Constructing The Gaugemaster Structures Nurseries Kit

The Fordhampton Nurseries Kit is part of our Gaugemaster Structures range and is a popular choice for OO Scale modellers.

The assembled Gaugemaster Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, featuring the 3 greenhouse buildings
The assembled Gaugemaster Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, featuring 3 greenhouse buildings

These buildings are certainly a common feature when looking out of a carriage window along many of the mainlines in the south of England, although some are now defunct and in a state of disrepair - possibly a project for the modern image modeller? And of course, these structures form part of many garden centres that you see all over the country.

Before you start building this OO scale model, here are the tools we recommend gathering ready for the project:

An A4 cutting mat, modelling glue, paints, a paintbrush and the Gaugemaster Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, ready for building
An A4 cutting mat, modelling glue, paints, a paintbrush and the Gaugemaster Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, ready for building.

Unboxing the Fordhampton Nurseries Kit

When opening the box, you’ve possibly not seen a kit with so many clear parts to it before. There are also some bags of foliage, and one of the sprues has delightful little accessories on it, such as watering cans, pots and a wheelbarrow.

Inside the box of the Gaugemaster Fordhampton Nurseries Kit. There are sprues, foliage, and an instructions leaflet.
Inside the box of the Gaugemaster Fordhampton Nurseries Kit. There are sprues, foliage, and an instructions leaflet

The most important decision you have to make when constructing this kit is how you’re going to treat the window frames. If left as is, the model still looks like a good representation of the real thing.

However, you could also consider using white paint to enhance the framework, but this can be a time-consuming task and is not to be undertaken by an unsteady hand. Bearing this in mind, there’s a good trick to improve the look of these parts without painting. Lay a piece of P120 grit paper on a very flat surface - your cutting mat will do - and simply rub the glass parts frame side down on the abrasive surface.

This effect whitens the clear plastic on the raised frames, and gives a more realistic look than just leaving them as moulded.

Plastic model frames before and after they’ve been sanded with grit paper. After sanding, the frame looks smoother and brighter
The plastic model frames before and after they’ve been sanded with grit paper. After sanding, the frame looks smoother and brighter.

We decided to go for the painted look. Our top tip for those of you brave enough to head down this route is to use paint colour of your choice and a couple of new brushes. The technique used, after making sure that the paint is fully mixed, is to drag the slightly loaded brush almost horizontally across the raised frame. This is best done with new brushes to avoid stray bristles that can come with brushes that have been previousley used. But what if one gets paint on the panes themselves?

Applying white paint to the plastic frame using a thin paintbrush
Applying white paint to the plastic frame using a thin paintbrush.

This isn’t the end of the world, as in real life, the maintenance staff for these buildings wouldn’t have been too bothered about getting a little bit of paint on the panes of glass! If you do need to remove paint, it can either be scraped off later when it’s dry or, alternatively, have a separate brush and a little drop of clean thinners (or water for acrylic paints) to wash the offending paint carefully off.

Prepare the Greenhouses

While the floors of the greenhouse buildings could easily be painted, we decided to give them a more realistic look by using the Gravel Mat. This initially proved to be a bit fiddly, as the legs of the tables are moulded onto the floors and would have required many little pieces of the mat to be cut to fit, which just wouldn’t have looked right. An easy fix for this is:

  • Roughly cut the mat slightly larger than the base it is going on
  • Dab a little bit of paint on the top of every leg
  • Then place the mat, backing side down, on to the legs while the paint is still wet
  • When you flip the mat over, you now have little marks where the legs are positioned
  • Using your GM613 cutting knife, simply pierce the mat through every mark

A piece of Gaugemaster Gravel Mat with model table legs inserted into it.
A piece of Gaugemaster gravel mat with model table legs inserted into it.

After applying some Speed Bond to the floor, gently push the mat down, making sure the legs protrude through the holes. The table tops themselves can be painted in the colour of your choice - we’ve used Humbrol 62 Leather, which has a nice orangey brown colour to contrast with the foliage.

