A MODEL maker has finally finished his replica of HMS Dreadnought – which took nine times as long to complete as the original warship.

Tony Ansell, 63, began working on the five-and-a-half foot long model back in 2006, but was delayed repeatedly by a lack of photographs of the vessel.

HMS Dreadnought was finished in one year and a day in 1906, and still holds the record for the fastest warship build time.

The revolutionary vessel changed the face of naval warfare and took part in the First World War.

“I have been working on it for nine years, but I have also built two other models in that time, HMS Hood and HMS Campbeltown,” he said.

“I had various problems which I couldn’t get around. There were no photos of the part of the ship I was building.

“You build a model ship for a specific month of the year, and it has to be exactly right.

“Fortunately I found a book with 3D models of the ship and I was able to carry on.

“It has been a very difficult build.”

Mr Ansell, of Ford Close, Ferndown, said the model is too fragile to be fitted with a motor, but it has already had an outing to the town’s branch of Sainsbury’s where its presence, albeit unfinished, helped to raise £1,000 for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal.

He has been making working scale models of warships for more than 20 years, painstakingly constructed from their real-life blueprints.

“You start with just bits of plastic and resin, it is very satisfying to see the finished model, I’m proud of it,” he said.

Former plumber and heating engineer Mr Ansell developed his love of model-making when a neighbour bought him an Airfix Spitfire when he was six years old.

His next project is one of the planned G3 battlecruisers which were cancelled by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.

Since the ships were never built they were never named, but Mr Ansell hopes to get permission from the Queen to name his model HMS Beatty after the British admiral at the Battle of Jutland (1916).