A swimming goggle and snorkel I made for a Tui Holidays advert a year or so ago. The goggles are 32mm wide to give you a sense of scale. # Animation #props #miniatures #modelmaking
Crikey it’s TEN YEARS since we built the first of these DB5s! A great team effort by a superb crew!! #Aston Martin #DB5 #Propmaking #Miniatures # Models # modelmaking # skillset #007 #James Bond #
I’m restoring a finely made steam engine whose piston had seized into the cylinder with rust, having been left with water after a running session. This is the cylinder cover after quite a bit of work cleaning it up and refining its contours to bring it back to a respectable appearance. #restoration #modelmaking #model engineering #beam engine #steam engine
Here’s progress so far on the pattern for the new beam for one of my engines. It’s all perspex but the “feather” that runs from end to end is only a trial shape, cut from 1.5mm styrene (much quicker to work than perspex) and worked on until I was happy with the shape, which is a very gentle and subtle curve. There’s lots more to do, with the actual feather to be cut from 2mm perspex, all the edge beading, more decorative corner beadings and patterns for the swivel ends.
After that, make a mould, cast some out, join a pair of them back to back, clean up, then mould the whole thing and send a casting from that to a casting company.
#modelmaking. #model engineering #beam engine #pattern making #casting
With a pound coin for scale, here’s a cylinder drain tap for one of my engines. It’s simply brass and steel and made on my Unimat 3. It works…
# model engineering. # modelmaking # miniatures
7mm very fine scale model railways are not quite my thing but I thought I’d have a go at weathering something so this is my first attempt, including the bit of diorama-style track to place it on. I used Mig and AK enamels and washes plus inks to bring out the detail. #miniatures #artworking
This was a pipe made for a tv show called Sherlock Holmes in New York. It vaped realistically and could charge from the base it was mounted on, furnished with operating gubbins from a commercial vaping pipe-thing!
An architectural model to about 1:25 scale of a luxury penthouse apartment. The bookshelf uprights were slotted on the milling machine and the shelves jig-cut for consistency of size, from basswood sheet. I had to do it this way as even the slightest misalignment would be very noticeable. To fill those shelves, I made a couple of styrene and Perspex patterns for runs of about 20 or so books, made a silicone rubber mould and cast multiples of them in grey-tinted resin. These were then chopped up and glued in shuffled order to give a random-looking arrangement of books. The sofas were carved from chemiwood and the table and piano from perspex and chemiwood.
This was a dummy head mechanism made for Derren Brown’s automaton for his “Svengali” stage show. It was adapted from several clock mechanisms and yes, some of the bits DID move! I made a larger one for the automaton’s tummy so that Derren could open doors in each to reveal the “mechanical” nature of the prop to his audience. #mechanisms #model engineering #stage props #propmaking
Windscreen wipers for the DB5! With the clarity of Pete Sellars’ windscreens, at 1/3 scale you could see everything and my patterns even included the spring tensioners on the windscreen side. We had all these parts lost wax cast with an etched brass arm. This prototype set was built by me but long-suffering John Payne made most of the production examples. #model cars #miniatures #DB5 #craftsmanship #modelengineering
The infamous DB5s! They were a team effort: there were a dozen or so of us on the team at any one time, but of those involved I patterned up most of what you see here with Gary Merrington drawing up the door sills, seat buckles and tilt/raise mechanisms, Louise and Anna made the carpets and headliners, Chris Jack and Robin Schoonerad cast the seats, Pete Sellars formed the windscreens, Chris Hayes built the doors, Chris Trice and Nick Richardson made bits and ran the project. I recall that the team built 27 of these photographically perfect creations. #model cars #DB5 #miniatures #craftsmanship #modelmaking
