Tommy Besant wakes up every morning in a messy work shed surrounded by tools, timber and a stable of elaborate rocking horses he's brought to life with his own hands – and he owes his obsession to a childhood gift from his father.
"I was a contract fencer and yard builder, I worked a cane farm, I was a butcher, I've been a driller … I've been a fruit-picker," Mr Besant says.He has a backlog of rocking horse orders long enough to keep him going for months.He also fashions rocking bulls, wooden skulls, fibreglass bull horns, and "ringer belts" — knife belts for bush kids.
Mr Besant cuts out layers of hardwood ply to a desired shape, glues and carves them, then rasps, sands, and sands them again.The sculptures then get two coats of fibreglass resin and two layers of clear-coat automotive paint, with a backbreaking amount of wet-and-dry sanding in between."The saddles are made as though I'm making a proper saddle," Mr Besant says.It sounds like a lot of work, but the real gift is in the finishing touch.
The horses begin their life as a collection of contoured hardwood plyboards that must be glued, pressed and carved to shape."I pretty well know where everything is, but I've got this idea that tidying up is not productive.