2 of the 'World's biggest' Lego models of warship USS Missouri

Jim McDonough has painstakingly built a 24ft scale model of 890ft US warship USS Missouri out of thousands of toy bricks in his garage in Redford, near Arbroath, Angus, Scotland

But he's been pipped at the post by American enthusiast, Dan Siskind, of Minneapolis, whose creation stands at 25.5ft long

The Lego-mad fisherman spent three years building the world's biggest model of a US warship - only to discover he had been beaten to the title by an American rival by just inches

He has even built accompanying military transport for the ships. The 51-year-old, has a garage crammed with a flotilla of battleships, aircraft carriers, planes, fishing vessels and landing craft - each one painstakingly built from Lego

In Mr McDonough's garage his 1:40 scale model of USS Missouri is moored beside the ill-fated USS Arizona, sunk at Pearl Harbour, and a Japanese carrier replete with lines of Zero fighters

Mr McDonough and grandaughter Leigha with the USS Missouri (left). Mr McDonough prides himself on not gluing them together - which he regards as 'cheating'

Mr McDonough broke down his first models in order to save space and use bricks on later projects, but he is running out of garage room since the family begged him to keep them

He said: 'I think the biggest in the world is a few inches longer, but when I started building mine three years ago it was probably the biggest'

Mr McDonough said his family are now running out of space and need a bigger house and bigger garage to house it all

Unfortunately, his efforts were beaten by Mr Siskind's. His Lego ship stands at 25.5ft long, and it took him more than 1 million bricks to complete the project

The ship, a replica of the 45000 ton Iowa class battleship built by the New York Navy Yard, was painstakingly built over months

The Lego ship pictured mid-construction, with accompanying plans. The ship is still under construction as there is still some work to be done, but is already 25.5ft long

Mr Siskind spent months working on the ship - nicknamed the Mo. He said he hopes it will be complete by September

Under construction:  Mr Siskind said that he had been working ‘30-hour marathon’ sessions to build his version of the USS Missouri

Looking inside: Mr Siskin said he believes 'it's the longest ship of any kind built out of Lego in the world' - but admits he 'could be wrong'