We are constantly working on new projects and improving old ones. We are also helping our owner, C. C. Crow, with his projects. Seemingly forever with The Durango Roundhouse in O-scale. A second release of The Ridgway Roundhouse in HO, with Durango coming along later in HO. Meanwhile, you will find we've added here and there in our extensive detail parts and model building supplies. And many more quality craftsman structure kits from Builders In Scale. Just what you would expect from the combination of Builders In Scale and C. C. Crow.

Mid Nov. 2024

BUILDERS IN SCALE / CC CROW
PO BOX 149 - TOPPENISH, WA 98948
(425) 355-5622 cell   biscrow@outlook.com

Long story short, we have moved to Toppenish, Washington and setting our shop back up. It will be a slow process, due to the advanced age of the house and myself (two years older). The computer running XP died so updated (ha-ha) to WIN 10, while most other work is done on a Mac. Actually, there are several of them. One for the office, one for graphics, another for scanning... and so on.
Looks like it will be a soft re-opening. Some things are working, others are not. Some suppliers are no longer in business, some materials were left behind, others lost, and holy crap, that's way too expensive!! New local suppliers need to be found, else chain-up for a ride over the pass.
So, we will start by announcing the move and pending re-opening, adding product availability over the next few weeks and months. While in storage we did work on some interesting new items, but we will announce them once they are certain.

June 2021
Just a quick note. I need to step back as I am care taking my soon to be 97 yo father. We are fighting an invasive skin cancer and unfortunately some unwanted side effects of his immunotherapy. As the doctors say, we're caught between a rock and a hard place. So I am cutting back on what I can offer. We will see how it goes. I appreciate all the kind words and understanding. I'm just happy I can do this, but yes, very exhausted.

SPRING 2018!
Years later and... I'm taking care of my 93 year old father. He's been in great health until recently. This is taking up much of my time further delaying future and current projects. On the C. C. Crow side Ridgway HOn3 roundhouse kits are just trickling out, along with remaining O scale Durango kits. I thought I would be done with them and working on production of Durango in HO scale by now- and a bunch of new BIS projects as well. Just can't seem to get to them- occasionally even the regular BIS orders are delayed. My apologies during these times.

12-10-2016
SORRY, we just couldn't leave it alone, C. C. Crow's Ridgway Roundhouse kit in HO. We had to improve it. One thing led to another so, a whole year later and finally, finally, it's ready to go out the door, be that still very slowly. It's a curse! It's HO scale but we insist on cramming all the details of an O-scale kit into HO. It's crazy. There are other issues making things go very slowly but slowly we are moving forward.

01-30-2016 YIKES!
That darn roundhouse! Six years later and it is still clogging the shop. We can't even think of all the things that have happened. Guess that's why we are supposed to add product announcements here. Have to remember that. Sorry, What can we say?
Let's see, LaserWood kits, yes we added a few of those years ago. We need to complete a few more. There are others, but because of all these delays we won't talk about them. Out of the LaserWood kits came generic planking/siding in all shapes and scales. We did a full matrix of stair stringers and treads. We added COLOR to the SilverWood Stains. There are more shingles, and less. Sadily the paper stock for our slate shingles has been discontinued so we are running out of those. Eventually, we will come up with something else. The HO roundhouse kits are coming along. Ridgway is all but ready to ship. We have a new roundhouse stove added to our HO detail sets along with a few other new additions there.
The web site has just been updated after years of neglect. Sorry, we had to raise prices accordingly. We are tired of making $5.27/hour based on a 40 hour week (2014) where we often work twice that.

08-01-10 TIME!
Where does all our time go? A lot is going into the DURANGO ROUNDHOUSE KIT we are doing under the C. C. CROW brand. It's 1/4" scale and covers a 4 x 4 foot piece of plywood. It has cast brick detail inside and out, laser-cut everything, with white metal details as well as photo-etched. It's finally ready for production.

