IT'S not often that an entrepreneur can open a new business by launching the Titanic all over again.

Andy Moses hopes that the famous liner which plunged to the depths will herald his new venture soaring to the heights.

He carefully recreated the RMS Titanic to one-350th scale in his workshop in Ostlers Close, Copmanthorpe, to demonstrate his modelling skills for Engage, his new part-time business which supplies materials and finished products for model makers.

Andy, 39, a forklift driver at Terry's chocolate factory in York, took nine months to build the tiny-detailed model which is three feet from stem to stern and a foot high from base to stacks.

"It was the electrics that took a time. I wanted to recreate the gloriously-lit version that I saw in the James Cameron film of the same name, and had to invent all the circuitry, to be able to run it off the mains on a 12 volt 2.5 amp transformer," he says.

Another reason for the long gestation: Since he bought the model kit original plans for the steamer were found and he had to rectify the mistakes, such as including a third, spare, anchor at the bow. He also had to transform two large vents on port and starboard sides near the main bridge on the boat deck into stairwells.

The ship also demonstrates his use of Lightsheet products, hauntingly-luminous paper-thin electricity-powered material widely used by Hollywood film studios for their scale models, a fact he proudly demonstrates in images on his website, www.engage.freeserve.co.uk.

It is the same material he often uses to recreate the glow from warp engines in the sci-fi Star Trek fleet for which, he says, there is huge demand from "Trekkers".

He said: "One Trekker even asked me to riddle his USS Reliant with laserfire. I obliged. It's amazing what a soldering iron and black weathering powder can do."

But doesn't he see the Titanic project as a bad omen for his new business? "Not at all. It is as steady as a rock and kept as far from water as possible. As long as I keep ice cubes from the fridge out of its path, I should be all right!"

Updated: 09:02 Tuesday, March 25, 2003