PK Porthcurno will re-open with a new LEGO model

For those paying close attention, this is why we were in the very south west of England a couple of weeks ago!

As part of their 150th anniversary, PK Porthcurno (previously the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum) commissioned us to create a model of the very first transatlantic cable to be brought into the beach.

For those that aren’t aware, the majority of the worlds telephone and internet traffic still runs over cables that are laid from country to country via sea. This started (as you can probably guess!) over 150 years ago. In fact, one of the current fibre optic cable runs just past you as you visit the museum.

The brief was to create an accurate model of the cable ship ‘Investigator’ as it laid out its’ cable. Being around 80 meters long in real life, we suggested building the ship at a smaller scale than the beach. Using the figures found in the LEGO Games system, we created the ship at 1:80 scale, with the beach (and minifigs hauling in the cable) at 1:40 scale. To top it all off, we created a bas-relief LEGO mosaic of the famous coastline. That involved not only creating a mosaic in 2 dimensions - but also added a depth to the rocks too.

Finally, of course, we needed to deliver the model. In this case, that also meant the case! LEGO models can certainly go into traditional museum display cases, but they don’t really need climate controlled atmosphere - so often it’s easier for us to provide the case as well. In this ‘case’, the mosaic is actually built into the back frame of the case too! We designed and specified the case and lighting - supplied from as far afield as Denmark and as local as Cowdenbeath (20 miles away from us in Edinburgh!)

Although PK Porthcurno is about as far as you can get in mainland UK from our base in Edinburgh, as we have dedicated vehicles with lifting gear - delivery was no problem. If you’d like to take a look behind the scenes of this build, do take a look at the time lapse video we prepared for them below. You’ll see the build and installation - minus only the lifting of the case upstairs. It weighs around 80Kg and we knew it wouldn’t fit in the lift so we brought along an electric stair climber instead!

P.S. If anyone else would like to commission a model to be installed into an idyllic cove, with an amazing beach, preferably in the summer, then we’re all ears ;-)