06-18-09 NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS
We are changing our e-mail address from Verizon to our own web site, actaully using C. C. Crow's. New address is bis@cccrow.com.

05-01-09 MORE LASERWOOD KITS NOW AVAILABLE
Kit No. 617, Lean's No.2 Warehouse and Kit No. 618, The No. 3 Warehouse are now in production. Kit No. 619, The Warehouse Annex should follow shortly. And we are working on three new ones, a three-stall wooden car shop, a small engine shed, and a yard office.

10-28-08 NEW LASERWOOD KITS NOW AVAILABLE
Kit No. 622, The J & J Pyrite Mine, Kit No. 620, The One-Stall Wood Engine House, and Kit No. 621, The Two-Stall Engine House are now in production. The other new LaserWood kits will follow later this winter or spring.

8-15-08 NEW LASERWOOD KITS COMING
As though we are not busy enough we are developing several new HO scale structure kits featuring our LASERWOOD techniques. We have two lineside warehouses, one is practically falling down! There's another small one with an office building. Then there's a pair of wooden engine houses, one or two stalls. And the fun J & J Pyrite Mine, with several more to come. We are trying to have as many as possible ready to display at the National Narrow Gauge Convention coming up in mid-September in nearby Portland, Oregon.

7-26-08 STILL WORKING ON IT
When will this nightmare be over? What was I thinking? Brick detail inside and out, laser-cut to the exact dimensions, thirty-some variations on the engine doors, hundreds of pieces, hundreds of drawings... Shoot me!

6-25-08 THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE
My mother Ruth fell and was taken to the hospital. She died June 30th due to complications from pancreatic cancer. A week earlier we thought she was free of it (she had the rare form and had fought it for two years). If you haven't lately, go call your mom and tell her you love her. Or better yet go give her a hug.
On a better note my niece Susan was married on the same day.

2-29-08 MUCH PROGRESS NOT SEEN
You cannot see this but much progress has been made this winter. The monster in the basement, lurking there in the dark for two years, is about to immerge. Don't be scared. It's the Durango roundhouse in 1/4", and its friend from Gunnison. Yes, it's taken forever and pushing our other projects behind. It's just something that we had to do, and had to do right, without compromise. As we move into the production phase the shop will remain very busy, however, we have been working on our new BIS projects and should be able to finally focus on completing them too. Good things take time, we just didn't realize it would be this much time.

8-22-07 NEW N-SCALE SLATE SHINGLES
Poor N-scale guys have been crying, why don't you do more in N-scale?. Well, if you insist. We love to scratchbuild, too. Note they can be used for HO where smaller shingles are required.

8-10-07 NEW N-SCALE LASERWOOD PLANKING
What if we scaled our new LaserWood Planking down to N-scale? WOW! All the detail of the big stuff in super minitature.

4-9-07 NEW SHOPPING CART
Hopefully this will work- We've added a shopping cart to the web site. It's hand built, that is to say, we coded it ourself, using Mal's E-Commerce and our new PayPal credit card account. It's semi-automatic rather than automatic. So we review the orders, pull them, before the charges are put through. It's tied to the C. C. Crow web site which needs that intervention (they are often cast to order). Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Payments can still be made by check or money order.

3-11-07 NEW LASERWOOD PLANKING
One thing led to another, and we have some dandy laser-scribed planking/siding featuring nailhead detail. It would take hours and hours to emboss these by hand.

3-1-07 NEW C. C. CROW KIT - NP HOTEL, EASTON
We've helped CCC with his first laser kit, The NP Hotel, Easton. It's almost a Builders In Scale limited run kit with plenty of our details (white metal parts, lace curtains, Venetian blinds). A great addition to anyone's layout or shelf.

1-28-07, JIM HAGGARD
With great sadness we've learned that Builders In Scale founder, Jim Haggard, has passed away from lung cancer. Our hearts goes out to Jim's family and friends. We will miss him dearly.

