With just a small handful of finishing touches to go, time has defeated me for 2011. I’ll sign off from TARDIS construction with some pictures of progress so far.
Almost finished
Tag Archives: TARDIS
Soldering on
Deep breath time, I still haven’t received the balance of LED strips so cannot complete the project today. I’ve devoted the time to cleaning up what is there. I decided to cannibalise two good strips to replace the sections of defective strips while I had the time. Also I thought I’d remove the clunky (but convenient!) joiners and replace them with some cut to size self soldered (nice looking) joins.
I also thought I’d have a go at mounting and wiring the lantern while I had the time. Done, the height of the lantern doesn’t quite give me the look I was hoping for so I’m going to put some extra thought into that. I think it’s too tall proportionally speaking (a design feature of using a bollard light).
Wiring wise, the Christmas LEDs have come up a treat. I’ve also worked out that there are 2 sets of LEDs to give various strobing effects coming from the controller. A small amount of tinkering & I discovered a way to wire up each side of the TARDIS separately so that the strobes will be coordinated.
TARDIS lighting
It’s been a while since I’ve had to remember wiring, soldering, & basic DC stuff. Luckily the prefab LED light strips come prewired & with rather obvious + and – polarity indicators on the printed circuit boards, so it’s just really up to me to ensure I get the polarity (of the neutron flow!) correct.
Dissapointment number two with regards to the LED purchase is the number of defective LED strips that Jaycar sold me. I’d already opened and chopped up to size the strips, so no hope of getting a refund there. Had I looked closer and took notice when I opened each sealed pack, it would have jumped out at me that a couple of packs were already opened and taped back up (instead of being heat sealed), and the PCB solder points looked like somebody had already had a go. Damn.
Still dealing with disappointment number one (being short sent a good number of strips) and still waiting for the balance to arrive. I’ve powered up as I’ve gone along to make sure that (barring defective strips) at least I’ve got the wiring correct.
TARDIS lightboxes
Nerve racking event number two – the light box signs. Being of black vinyl transfer, I was rather conscious of not stuffing these up either by scratching or inadvertantly gluing and then having accident evident stains.
I lined up the centre of the structure gaps, got the clear liquid-nails ready and took a deep breath. Somehow, I imagined that the centre of the signs themselves were in the mid of the “Public Call” bit. Because “police” “box” are different lengths, the centre of the sign is weighted towards the left “P” of “Public”. Good thing I decided to start on the rear panel. Having used the glue several times over a few weeks now, It was quite claggy- slightly beneficial for me as runny would have been worse.
The inverted sign shows how the letters appear bigger when light streams though (flipped for effect).
TARDIS door sign
Who’d have thought the moment of truth would be so nerveracking? I needed to cut some very fine mortises for the finer jewelry box hinges I’d chosen for the phone door sign. A dry fitting showed that the flap (which I’d constructed way back in 2009 as one of the things that I was able to easily do at the time) fitted snugly. Which meant that the hinges & mortises for them would have to be rather precise.
I padded the clamp with some offcuts and sliced delicately away with a coping saw. A small excess needed removing so a small tap with the chisel and @#$%crunch@#$% up comes a sliver that I didn’t mean to do. A small dab of PVA and some masking tape later, the second mortise is cut and the door fitted in place. Probably a bit too snug- I’ll have to contemplate some fine sanding to remove the tightness.
TARDIS signs
I’d asked a friend, signwriter Ian Currell to prepare the TARDIS signs for me a few weeks back. He got so excited by the slightly offbeat commission, that he cleared his decks and jumped to it straight away. It’s always exciting to find others excited in your project.
I’d sourced 4 opaque perspex panels from a second-hand pharmacy cosmetic display which was being junked. I cut these to size and envisaged using vinyl transfers for the signs. I’d also thought of similar vinyl transfers for the phone flap sign.
Until I met up with Ian. He buzzed with excitement and said that (back in the day) such signs would have been handwritten. And so that’s what he’d do. I’d envisaged using the modern font sizes and spacing, but decided on following the original Brachaki prop. I sourced a screencap from the pilot episode of “An Unearthly Child” (1963) and we went with that.
We’d used a thinner font on the lightbox panels as these would make the letters look “normal” when backlit & from a distance, which is the effect I’m after.
TARDIS lock
The door lock took me longer than expected due to my having used a thinner timber stock than would be usual for a door. This was a deliberate decision at the time as I didn’t want the doors to be too heavy, and since I was starting with the doors, I felt that the entire construct would be too heavy set had I gone this way.
So now it bites me. I’d prepared a 3mm shim last week on discovering this but after about 30 minutes of mucking around, discovered that I really needed at least 8-10mm. Luckily there’s heaps of spare timber and offcuts lying around, so a few chops later, a nice mount for the lock is complete.
Got a call from Anna half way during the day saying that the signwriter’s ready with the signs. Very exciting.
TARDIS door furniture
I thought that I might get the door furniture installed and the LED light strips also. I’d ordered 25 white LED strips from Jaycar a couple of months previous and had received them by courier (living out in the sticks, a surprising number of companies refuse to deliver to Post Office Boxes).
So opening the package, I discovered that I was short sent. B*m. A quick call to the good people at Jaycar and the balance is due to be sent out to me. meanwhile, I used the spare time to have a further contemplate about how exactly I was going to attach the strips to the insides of the windows. I decided to use the unexpected extra time to make a number of slats to brad to the inside of the frames thus allowing the strips to be mounted 90 degrees to the glass panes.
I used the balance of the afternoon to start on the door lock. Surprisingly, I discovered very affordable Yale locks ($20!) at Bunnings. Running out of time, I discovered that I needed a shim because the door timber I used was about half the width of a typical door. Next week’s problem.
TARDIS windows installed
It’s taken a heap of fiddly work: creating a jig to make identical slats, sourcing & cutting identical slats, sanding to finish, routing half-laps for fitting, discovering I’d used the reverse face instead of the ‘beauty’ face, nailing, gluing, sanding (again), painting (repeat x3+), and fitting the glass panes.
But it’s done!
A few of the frames were a tad snug requiring the Graham Garden “Just one small delicate finishing touch” of a belting into place with a spare two-by-four. And I’ve discovered a few gaps in the frame which is not surprising as I’d rough routered the sandwiched layers two years ago now and (at the time) crossed my fingers. So a small amount of remedial puttying and possibly a bit of extra timber filling to block out stray light from the inside.
I’ve sourced some LED strips from Jaycar for the windows (ala Ecclestone’s TARDIS) and signboxes and found some white LED Christmas bud lights which I’ll use for the roof light.
Final interior coat
A second interior top coat which I’d decided to apply by roller. I’d made maybe 5 minutes progress starting with the ceiling then planned to work around and then down. At this stage I had the paint roller tray in my left hand, standing on a saw horse with the roller in my right hand looking upwards. The natural poisition of the left hand tends to follow the angle of the rest of the body, so I soon discovered that I’d covered myself with white acrylic!
After an hour’s worth of this, I decided that a brush might be the better option, so ended up again at Bunnies with credit card in hand. I purchased a premium ‘rat tail’ 75mm wide synthetic brush which gave a very satisfactory finish. I’ve now finished the interior as much as I’d wanted to, and yet the artiste inside my head keeps whispering “one more coat”. At this stage, I’ll ignore the inner voice as I’ll miss the whole of next week for meetings.
Before finishing up, I couldn’t help myself but to dry fit one of the window frames.
