couchtripper

Sometimes it is hard to let go of your boyhood hobbies. And in the case of Lego fan Malle Hawking, it has proved impossible. In his youth, the 36-year-old IT consultant loved nothing more than building miniature planes, trains and automobiles from the miniature bricks but his latest project has been a little more ambitious – he has used 300,000 Lego bricks to construct a scale model of one of the largest ships afloat, the mighty USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier. His model is now the largest Lego ship in the world, measuring 4.5m (14.7ft) and weighing more than 160kg (353lb). It has eaten up hundreds of hours in the planning and many more in its construction.

His mission was to copy the life-size carrier down to the tiniest detail, even its lifebelts. He was undaunted by the fact that the real thing carries 85 warplanes and more than 5,000 airmen and crew. 'I used to play and build Lego models when I was a boy, all my friends did as well. I stopped building in my teens but in February 2005, almost 20 years after the beginning of my so-called Dark Ages – when I did not have any Lego – I watched a documentary about aircraft carriers. I was so inspired I ran down to the cellar, poured my two boxes of Lego on to the floor and immediately started trying to build one of my own.'

Using pictures from the Internet, the father-of-two from Munich, Germany, tried to copy the Harry S Truman over and over again until he got it right. 'I had only about 25 pictures from the Internet to work from and there were some real challenges in making the model the right size for Lego figures,' he revealed. The vessel will go on display in Cologne next month before going to the Brickworld 2007 Lego convention in Chicago.

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This guy's a pretty impressive time-waster if you ask me!

That's amazing. I'm going to have to show this ariticle to my nephew. He loves legos!

Probably as stable as many of the planes in the air today

ahaha! The sick bugger's even got the angle of his face right... haha

Stephen Hawking would love this. He's always up for a good piss-take, his sense of humour is great.

I got some of them --- those are priceless! Nice one, face

That's fantastic!

Impressive!

If you've ever stepped on one of those bloody things at night in bare feet, that walk of fire will not be for you !!