10-28-06 BRAND NEW MOM!
Our Mom has been in and out of the hospital all fall but we are happy to report she is back home getting better and better with no more such outings planned. This has put us way behind on our new projects... But hopefully we can get them back on track soon.

9-25-06 EARLY FALL REPORT?
Guess I should call this the quarterly report. Most recently our Mom was in the hospital for much longer than we would like. She's back home recuperating but our schedule is a mess having just returned from Durango and the narrow gauge convention where we displayed the Durango Roundhouse model in On3 (C. C. Crow kit). Needless to say that's a huge undertaking. If only we could work day and night without distraction... but we cannot, so things are delayed.
Many of you are wondering when the Builders In Scale Limited Run Kit No. 12, The National Belle Mine is going to come out. The plan was this fall, which we are still shooting for. Really, we are down to the last few details and they can start going into boxes and then your hands. Crow's got another kit too, The Northern Pacific Hotel at Easton, Washington that's all but ready to go into boxes.
As if that's not enough we are adding several new detailing items. We added and additional color to our popular Tar Paper: Old Silver. And we've added a plain white to our Slate Shingles: Light Shale, which can be colored anything you like. Then we are expanding our LASERWOOD line of stair stringers with a steeper 8-inch rise as well as adding laser-cut Stair Treads in two widths: 36 inch and 48 inch.

6-3-06 WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?
The new laser is working out great. We've been busy playing with it. Hey, it's not all work and no play. At least that's what we keep telling ourselves. There was a lot of work updating the old files but with most of that complete we are now working on all sorts of new stuff. And not forgetting The National Belle Mine, our next limited edition kit no. 12. We are getting down to the final details now, with plan sheets complete, we're polishing the instructions, finalizing the laser files, making production molds, completing the pilot model, taking pictures and designing the boxes. If that's not enough hard work we are doing the same twice for C. C. Crow! No wonder it takes forever. We're having too much fun! Eventually, this will result in some actual products.
Actually, we do have some new products. And some old ones. There are nearly three hundred items in our product line and another hundred if you count C. C. Crow. This winter was our busiest season yet. Just keeping up with the old stuff is a full time job. With so many products on the market these days we are pleased to contribute our share.

3-6-06 BRAND NEW LASER ARRIVES
On February 23rd our new Epilog laser engraver arrived. Largers, faster, smoother, plus up-to-date software. This thing is GREAT! We are in the process of adjusting all our old laser files to work on the new machine, with all of the shingles, curtains and blinds back in production, with the Evening Express kits to follow. And then we can move on to those NEW KITS we've been promising you!

1-18-06 NEW YEAR - NEW LASER
Wow! A whole new year ahead of us. We've ordered a brand new laser engraving machine. Our old relieable 1993 Epilog Eclipse will be retired and a new Epilog will replace it. Twice the power, twice the speed and nearly double the size. Cool! Hot! And fried! It's still several weeks away and then there's a bunch of work to do for the conversion. So many laser items like the lace curtains, V-blinds and Victorian shingles will be in low supply or unavailable probably through the month of Feburary. But watch out after that! We've got several new kits lined up, including some for C. C. Crow. Not just flat so what laser kits, but true craftsman hybreds, including cast Hydrocal, white meatl details, and all the cool hot stuff you'd expect in one of our kits.

11-17-05 NEW LASER
Thanksgiving already! We are making good progress on the National Belle Mine however slowly, we realize we are not going to make it by Christmas. Santa is bringing a new laser-cutter which will help with all our production. Our old laser, one of the first in the hobby, is 13 years old! During the transition certain laser-cut items will be in short supply. We've marked them on the price/availability list as "LOW".

9-7-05 GENERAL UPDATE
Where does the time go? Hopefully it's well spend building model trains!
We are making great progress on The National Belle Mine. No firm date or price yet. But we are very pleased so far. You'll love it.
We have adjusted a few prices- some even went down. Others did go up.
NOTE: OUR SHOP WILL BE CLOSED FOR TWO WEEKS MID-OCTOBER.

