Matchstick man with four million reasons to enter the Guinness record book (From Daily Echo)

David's oil platform made from just matchsticks

2:35pm Friday 10th July 2009 in News

It is made up of more than four million matches, weighs half a ton and took 15 years to build.

Former oil rig worker David Reynolds has built a replica of a North Sea oil platform completely out of a matchsticks.

The model was so massive that it could not be assembled in one piece at the Reynolds’ home in Swaythling, Southampton.

So the 14 sections were taken in two lorries to the Bursledon Brickworks and Industrial Museum where the 21ft x 12ft x 7ft model has been given a temporary home.

Now 51-year-old David is hoping to strike up a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

David says: “I am told that the current record [for a model] is 3.5 million matches. So fingers crossed. Now I have to await the adjudication.”

It was his son Mark who inspired his marathon effort.

David said: “My son bought me a small matchstick kit of a model train which I built within a few weeks.

“Then he suggested that I should build a tanker or an oil rig. I decided to build a small oil rig similar to the one that I worked on for five years.

“Then I started on the large rigs and got a bit carried away. Once I started I just had to finish it.”

His experience of working on the rigs and as a maintenance technician at Esso in Fawley were channelled into creating the masterpiece, which he has called the Cathedrals of the Sea.

It is based on the famous and controversial Brent Bravo – one of the four oil platforms in the UK northern section.

David used every spare minute and burned the midnight oil as he fashioned and polished each of the four million matchsticks to build the replica.

Everything is built to the finest detail, including the accommodation block for the rig workers, the flotilla of ships moored to the rig, the platforms and towers.

David used his living room and conservatory to build the sections and the finished work was stored in his sheds and loft.

He said: “Earlier this year I thought about destroying it because I wanted the space in my sheds. My wife Julie said it would be criminal not to put it on display after all the years of hard work I had put in.

“Fortunately the brickworks museum said they would display it for me.”

He gathered used matches from work colleagues but his main source was from a wholesaler, dramatically trimming the cost.

David said: “If I had bought all those matches from the cornershop it would have cost me about £46,000. It actually cost me £1,600, which works out at about £100 a year.”

n Anyone who can give a permanent shelter to David’s oil rig can contact him on dave-reynolds@hotmail.co.uk