A STONEMASON has spent more than 200 hours painstakingly crafting a model of a Second World War Spitfire aircraft.

David France, from Darlington, runs a stonemasonry business and took on the Spitfire project as a commission from a customer.

They backed out after the initial estimated £800 budget for research and materials was exceeded, but Mr France decided to press on with the project anyway.

He said: “The £800 disappeared very quickly because of the research needed.

“We bought an air-fix model and tried to scale it up to what was needed, but the problem was that propeller from the model was double the size of the templates we had made.

“The £800 was starting to disappear, but we were quite slack for work and we’d already put enough work into it to make it worth finishing.”

Mr France has been using the model as a promotional tool for his business and plans to put it on display at veterans’ events and RAF museums.