Mandatory Credit: Photo by Bournemouth News / Rex Features ( 1221547d )
Aircraft on the flight deck of USS Nimitz
Man spends 62 years making fleet of 430 Royal ROYAL NAVY warships out of matchsticks, Blandford, Dorset, Britain - 24 Aug 2010
A man has spent the past 62 years faithfully recreating an armada of 432 Royal Navy warships out of matchsticks and wooden match boxes. Over the last six decades Philip Warren has painstakingly crafted every naval warship afloat, in service or to have come in since the Second World War. The ever growing collection, which currently stands at 432, has been drawing huge crowds at exhibitions across the country since 1953. 79-year-old Philip, a retired company director from Blandford, Dorset, began creating his first ship in 1948 when he was just 17 years old. He uses a razor blade, tweezers and sandpaper to carve the matches and boxes before piecing them together using PVA and balsa wood glue. In total he has utilized more than 650,000 to create his incredibly detailed 1:300. scale models.