4-21-05 O-SCALE DETAIL PARTS
Several O-scale detail parts are back in production with renewed molds. We are also adding #7432 Cast Iron Street Lamp w/Globe and #7433 Fire Hydrant (2). And it shouldn't be too long now for the HO Figures.

3-25-05 SEAMED TAR PAPER UNDER DEVELOPMENT
We manufactured seamed tar paper for C. C. Crow's Sn3 roundhouse and thought it would make a great addition to our model builder's supplies. We will offer it and a smaller scale version in five colors shortly.

2-10-05 NEW EVENING EXPRESS MINING KITS RELEASED
We are very pleased to announce the three new Evening Express kits are finally in production. They include the following:
Kit #615 THE ORE TIPPLE
Kit #616 THE MINE HEADFRAME
#565 THE ORE TRESTLE (HOn12-18)

Note: The Ore Trestle, previously announced as being 8" in length, is actually being manufactured with 7 timber bents (3-1/2" tall), two abutments- for a total length of 16", and is suitable for narrow light-duty (manual ore cars and the like).

1-12-05 WELL, THAT DIDN'T WORK
Or did it? We are almost there with our computer conversion. And those old NEW kits should be available shortly.

12-20-04 SPECIAL HOLIDAY SCHEDULE
We are closing down the shop for the end of the year so that we might get some of these long overdue projects completed. See you in the NEW YEAR!

11-10-04 ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK
We apologize that the new kits have not been released yet. It's a long story which includes a new Apple computer, new operating system and old applications being left behind. We are almost there, but still not quite...
Meanwhile, we are stocking up for the winter. Our brass etched products, Lobster Traps and Wrought Iron Fence, are expected mid-November. And we hope to have the long-awaited HO corrugation in production soon. We are working the kinks out of the new tooling.
Unfortunately, the cost of our white metal alloy has nearly DOUBLED in one year. If it's not G.W.'s fault then it must be the terrorist's. We don't want to but we are forced to adjust our prices effectively immediately.

8-5-04 NEW LIMITED RUN KIT MAKING PROGRESS!
We are making good progress on THE NATIONAL BELLE MINE, our next limited edition kit, our first under C. C. Crow's leadership. We're putting the finishing touches on the diorama and shall display it at the National Narrow Gauge Convention in Santa Clara, Cal. this September. Come see us!

6-5-04 NEW EVENING EXPRESS KITS COMING SOON!
We are putting the finishing touches on our two new Evening Express kits, #615 The Ore Tipple and #616 The Mine Headframe. The pilot models are under construction and we are refining the instructions. We'll have them displayed at the NMRA NATIONAL TRAIN SHOW (booth #325) in July, here in Seattle.

6-5-04 ADDING #565 HO SCALE ORE TRESTLE
A simple four bent (3-1/2" tall) ore trestle (HOn30 or less). Designed to supplement our new Ore Tipple and Mine Headframe kits. 8" in length.

5-19-04 ADDING HO SCALE "CITY" SHINGLES
Our #508 TRUEWOOD SHAKE SHINGLES are an HO scale version of our larger scale "RUSTIC" shingles and #513 are a paper version. We decided to to do the "CITY" style in HO scale as well. These are marked by their straight bottom cut, where the rustic are ramdom length. We are adding #501 TrueWood Rustic Shingles, #502 TrueWood City Shingles, and #514 City Shingles (self-adhesive paper).
WESTERN RED CEDAR SHINGLES
We are also producing a special run of Western Red Cedar Rustic Shingles in O and G scale, part #702 and #902.

3-12-04 COPPER BACK IN STOCK!
Our COPPER roofing/siding #512 and #720 are back in stock. It's also available in 2 inch widths so we're adding item #719, COPPER RIBBED SEAM 8' in O scale. We'll also offer #267 PLAIN COPPER SHEETS for flashing, etc.

