MARK HOLLAND builds the recently released Fordhampton Infant School kit.
As there is nothing more important than a good education, I thought that it was time to add a school to our shop layout. Luckily, one of the recent releases in the Gaugemaster Fordhampton range was an Infant School, perfect to give the little darlings the education they need!
The kit comes in pre coloured plastic so can be put together without the need to paint it, if so desired.
I decided to give the kit a colour change, so gave it a coat of brick paint on the main walls.
Once the paint had dried, remove the relevant window frames and glazing from the sprue. Just be careful to make sure you have the correct size of glazing for the window frames before gluing. Use DLAD-55 Glue N Glaze from Deluxe Materials for the best results.
The front door is fitted a little differently, being recessed in from the wall using a couple of small sections of brick wall.
A small section of wall that contains the door into the playground must be put together a certain way. This is because one end is chamfered to make the corner joint, and the other end is flat to butt up against the main building. When making this section, keep the chamfered end to the left when looking from behind (the part number 9 on the wall is upside down when doing this) and you will have a good corner joint when the building is assembled.
The walls finished in basic brick and the windows/glazing fitted, along with a bright orange front door! It was then positioned on the base plate ready to glue together.
Once the walls are in position and glued, the roof surround can be added. Again, make sure the roof surround pieces are the correct way up before gluing the roof into place.
To liven up the brick work, mortar lines can be added to give the walls a bit more realism. Find a suitably light brown or sand colour, water it down just a touch and paint it onto the brick work. Once a section has been painted, straightaway give it a wipe over with piece of clean kitchen towel. This should leave behind the lighter paint in the recessed mortar lines.
The playground at the rear of the school comes with some play equipment. Once this was added, I wanted to have a more friendly surface than just plain tarmac! Faller do some scatters that are good at representing bark chips such as those used in play parks. With a dark brown undercoat painted onto the playground, scatter was put in position and Ballast Bond used to fix it in place.
School's out! The building in place on the layout, with the kids leaving for the (well earned?) summer holidays.
The building is something a bit different to add to a layout and can be built out of the box, or can have your own personal twist/extras easily added to it.