Some of us take our obsession with scooters a bit further than others, though few have taken things as far as creating a scooter model from a large number of metal discs!
Take Shaun Faraday for instance, it’s not enough for him to own four scooters. He has a choice of three Lambrettas and a Vespa when he feels the need to go short, medium or even long distance when the mood takes him. And he has recently completed making, by hand, a full-sized Lambretta model, based on a GP Lammy, from metal discs, as a wall ornament.
Being self-employed and the owner of Faraday Fabrications, his own one man operation, certainly affords him the facilities to occasionally indulge himself exploring some of the weird and wonderful ideas he has. We all think up ‘off the wall’ ideas at times, well I know I do, but rarely do those kinds of concepts get beyond the ideas stage. Except this particular idea eventually did become a reality!
Enjoy more Scootering Magazine reading every month.
Click here to subscribe & save.
Looking at the disc Lambretta, it’s kind of obvious that it’s been painstakingly put together by a scooterist, the attention to various significant details, such as the clutch lever, made from a number of nuts. It’s the kind of detail that only those with ‘hands on’ or working knowledge of scooters would bother with. So what was the initial idea behind his ‘disc’ Lambretta model, and what went into the actual creation of it?
Shaun told us: “It was a really mad, mad idea in the first place. I had this crazy notion to make a model scooter out of basically washers! Full-sized as a wall type ornament for the workshop at my fabrication unit. I can’t give even a rough time as to how long it took to complete, it was an untold amount of hours. It was built from scratch during any down time I had at work. I can tell you how many discs were used though: 1750 (yes, one thousand seven hundred and fifty!).
“Once it was finished I gave it a coat or two of clear lacquer. Initially the idea was, as already mentioned, to have it on display on my workshop wall, but already such has been the interest in Margate, that it’s out on loan on display in a seafront bar, The Glass Jar. As a number of local artists have shown an interest the disc Lambretta needed a name, so I’ve opted for ‘Pocketful of Pretty Pennies’. Which is both with reference to the 1750 metal discs that have gone into its creation and also has a bit of a reference to The Jam as well.”
Via his fabrication shop, Shaun offers services such as welding repairs to scooter frames and bodywork as well as welding repairs to alloy engine casings to scooterists in his locality in and around the South East Kent area. He also offers bespoke fabrication services too with his, as he puts it, crazy idea out on loan, Shaun has another string to his bow, he is now both an engineer, and an artist! For more information about Shaun’s work visit www.faraday-fabrications.co.uk
Words: Sarge
Photographs: Shaun Faraday
