Selasa, 24 Maret 2009

Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings sculptures made of matchsticks

The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry matchsticks model with creator Patrick Acton
The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry matchsticks model with creator Patrick Acton Photo: CATERS

Patrick Acton spent nearly three years of his spare time working to recreate the school of sorcery including all the turrets, walkways and gargoyle-festooned towers seen in the films.

Mr Acton has spent 30 years carving sculptures from simple matchsticks.

He is currently working on a 7ft tall replica of Minas Tirith, the fortified city featured in the Lord of the Rings film The Return of the King.

Careers counsellor Mr Acton, 55, from Gladbrook, Iowa, spent a few hours a night in his workshop perfecting his Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

He managed to replicate every minor detail of the bespectacled teenager's boarding home from the tiny mullioned windows to the chimes on the clock tower.

When it was finished, he had used a total of 602,000 matchsticks and 15 gallons of carpenter's glue.

He said: "I love the books and films and consider myself very much a Harry Potter fan

"I've always wanted to try my hand at building a castle out of matchsticks and told this to the wife of a local governor. She said I should have a go at Hogwarts.

"I'd never even considered that but that's how Hogwarts came to be and now that it's finished, after using more than 600,000 matches, it looks great.

"The dimensions of it are roughly 10 feet long and about nine feet wide. The great tower is about seven feet tall.

"I'm toying with the idea of actually adding a mini Harry Potter into one of the windows for people to try and find."

Father-of-three Mr Acton started his hobby in 1977 after recreating a local high-steeple church out of 500 matches.

Back then he used to buy matches from the grocery store, bottles of school glue, a craft knife and a piece of sandpaper.

Now, though, he uses specialist non-sulphur tip matches and has developed a way of crimping and bending individual sticks into curved shapes using needle-nosed pliers.

No water or steam is needed to bend them and once the curved matchstick is glued in place, it can be lightly sanded with no noticeable trace of damage.

The technique has helped Pat add all kinds of mind-boggling details to his 60 models, such as the Statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol dome and the miniature kings on the Notre Dame facade.<>

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