Grander designs

I'M lost. I'm trying to find a small unit on an industrial estate in a former pit village in County Durham. But as blokes don't stop to ask for directions, I drive up and down a few times, making the guy selling second hand catering equipment very suspicious.

For the fourth time, I pass the grey, pock-marked breeze block buildings with big roller shutter doors. They're not going to win any design awards - in fact even in the radiant sunshine they look bleak. But still, there's a bit of showbiz here. This is where Gary Thwaites works.

Gary is a model maker. His skills are vital for anyone who wants to recreate the real thing but on their own terms. He's made props and scenery for television and films, he's built working models of ancient war machines for museums and constructed unique advertising displays for private companies. If you want a miniature tree, a giant trainer or a convincing hamburger made from wood, he can do it so well it looks good enough to eat.

He's also had a working relationship with Action Man and Sindy, not to mention Noddy and Dr Who - not bad for a lad who started off at Hartlepool Art College not knowing what he wanted to do. At 18 and nurturing an interest in 3D art and model making, Gary headed south. He signed up for Hertfordshire University's modelmaking course and left with a HND in model making. And he didn't have to wait too long for his first job, carrying out research and development for the makers of Action Man.

'In those non-PC days it was all guns and rockets and killing machinery," he says. "You know the sort of thing - Action Man needs a new tank with a huge gun, a bazooka that fires 50 rockets and a vehicle that turns into a plane. I'd work on something, then six months later, see it in the shop and that was fantastic."

After five years, Gary moved to Design Works, where Alan Sugar sent his contestants to help the firm design a new toy in The Apprentice. No longer the apprentice himself, Gary was now feeling like a fully fledged model maker, gaining more respect and getting work he'd never have got elsewhere, often starting with a blank page and having to design and build from scratch. Then a new urge came along.

"I was working hard, really long hours, and I thought if I'm working this hard I might as well do this for myself," he says.

But he couldn't settle until he'd got travel out of his system so he and his girlfriend, Lisa, took a year out to go around the world. Then it was back home and back to reality and the challenge of starting out in business for themselves.

"We got a call one day. We'd been recommended to the television production company Ragdoll. They needed some help making some props for their new children's production, In the Night Garden, on the BBC," he says.

"We made the house, the forest walk, the bedroom, even the pegs on the clothes line outside the house. The bush where the characters lived was 40ft tall and we had to make a replica that ended up too big for our van, so we had to hire a truck to deliver it." Altogether it meant about four months work and it was far from child's play.

At Gary's workshop, there are lathes, milling machines, a spray booth, chisels, saws, hammers and drills all around the walls.

"You have to be a chippie, a car body repairer, spray painter, engineer, and electrician," he says. "Not an expert but good, and you have to know a little about everything. When the phone goes and someone asks for something you have to have the knowledge to carry it out." Generally, Gary uses wood, plastics, metals, fibre glass and resins to build his models.

"We use every kind of hand and power tool, but my job would be impossible without a milling machine, lathe and a table saw," he says.

Gary inhabits two worlds: the calm and solitude of his workshop with only the radio for company and crowded film sets where he works alongside actors, directors and technicians.

"There's a lot of make-do-and-mend on a film set. I'm used to sitting alone making stuff but when I get on set there's 50 people doing different jobs. Then you see your prop on the set and feel proud. However, it can be incredibly stressful because if something goes wrong the whole film is held up until I fix it or make adjustments."

But he never loses the buzz of making something which he then sees on television or in films. And there's a new buzz to come. "I've made a watch for the Doctor Who spin-off called The Sarah Jane Adventures. "It was a nice job because I got the recommendation from the art department at BBC Wales where Dr Who is made." Gary had to machine the watch out of brass, with plastic additions and some electrics for the buttons so they light up.

"When it comes on the television I want to say 'I did that'," he says. "You're leaving your mark and it'll be there for a while. I mean it's quite trivial in a way and I'm not Brunel or someone like that, but my daughter might be impressed one day."

With the birth of their baby girl, Gary and Lisa moved back to the North-East and set up NE3D in Wingate.

"It's funny because I lived with my parents in Wingate when I studied at Hartlepool and I'm back there now, hopefully not for too long. It's a bit cramped, but very handy."

Gary is now creating an animated donation box for The Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. It is sitting in his workshop, half built. He's working on the electronics that will make the trebuchet - a kind of slingshot that hurls heavy projectiles at high speed -work. A carousel of archers on top of the castle is the target and the whole thing looks clever and beautifully built.

His dream job would be to design and build an interactive exhibition for a museum in the North-East.

"I love working with museums as it's always varied and rewarding work," he says. "It's a shame there is not more of a film industry in the area as it would be fantastic to make a gadget for James Bond and see him save the day with it."

To date, no job has been too difficult for the company.

"Over the years we have got to know lots of specialists who we call upon should there be a part of a job we can't do or need advice on," he says.

But designing a full-sized Noddy car for a company based in Paris was one of his more challenging jobs. "It's not that it was hard to make, we just had no time to do it. I think from start to finish it took four weeks and the specification was exacting. It had to be strong enough to carry Noddy and Big Ears and work by radio remote control.

"Not only that, but the specification document was literally inches thick and the Noddy people were insisting it looked exactly right."

Needless to say it did,