2-20-04 SORRY, WE ARE - - -
behind a bit. With the Sn3 (C. C. Crow) Roundhouse coming out our limited resources are stretched thin. Add a computer failure (Mac's are so easy!) and lots of lots of orders-- Please be patient, we're working as hard/fast as we possibly can. Thanks, CCC
3-12-04 Update - We're back on track, still behind a bit, but catching up. We're updating our computer system, adding a new Mac G4, OS X, applications and a color printer- no problem, right...

1-20-04 #508 HO Truewood Shake Shingles - AVAILABLE -
We have resecured a reliable source for our thin/fine veneer used in our TrueWood shingles. They are all available again.

10-28-03 Boy, things are moving slow, or at least we are, and the clocks/calenders are not.
We're busy keeping up with orders, and adding new and old things to the line. Our popular Weathering Chalks #107 are now back in supply, and we've added two shades of new Brick Mortar Mix, #110 and #111. We are working feverishly on the new kits. CCC's Sn3 D&RG 72 ft. Brick Roundhouse has taken the lead. It's sure coming out nice, and we think it will likely be done in HO and O. You can write to encourge us on those. White metal detail patterns for The National Belle Mine are being worked on. And we just haven't gotten around to completing the two new Evening Express kits (Ore Tipple and Mine Head Frame) but we hope to shortly. No wonder its taking so long!

09-15-03 We had a great trip to Colorado. The convention was outstanding, the C. C. Crow Sn3 roundhouse was well recieved, we got to visit with Jim Haggard briefly, and explore the National Belle mine site. Oh, you mean it's over there! We had been looking at the Yankee Girl (seen one delilict mine shaft, seen 'em all!). The National Belle is hiding behind "the Knob", as view from the highway. Our pilot model is based on historic photos so it really doesn't matter that we were inspired by the remnants of the Yankee Girl. We've got measurements for both now.

08-18-03 We've made some great progress this past month. The leader of our efforts is The Denver, Rio Grande & Western - style 72 ft. Brick Roundhouse in Sn3 we are helping C. C. Crow with. He's done the brickwork and we're doing the engine doors, windows and roofs with our laser.
The pilot model will be on display at the 23rd National Narrow Gauge Convention September 3rd - 6th, 2003 in Denver. Hope to see you there!

See:  23rd NATIONAL NARROW GAUGE

07-14-03 Now that things have slowed down a little, we are finally "playing around" with some new kits. We're not quite ready to announce them yet, but we can hint that they have something to do with digging holes in the ground. Gopher traps? No, guess again...
Okay, we're additing two new models (actually, they were parts of previously released kits) to our Evening Express Line, an ore tipple, and a mine headframe. Then our next Limited Edition will be The National Belle Mine.
Watch for further announcments!

06-04-03 Many of our instruction sheets refer to PACTRA acrylic enamel paints. Unfortunately, like too many other good things, they are no longer available. So, what are we going to do? We are developing a conversion chart to cross reference Pactra paint colors with Floquil.

See:  PACTRA PAINT CONVERSION CHART

05-28-03 No, we have not been sleeping, we've been working hard to get most of our items back in stock. We are just about there, with ALL the Evening Express kits, including a few that have not been available for quite a while, back on the shelves. There are only a few holes left in our inventory, and we are making head way on our new kits. We can hint that they have something to do with Colorado mining- More details later.

04-16-03 Tar Paper is back in stock, four colors to choose from.

03-21-03 First batch of SwitchMasters has been shipped!

03-12-03 Here's some great news, our famous SwitchMaster switch machines are now back in production. We are most pleased to be offering these great machines once again.

02-26-03 Foils stocks have arrived, for corrugated and ribbed seam roofing/siding. This includes new 6'& 10' widths for HO, S and O.

02-14-03 Wood veneer has just arrived, so we are now stocking TrueWood shingle items.