Prepare The Rest of the Kit

The kit comes with a bag of green and multi-coloured foliage, and although a reasonable representation of plants and flora can be replicated, we used some of our Gaugemaster Scenics modelling materials range, taking the Flowerbeds, cutting the lengths to fit the various tables and applying them using Speed Bond.

Pieces of model foliage after being added to the greenhouse building.
Tufts, flowers and foliage have been added to the greenhouse building.

Now the base of the model is complete, you could move on to the final assembly but before that, we decided to paint the chimneys, but this is a personal choice. We used Humbrol AXA1081 (98) Matt Chocolate and AXA0360 (33) Matt Black for the coping at the top.

Assemble the Nursery Buildings

After carefully trimming away the clear parts from their sprues, you can finish the edges off by rubbing them on the P120 grit paper to give a good edge for joining the panels. Putting the glass moulded parts together is fairly simple, but be careful when folding the joint between the sides and the roof panels - if it’s pushed too far over, it will snap off.

The best thing to do is to pre-bend these parts and do a dry fit before applying the plastic glue. Once the glue is dry, you can then run the white matt paint along the fold lines, where the panels join and your building is finished.

Two of the assembled greenhouse buildings of the Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, with model plants inside, on a grass mat.
Two of the assembled greenhouse buildings of the Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, with model plants inside, on a grass mat.

Finishing Touches

There is no hard and fast rule for adding the finishing touches to a model like this, and you can visit garden centres near you for inspiration. We used the Gravel Mat as the basis of the ground covering for our centre, which also doubled as the car park! We also used Faller embossed card walling sheets to represent the stone and brick paths that you see in these centres. They are actually N Scale, but look right for OO Scale paving. The cards used were FA222565 and FA222567.

They can be easily cut with scissors, but we used complete sheets, laying them side by side to represent both the inside and the outside parts of the centre. Initially, we laid out the buildings that we were going to use and the location of the plants without sticking anything down, to see which layout looked best. The two Faller sheets were stuck down side by side leaving a border between them and the Dark Green Hedgerow that’s going to surround the garden centre.

Fencing was then added with sections stacked ready for sale. There are a variety of fencing options you could choose, with the Wills version being most like that you find at home.

Gaugemaster Garden Shed and Wooden Fence Panels model kits, in their packaging
Wills Larch Lap Fencing comes with fencing panels, posts and a gate.

We used part of the fencing as intended, but stacked others to create individual panels. We also did this to a shed, and it creates a nice little area on the outside part of the nursery. We then added some model PR17104 pallets and torn off clumps of grass matting were glued onto them to represent turf.

The completed Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, with extra detail surrounding the model, including flower beds, pallets and trees.
The completed Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, with extra detail surrounding the model, including flower beds, pallets and trees.

This finished shot of the nursery must have been taken very early in the morning as the customer car park is still empty! You’ll also see various plants and vegetation that have come from the Gaugemaster Scenics range, and the bright colours really bring the garden centre to life.

Adding a few appropriate model figures to the scene also enhances the realism, and we have a huge range of Gardener Figures available from Faller, Noch, and Preiser.

Below is an alternate approach for assembling the model, which features the main parts of the buildings painted in black and has been given the glass a very realistic whitewashed effect.

The assembled Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, painted in black instead of white.
The assembled Fordhampton Nurseries Kit, painted in black instead of white.

We hope you have as much fun as we have putting this garden centre together, whichever interpretation you go for. Find more building kits, modelling materials and more in our full collection of model railway supplies. For other hints and tips on modelling the scenery, check out the Scenic Section of the Knowledge Base.



This article has been written by our staff here at Gaugemaster, drawing on thousands of hours of modelling experience. Each article has been written to make it easy for everyone from beginner to expert to learn and expand their own knowledge base. If there is something you would like to see covered, feel free to contact us to suggest a topic - we’d love to hear from you.

For more articles like this, and many others; don't forget to check out the Gaugemaster Knowledge Base.

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