Ray
Totten
by Ray!
Ray
Totten
55 years old
I started building kits at around 14/15 years old, not
sure of my very first kit, but I can remember a few
American cars on the window sill, and yes I did hang
a few planes from the ceiling, the largest being an
Airfix 1.24 scale Spitfire with a motor to turn the
prop, did a couple of ships, but not keen on them at
all.
Have done all of the Aurora horror/monster kits, Dracula,
Frankenstein etc.
Bought a Tamiya 1/6th Harley Davidson, one of the most
expensive kits around at the time. had to sneak it in
to the house so my parents did not see it till it was
built!
(Still do it with my partner now!!!!)
.
A long line of kits came and went; some sadly missed
others not so, have done all of the Airfix range of
historical figures, and their cars (sadly missed) and
the James Bond Aston Martin, with all the bits working.
Moved on to 1/24 1/25th scale HGV, Peterbuilts, Kenworths,
and a few Dafs and Volvos for good measure.
I have built three 1/8th scale cars, one 32 Hi boy,
and two E Type Jag’s, these are now over 30 years
old.
I worked for Bassett Lowke, a model making company for
almost 3 years, until I was made redundant when the
company was sold to Corgi. This involved building O
gauge limited edition models of steam powered vehicles,
all in white metal with brass fittings.
I have now moved on to figures, some large scale, 1/4th
scale right down to 54mm small. All are female with
little or no clothes on, these are normally some type
of resin, or in the case of the small figures "white
metal".
I also have an “n” scale railway layout in
the shed at the bottom of the garden, the tables are
22 ft long and 4 ft wide. There is a trestle bridge
on the layout that is 7 ft long, and just to make it
a little different from anybody else it's got a bend
in the middle. This took many months of work with a
long lay-off during the summer. I used a jig to make
sure the “bents” (uprights to you) where all
the same, and now it's on the lay out and finished a
final count of the bits of plastic used come to about
4500 -all hand cut and glued by myself.
My other interests are computers and my fish pond; I
have a modest sized puddle of around 2000 gallons, there
are some large Koi but mostly big goldfish.
The one thing that the hobby in general has taught me
is patience with inanimate objects; it's people that
wind me up!
Thank you for taking the time to read the mumblings
of an old man.
Regards Ray.
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