Tim's model Titanic is the perfect match (From The Argus)

Tim's model Titanic is the perfect match

9:50pm Thursday 25th September 2008 in

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It has been a labour of love almost as incredible as the infamous “unsinkable” ship it is modelled on.

It has taken more than 3,500 hours of work, includes more than 147,000 matchsticks and has every detail down to perfection.

Builder Tim Elkins has finally completed an 8ft-long scale model of the Titanic he has been slaving away on in his spare time for the past 15 years.

The model is accurate down to the finest detail and is entirely built from the matchsticks.

The decks are lined with lifeboats, there are 1,600 portholes of eight different sizes and even the name plate is to the same 1:115 scale as the rest of the ship – meaning Tim was working with lettering 5mm tall made from matchsticks cut into sixteenths.

He said: “It is the first and only model I’ve built and I’m chuffed it is finished. It has come together better than I ever thought it would.

“The secret is to have a very steady hand and a good pair of tweezers.”

Tim has always been interested in the Titanic and started the sculpture after being inspired by a matchstick model of a gypsy caravan at his parents’ home.

He has been working on the project on and off for a decade and a half at his home in Salvington Road, Worthing.

Only £100 of matchsticks have been involved but Tim has invested in a sander, a laminator and other equipment and has even devised techniques of his own to create the detailed shapes, including chewing matches to make curves.

Compliments have come from the Titanic Society and the model has now been snapped up for £1,500 by collectors Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, who will display it at a new museum in Piccadilly Circus, London.

Tim said: “I’ll be pretty gutted when it goes but I’m really pleased with where it’s going. Everyone’s going to see it.”

He said one person who might be pleased to see the back of it was his wife Debbie, who has put up with a regular carpet of matchstick debris in the lounge and bedroom where he worked.

Tim said: “I’m not going to start on another one just yet. I reckon now I know what I’m doing it would only take six months working full time but I probably won’t. I think the missus would divorce me.”

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