Forty years to build a model of a lighthouse
In the 1970s I was working at the Williamstown Naval Dockyard in Victoria.
Off shore stood the Point Gellibrand lighthouse, an unusual but substantial structure standing on numerous wooden piles. I liked the design of it so I decided to build a condensed model that referenced it, but was shore based rather than being ‘all at sea’. So I began working on the model even though at the time I didn’t have an objective about where I would use it.
I arrived at work one morning to find the Point Gellibrand lighthouse with a rather severe list, a cargo ship had hit it during the night, ironic considering its purpose was to keep ships in the channel. Anyhow a few days later the port authority set fire to it, as it had become a hazard to navigation.
I began with the main structure, the original was wood but I used brick. The actual light tower rose above the building; it wasn’t a separate structure; I eventually modelled them as two separate structures. The light tower followed the classical lighthouse shape, which meant I had to find a way of modelling it. The dockyard had a pattern making shop; it also had a culture of ‘foreigners’, that is unofficial work that was a type of currency. Someone in the patternmaking shop owed me a favour, and as the workshop was on a second floor they had a great view of the lighthouse before its demise. So they created the tower using the extremely fine grained wood used for making patterns, no sanding required.
Over the next few months I completed the main structure, and started on the tower, but I couldn’t work out how to make the quite complicated glass light housing that sat on top. Other things took over my life and I never got back to it, so over the next fourty years it moved to Queensland and resided in various boxes and cupboards.
Every so often I would come across it, but then put it back in the too hard basket.
I really like modelling harbours, lakes etc. but for some reason I never used it on the current layout that I began in the early 1990s even though it has a large harbour scene.
I thought that I may create a water feature on the new extension and hence a home for the lighthouse and therefore a reason to finish it. It didn’t happen and so it appeared that the lighthouse would never have a home.
There was a small section of the original layout that ever since I built it in 1994 I was never happy with. Having completed the scenery on the new extension this area really let the whole layout down. By coincidence I was looking for something in a cupboard and there was the lighthouse. I was still disappointed that I hadn’t been able to finish it and more importantly use it. Two areas of brain spoke to each other, could I replace the scenery I didn’t like with a scene incorporating the lighthouse? It only took a few minutes to rip out the scenery and I started designing a small harbour scene that would need a lighthouse facing out into the fearsome North Atlantic. I decided that it could be done so as I started creating the scenery.
At the same time I tackled the troublesome light housing. I finally found some left over window glazing that allowed me to create the angular sections of the six-sided housing, time consuming but I’d finally solved the problem, well not quite. The domed roof turned out the be the biggest problem, because it’s a round dome siting on a six sided flat roof which replicates the six sided glass light structure below it.
I tried eggcups, ice-block moulds, saltshakers and all sorts of kitchen and cooking implements and then I went to Bunning’s, you know you’re in trouble when they don’t have anything suitable. The problem was that although I could find things that were the right shape the diameter of the dome had to be exact. Weeks passed, the scenery was done and the unfinished lighthouse sat there looking very sad without its roof. I had installed an LED inside the glass windows with a circuit ($12 from Walthers) that replicated the rotating light. All it need was a roof.
More searching with no success, more weeks passed.
We have a new dog and he solved the problem, an unexpected advantage of dog ownership. Being a puppy my partner was constantly bringing home a variety of new toys for the dog, a new rubber bone appeared, the dog was in raptures. The clear plastic formed packaging was still on the kitchen bench, and I noticed that the moulding over one of the knobbly parts of the bone had a domed shape to it. ‘What are you going to do with that’ she asked ‘hopefully solving a fourty year problem’ I said as I headed for my workbench. It was clearly perfect that is it was clear plastic, but exactly what I was looking for, an exact fit. A quick spray and after almost fourty years my lighthouse finally came out of the dark.
In the 1970s I was working at the Williamstown Naval Dockyard in Victoria.
Off shore stood the Point Gellibrand lighthouse, an unusual but substantial structure standing on numerous wooden piles. I liked the design of it so I decided to build a condensed model that referenced it, but was shore based rather than being ‘all at sea’. So I began working on the model even though at the time I didn’t have an objective about where I would use it.
I arrived at work one morning to find the Point Gellibrand lighthouse with a rather severe list, a cargo ship had hit it during the night, ironic considering its purpose was to keep ships in the channel. Anyhow a few days later the port authority set fire to it, as it had become a hazard to navigation.
I began with the main structure, the original was wood but I used brick. The actual light tower rose above the building; it wasn’t a separate structure; I eventually modelled them as two separate structures. The light tower followed the classical lighthouse shape, which meant I had to find a way of modelling it. The dockyard had a pattern making shop; it also had a culture of ‘foreigners’, that is unofficial work that was a type of currency. Someone in the patternmaking shop owed me a favour, and as the workshop was on a second floor they had a great view of the lighthouse before its demise. So they created the tower using the extremely fine grained wood used for making patterns, no sanding required.
Over the next few months I completed the main structure, and started on the tower, but I couldn’t work out how to make the quite complicated glass light housing that sat on top. Other things took over my life and I never got back to it, so over the next fourty years it moved to Queensland and resided in various boxes and cupboards.
Every so often I would come across it, but then put it back in the too hard basket.
I really like modelling harbours, lakes etc. but for some reason I never used it on the current layout that I began in the early 1990s even though it has a large harbour scene.
I thought that I may create a water feature on the new extension and hence a home for the lighthouse and therefore a reason to finish it. It didn’t happen and so it appeared that the lighthouse would never have a home.
There was a small section of the original layout that ever since I built it in 1994 I was never happy with. Having completed the scenery on the new extension this area really let the whole layout down. By coincidence I was looking for something in a cupboard and there was the lighthouse. I was still disappointed that I hadn’t been able to finish it and more importantly use it. Two areas of brain spoke to each other, could I replace the scenery I didn’t like with a scene incorporating the lighthouse? It only took a few minutes to rip out the scenery and I started designing a small harbour scene that would need a lighthouse facing out into the fearsome North Atlantic. I decided that it could be done so as I started creating the scenery.
At the same time I tackled the troublesome light housing. I finally found some left over window glazing that allowed me to create the angular sections of the six-sided housing, time consuming but I’d finally solved the problem, well not quite. The domed roof turned out the be the biggest problem, because it’s a round dome siting on a six sided flat roof which replicates the six sided glass light structure below it.
I tried eggcups, ice-block moulds, saltshakers and all sorts of kitchen and cooking implements and then I went to Bunning’s, you know you’re in trouble when they don’t have anything suitable. The problem was that although I could find things that were the right shape the diameter of the dome had to be exact. Weeks passed, the scenery was done and the unfinished lighthouse sat there looking very sad without its roof. I had installed an LED inside the glass windows with a circuit ($12 from Walthers) that replicated the rotating light. All it need was a roof.
More searching with no success, more weeks passed.
We have a new dog and he solved the problem, an unexpected advantage of dog ownership. Being a puppy my partner was constantly bringing home a variety of new toys for the dog, a new rubber bone appeared, the dog was in raptures. The clear plastic formed packaging was still on the kitchen bench, and I noticed that the moulding over one of the knobbly parts of the bone had a domed shape to it. ‘What are you going to do with that’ she asked ‘hopefully solving a fourty year problem’ I said as I headed for my workbench. It was clearly perfect that is it was clear plastic, but exactly what I was looking for, an exact fit. A quick spray and after almost fourty years my lighthouse finally came out of the dark.