh these roof trusses uh looking at the photo i have here of of the calico jail it looks like they're just slabs of wood that have been carved to create these these roof trusses like this i've already laid out and cut out one of these and now i'm going to cut out the second one and to cut thick basswood like this which i'd like to do it i'm just going to take my utility knife and very carefully you don't want to you don't want to go in and try and cut it all at once just just easily kind of work your way in and once i get it about halfway through then i want to come back with a fine tooth razor saw and finish that cut make sure it's nice and square there we go also a good idea whenever you're cutting something like this that you want the the waist piece to be out on this side of the straight edge that way if you make a mistake if the blade moves it goes into the waste piece and not the piece you want to use there we go nice and easy so one of these will go here and the other one will go on the back like that i love that the peak of the roof is off center on the prototype it's just left of the door so that's the way i did mine too for the connecting beams between the roof trusses i'm going to use some o scale 6 by 12. i also want a center ridge pole a ridge beam right here i'm also going to make that out of 6 by 12. and i need to notch these roof trusses i've made a little pencil mark there so i can cut this piece out very carefully without splitting this and that's the trick isn't it so i'm going to cut this piece out now and then i'll do do it on the same the same thing on the rear one and uh this ridge pole should just drop right down in between those two that's the theory anyway all right those done now i just want to add a little notch to the front of this ridge pole and so you don't whack your head when you're going in the door very thoughtful for the prisoners now i can start putting this thing together and i'm going to build the roof right on top of the the structure but without gluing it to the structure i'm going to build it up here to make sure that everything aligns properly but it's not going to be glued to the structure itself instead i'm going to use some other pieces of 6 by 12 that i've cut and these will be attached to the back of the roof braces here now these pieces will do two things one they'll help key the roof into place but they will also prevent light leaks from the structure around the eaves of the roof [Music] and now i'll just use a sanding block with some 400 grit sandpaper in it to smooth down the top edges of these beams to match the angle of the roof here and there is our removable roof that's pretty nice fit now for the roof panels themselves i'll be using some of this um 1 32nd of an inch thick birch plywood which has been laser scribed and get them in the right way here and uh looking at photos of the prototype i noticed that the the roof is actually slab construction as well with the the rafters just lined up one right next to the other uh in a row all the way over the top from one side to the other now to accomplish this look i'll be using a whole bunch of o scale six by six but only the ones at the end will be full length and the ones in between will only be about half an inch long so we'll get the same look but save a whole bunch of lumber and while waiting for the stain to dry and all that lumber went ahead and painted the sign that said jail i used an old popsicle stick that i'd weathered and distressed and painted in the letters with some antique white acrylic paint and then it was time to finish the roof panels i glued each of the 6x6 pieces in place to replicate the look of slab roof construction then i used my sanding block once again to bevel the top edges of the roof so the two sides would meet properly at the peak [Music] and then it was time to shingle the roof fortunately i still had about half a sheet of shingles left over from goldie's place that were already stained just the right color these are laser cut cedar and peel and stick so that really uh sped things up quite a bit now for the door i've got some nice described sixteenth of an inch thick basswood which was just some leftover stuff in my scrap box from another another kit and uh but since it was only 16 of an inch thick i i wanted something you know thicker i wanted a thicker door about six inches deep so i i took and cut two identical doors and then glued them back to back to create a door that's about six scale inches thick and now i've got some scale oh scale 2x6 and i'm going to frame in this window which will have the bars in it now looking around the studio here for something to make the bars out of i came across this and this stuff is heavy duty like industrial grade emery cloth which is used in plumbing to clean brass fittings before they are they are soldered together and it's exactly the right size and uh and shape for the the bars in the window so i cut a little square of that and i painted it dark brown camo and now i'm going to fit it inside the window frame and that'll give us our barred window stuff is impregnated with the silica so it's already got this great sort of rusty texture to it once you paint it uh with that dark brown paint it really uh really creates a nice illusion of rusted old metal bars just need to trim it down just a hair here see if i can fit it in here ideally i'd like this to be just a nice press fit i think i got it i could have just glued it on the back but that wouldn't look quite right it should be about halfway through right in the middle of the thickness of the door and since it's it's cloth it has a little bit of flexibility to it so there's the bars and the door now i can install the door in the opening and i'm afraid sad eye joe is never going to get out because i'm gluing the door shut this wants to be unlike most exterior doors this one opens outward so it should be flush with the door frame on the outside for the long iron bar hinges i've actually got some this is some grant line narrow gauge box car hardware that i had in my scrap box and these are like the straps that go around the corners on box cars in there but they're also perfect for this kind of serendipitous you gotta you gotta be ready for these things to happen that's just perfect so i'll glue those on with a little ca i think the other half of the hinge i have another little piece of tiny little piece where'd it go of boxcar hardware and i will use to create the look of the other side of the hinge i think i'll turn these horizontal like that it's quick before it sticks to my fingers there we go now i just need to figure out some sort of latching mechanism well i couldn't really find anything uh that worked in my scrap box so i ended up fabricating a a latch and bar out of some 25 thou laser board that i had pretty pleased with the way that turned out i'll get a little weathering on that now there's one more little detail i want to add to the exterior last detail laser cut horseshoe here to the right of the door got a couple of drops of whoops ca on the back doesn't look like sad eye joe's luck is going to change not with that horseshoe upside down anyone familiar with the practice of the horseshoe is knows that if you down upside down like that means all the luck runs out you got to have it turn the other way to hold the lock inside so it's a bad luck horseshoe now it's time to add some light to the interior i've got a little three millimeter yellow flickering led this is a piece of foam tape also put some just regular scotch tape over the top over the sticky part so it doesn't collect dust and stuff take the backing off and stick that to the wall there we go i also notice i uh put some illustration board in here this is just to block light leaks in the corners just a couple of pieces of illustration board make sure that the only place that light is coming out of on this uh is through the the bars in the door that's the only place i want to see it speaking of seeing it let's uh see if it works [Music] well it's just about done and ready to install on the layout but it just wouldn't feel right to have the calico jail without its number one resident sat eye joe so i went ahead and painted up a little o scale figure to look like joe and uh created a uh a bunk for him to sit on nasty looking jailhouse bunk and uh you know 99 people won't know that he's actually in there but i'll feel better knowing that sati joe is in jail where he belongs [Music] i made a hat for joe from a disc of bristol board and then painted him with acrylics [Music] i built his jailhouse cot from some scrap laser board and scaled two by fours then added a ratty old mattress made from painted foam core [Music] prop this up here so i can work on it pop the lid off let's see the bunk should be right about there up against the back wall move it all the way over to that end yeah it should look like there's something in there you know use a little eileen's on joe's backside here [Music] there you go joe you ain't getting out anytime soon [Music] just want to do a little bit of weathering here with some chalks except sort of a rust color with some orange and some terracotta just add a little rust to these uh iron fittings so a little bit on the old horseshoe also kind of a warm gray i think that's about all that needs okay i got the wires hooked up now i can turn it on see how the lights look [Music] one final detail short section of a boardwalk out front to tie it in with the other structures in the rest of town and that's going to do it for this one folks thank you so much for watching that entire video and i hope you'll tune in again next time for more builds and projects from thunder mesa studio until then keep moving forward adios for now [Music]