London - It was certainly a Titanic undertaking. Keith Morton has spent the last three years recreating the world’s most famous ship – out of Lego.
Morton, 65, was inspired to build it after playing with the toy bricks with his grandchildren. Building the 9ft model has taken 40 000 pieces – and hundreds of hours of patience.
The design even includes models of Jack and Rose – characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in the Oscar-winning movie Titanic about the doomed 1912 voyage.
By buying second-hand Lego bricks Morton saved more than £2 000 (about R36 000), keeping the cost down to £780. However, the ship nearly had its own equivalent of an iceberg collision as it approached completion. Morton found a single brick was out of place – and took two months to put the wonky back section right.
"That wasn’t a great day," he said. Fortunately the problem didn’t sink the project, which is "99.9 percent" done. Built in three separate sections, it has now been put together in the spare bedroom of the Leeds home Mr Morton shares with his partner Karen Birch, 59.
Morton says "everybody thinks it’s amazing", especially his ten grandchildren. Next up? A Lego version of the Flying Scotsman.