Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Need help with rebuilding an old station

Okay guys, I've just acquired an original bolt together gas station from Eastern Oregon. Problem is that it's kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle upside down, in the dark, and without knowing what the final product will look like. HELP! I know it's a Ray F Becker building, I think it was originally a Shell station (the deceased former owner had been a Shell jobber through the 50's to 70's), and I'm probably missing some parts. Anyone have any pics of old bolt together buildings you can post to me?
Thanks!

IF you know the location, city/county it was used in, try the planning commission for old permits to build, archive/library for old newspaper of Grand Opening, Street/Hwy Division for dangerous location [curve in hwy/intersection].
Talk to older residents of area & ask for photographs.
Try doing a Patent search by builders name.
Good Luck.
db

Could you post pic's of some of the parts and maybe we could recognize some of the parts to identify your building.

My husband is kind of an impatient guy and won't wait till the Fossil, OR offices are open tomorrow. We've determined that we are missing a significant portion of sides, window frames, and one beam. So, he is re-engineering it to the closest that we can get. My new shell gas station (greenhouse) should be framed today (except for the parts that require new steel, since everyone is closed today), sandblasted and painted sometime after the rain finishes this week, and then we'll put in the new glass. I'll post pics soon.

For what it's worth and they may not be of any help I'm noit sure of the age your dealing with, but here's what I have.

I have many pictures of stations that were delivered on the back of a truck and assembled on site. They made these from the early 1920s through the 1980s. Please give me a picture of the parts, if none is available, what is the station made of (porcelain, wood, etc.)? How old does it look? Is is square or ornate like the station shown above? There is a great deal of differences between the station shown above and the white porcelain stations erected by Mobil in the 1950s.

Jack Sim

It's a very early pre-fab building with all the external parts being metal either bolted or snapped together. As for the wood frame work, I can only assume that original with the builing, but something like that can be reconstructed with some patience from new wood. Hope it helps even if just a little bit.

Oops! Jack slid in there. He is right however and any info. you can provide (especially in pics) will be of great help.

Dave, I didn't realize that you had such a great "playhouse". What a great looking building!!!

Wish it was mine Bob. The guy wants HUGE dollars for it last time I saw it. I got to admit, I was jealous as all can be when I went thru it!

Back in the 20s there used to be buildings made of bolt together panels that did not have a wooden frame on the inside.

Still waiting for some kind of a picture.

Jack Sim

Okay, here are a few pics of the progress thus far. We determined we were missing too many parts to complete as original. And we are missing all but 4 window sections. So we will be using the wood windows on the backside and the left side (neither will be very visible) and creating "new" frames to match the original ones for the other two sides. The wall on the right is not in the correct configuration yet. We'll fix that when we put the door in (hoping to find an old glass roll up). [img]http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/alIxnjT1EZXtqHjHfmX-_Q?feat=directlink[/img]

hmmm. I think I'm lacking skill in uploading pictures. So, in the mean time, you can check my picasaweb album at http://picasaweb.google.com/thegaspeddlers/Buildings#
I also have some pics of our other buildings in the album. It's a work in process.