Wooler engineer is selling handcrafted six-feet tall Star Wars AT-ST walkers for £1,200 each

Michael Fairnington, known for making the big gun replacement for Blyth Battery’s 70th anniversary in 2019, has a unique hobby that uses his particular set of skills.

Having already taken on projects like making the replicas of the original Mark V11 six inch WW2 naval guns, standing at 23 feet long, making a sci-fi combat vehicle doesn’t seem to be out of Michael’s skill set.

Michael’s business, M Fairnington Engineering, has been running for 45 years so his knowledge on metal and engineering isn’t lacking.

After buying a model kit to build the AT-ST Walkers from Star Wars franchise, Michael decided that he would scale it up to make a bigger version. Having experience in making bespoke pieces before, the process was fairly familiar.

"There was a lot of hours went into it, the whole thing was actually just made of scrap steel,” his son, also Michael, said.

The six-foot-tall walkers were made completely by hand, using cutting equipment and guillotines for the scrap metal before welding them together and building the pieces to look exactly like the ones seen in the films.

The two pieces have had a lot of time spent on them and have been galvanised to give them and extra 15 years of life expectancy.

Having spent many hours making the AT-ST Walker models, Michael hopes to get something back out of them by selling them for £1200 each. So far the walkers have been posted on Facebook and fellow Star Wars fanatics have been showing their interest.