As with so many of our builders of handbuilt models, Chris Sargant fondly remembers building Airfix Red Arrows Gnats in the 1970s, and he was hooked! Progressing on to his teens with Tamiya kits of Tornado GR1s and F14 Tomcats mainly, he made modifications to satisfy his requirements.
At aged 18 Christian took up a post in the MOD, working in production for 1½ yrs before moving on to being a production planner. He then moved to a post of materials controller working there for a total of 6 years, until in 1992 redundancy arrived. He was still building for his own amusement, mainly 1:48 scale Tomcats and a Spitfire. Whilst he was still keen to attend air shows, life without a job was hard, and for 18 months Christian trimmed his model expenditure by building a 3 feet long model of the Titanic entirely from scratch from card. By this time he had a young family to support, and one day whilst leafing through a scrap book he had kept of news cuttings in March 1994, a piece on the film Jurassic Park fell to the floor.
Subject ID: 82468
MoreAs with so many of our builders of handbuilt models, Chris Sargant fondly remembers building Airfix Red Arrows Gnats in the 1970s, and he was hooked! Progressing on to his teens with Tamiya kits of Tornado GR1s and F14 Tomcats mainly, he made modifications to satisfy his requirements.
At aged 18 Christian took up a post in the MOD, working in production for 1½ yrs before moving on to being a production planner. He then moved to a post of materials controller working there for a total of 6 years, until in 1992 redundancy arrived. He was still building for his own amusement, mainly 1:48 scale Tomcats and a Spitfire. Whilst he was still keen to attend air shows, life without a job was hard, and for 18 months Christian trimmed his model expenditure by building a 3 feet long model of the Titanic entirely from scratch from card. By this time he had a young family to support, and one day whilst leafing through a scrap book he had kept of news cuttings in March 1994, a piece on the film Jurassic Park fell to the floor.
He turned it over, and saw a piece reporting Keith Williams showing a 1:10 scale Jaguar XJ220 in Yorkshire Police livery. Christian took the number, called Keith and asked if he could call by. They talked, about Christian’s hobby, and he left his details in case Keith had any vacancies in the future.
Christian had barely got to the end of the road when he got a call from Keith inviting him to an interview the following day. This resulted in Christian working for SMTS for the next 18 months. He joined the team building handbuilt models, but was interested in how the pattern makers worked. He asked Keith if he could have a go with a body of an Aston Martin DB2/4 body, and was given the green light. He used resin tooling board, called SikaBlock, which is like wood, but has no grain.
Christian was given the drawings, full measurements, track etc, and found he had to add a little to cater for shrinkage. The resultant shaped buck was rubbed down, and a mould taken from the SikaBlock, using lost wax casting, then cast into a brass or resin master depending on the customer. As a result, Christian was keen to develop pattern making, but instead he was asked to take over the supervision of the building team.
By 1995 John Simons Marsh Models had already contacted Christian asking him to make patterns for them, and he left SMTS to work with Pat Land at Model Assemblies on the same site. There he also undertook work for K&R Replicas, and Marsh Models, which included a 1:10 scale model of an Aston Martin for Dunhill. Further work for Dunhill included one metre diameter watch bezels for promotion of the Millenium Dunhill International at St. Andrews.
It wasn’t until 1996 that Christian finally became self employed, and was pleased to be undertaking work for K&R Replicas, Marsh Models, Scale Auto bodies, Milestone Miniatures, South Eastern Finecast, and David Ferguson.
Unfortunately, Christian, his self employed career having taken off, suffered personal difficulties after a few years, and in 2006 returned to Keith Williams to work for SMTS, where he would build and spray, and then take the completed parts back to his Battle workshop for assembly. Otherwise, he continued to do some work for both K&R and Marsh Models. At 39 years of age, Christian enjoys the challenge of improving the level of quality and detail in his models. Through Pat Land he has worked on 1:10 scale Aston Martin Vantage and Bentley Arnage models, followed by an Aston Martin Vanquish, all to be cast in aluminium.
Detail is certainly a key to the more recent work he has done for Tim Dyke of MPH models, renowned for their miniature accuracy. Whilst working currently at SMTS, Christian has also developed his own range of aircraft models with John Simons under the banner of Aerotech.
Subject ID: 82468
Subject ID: 82468