Jurassic Age is set to turn heads in the carnival procession tomorrow.

Lucy, the scrap metal stegosaurus, has been put together over the last nine months by staff from Mowlam Metalcraft in Dorchester.

The impressive, four-tonne dinosaur sculpture is made to actual size, measuring 40ft long and almost 15ft at its highest point.

It will be craned onto a W&S Recycling trailer ready for the parade where it will form the centrepiece of a prehistoric-themed entry.

Lucy is a beast like no other – she’s made from an assortment of different parts including car bonnets, leaf springs, a lorry chassis and axle, bits of a lawnmower and car light covers.

Mark House, a director of Mowlam Metalcraft, explained how he and business partner Graham Mowlem have devoted 2,500 hours to the project since November, mainly at evenings and weekends.

They used parts as they came available from Abbey Metals, a neighbouring business at Louds Mill.

Mark studied art at Weymouth College and enjoys working on projects in his spare time when he’s not doing his day job in the steel fabrication business.

He was responsible for making the 20ft-high tyranno-saurus rex for the Great Dorset Maize Maze which was placed in the sea off Weymouth last summer as a promotional stunt.

Mark says the stegosaurus will be used for advertising and promoting the Jurassic Coast after its appearance in Weymouth Carnival.

He will have to make another one, however, as Lucy is being presented to Abbey Metals as a thank-you.

Mark said: “It was quite a long process to build it and we had to make it up as we went along as the parts came in.

“It’s like putting a thousand-piece jigsaw together without a picture.”

He added: “There’s been a lot of interest in it, especially from children who’ve been coming down to see it taking shape.

“They can see it’s made from used parts so it’s got a message as well. There’s no such thing as a throw-away item in our throw-away society.”

The sculpture is named after Mark’s daughter Lucy who celebrated her seventh birthday on the day the dinosaur gained its ‘legs’.