MEET THE MAKER: THE BUILDER BEHIND THE VISION
INTERVIEW BY GIORGIO D'ALBANO
43rd episode: 
DAMIEN GRAETZ
DAMIEN GRAETZWhere are you from and what did you study?
Adelaide, South Australia.
I studied surveying. (a long time ago)
What do you do, what job do you do now?
I’ve been a land surveyor for almost 30 years, and my nerdy little hobby is building Lego trains 
What inspired you to become a LEGO builder?
I had Lego as a child in the 80’s and started getting into the 12v trains towards the end of the 1980’s before moving onto other interests and packing everything away for almost 30 years.
I never gave Lego much more thought until my oldest child started getting Lego as birthday and Christmas gifts. Things took off a few weeks before Christmas 2015 - We were lined up through the toy section of an Adelaide department store to take our kids to see Santa and I saw the latest Lego train sets which piqued my interest. A few days later I bought them both “for the kids” for Christmas. Helping them build them Christmas day I started thinking I could build something better myself and things progressed from there.
Once I discovered I could buy parts direct from Lego online (It was all done by mail order in the 80’s and with a very limited selection), BrickLink, and digital design software there was no turning back.
Within 12 months I had a BrickLink store and exhibited at my first Lego exhibition in 2017… so things escalated quite quickly
Where do you get inspiration for your creations?
I generally only build old South Australian trains and landscapes to run them through. – I like the old stuff, so generally my cut-off is the late 1970’s. South Australia is a big state, and we once had a vast rail network so there’s never any shortage of things to model.
I’ve helped guide my wife and children to design non train related things in the past for exhibitions, but I struggle to find the same enthusiasm as designing things that interest me.
I do a lot of travelling around the state as a surveyor so I’m constantly seeing things I want to model; the profession has come in handy having the equipment to take my own measurements of silos and things to get the scaling right
What is your favorite LEGO work that you have built so far?
I need to build a new landscape section this year, so I guess that will be my favorite
What has been the most complex challenge you have faced as a LEGO builder?
Building train models robust and reliable enough to pound around a layout all weekend at an exhibition.
With my broad-gauge models, it’s reasonably easy to design in robustness and reliability.
With the narrow-gauge trains using a technic drivetrain, narrower track, tighter radius curves and physically having much less room inside each model to reinforce everything it was much more difficult to get the same reliability. There were some epic crashes and shedding of parts over the 3 years I exhibited the display
Do you have a favorite technique or a special method that you use in your constructions?
I was quite pleased with how well a technique worked to secure the upper sections of a tunnel I built (Modelled on Sleep’s Hill South Australia) in 2023. The tunnel itself is essentially a big brick-built box, for ease of transport and storage between shows the terrain above separates into baseplate sized sections secured in place by 1x1 round tiles with pins (part 20482) that fit in the holes of the underside of a baseplate. It works really well to lock everything in place at exhibitions in case someone gives the table a knock
What themes or subjects do you like to explore the most in your creations?
I only build train related stuff. Maybe one day I’ll find the inspiration to move outside my comfort zone
What is the largest or most ambitious project you have ever made?
My narrow-gauge layout was probably my most ambitious project.
It was a 4x7 meter four-sided layout modelling a defunct railway line in the mid-north of South Australia from Peterborough to Orroroo. It wasn’t really planned out in advance, it just evolved over about 18 months between late 2021 and 2023 and all started from my desire to model the Black Rock bridge without any plans beyond that.
Before long it extended to the Black Rock railway yard, and then further down the line to Orroroo, and eventually Peterborough at the other end of the line.
It went to a lot of exhibitions and picked up a few awards. It took me around 10 hours to setup at each exhibition and filled an entire trailer, so I was happy to see the end of it when I scrapped it in August 2024.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to become an expert LEGO builder?
That’s probably a question best asked of an expert. For me it’s just my nerdy little hobby
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