CreateTillIDie
New Member
I've finally put the finishing touches on my approximate 1/8th scale Newbery Tardis, namely putting the beacon on top. I began the model back in the Summer of 2019, completing the majority of it in the Fall of that year. The outer shell and base are made entirely from 1/16-3/32" thick mat board; the interior, which doesn't provide any structure, is comprised of 1/8" craft ply and balsa wood. All of it, interior and exterior, are held together with Elmer's ProBond glue. It's approximately 13 1/2" tall to the base of the beacon, with an overall height of about 14 1/4".
I got the idea for it after running across some memorabilia I have from the Denver Sci-Fi conventions. It reminded me that I had once bought a Tardis kit from a vendor at one of the Cons I went to sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. It was die cut chipboard that was held together with glue, but I had never assembled it, nor could I find it in my things. So I got the idea to make my own from all of the leftover mat board I've had lying around for years. I based it on plans I found on the Tardis builders site. I began making it during one of my Chemo weeks, which was a mistake, since I didn't pay attention to the dimensions, which I assumed were in metric. So I did some rough conversion from metric to Imperial and scaled it from there. Only after I had made considerable progress in cutting out panels did I notice my mistake, but it seemed like everything was fitting together regardless; so that explains the approximate 1/8th scale, whether or not it is, is open to interpretation, especially since I've seen varying reports of what the size of the actual prop was.
From the beginning, I set out to make my Tardis functional as a storage box; I have neither the room, nor the inclination to have a model of that size just for the hell of it. With that in mind, I designed and assembled it with the entire front as a door for easier access to the interior. Because of the varying thickness between the front and side, the wing on the right of the hinges are screwed in, while the wing on the outside is CA glued. I have also installed magnets to help hold the front/door closed. The interior houses various tapes, cheap brushes, sandpaper, and various colors of Sharpies among other items. Some of the panels are decorated with holes alluding to the walls of circles in the Tardis interior of that era.
Finally, the part that was the most complicated, and yet the smallest in relation to the rest of the model: the beacon. Since my scaling was off from the beginning, my final one is probably not in scale with the rest of the model. I found an old CA glue lid for the Fresnel glass, using my variable speed Dremel as an improvised lathe, and forming it with various small files. The top was an amalgamation of mat board and a piece of plastic, while the supports are snipped finish nails.
If I can think of a use for it, I may make a reboot series Tardis sometime in the future. But since I used up all of my scrap mat board, I'll have to determine a different material.
I got the idea for it after running across some memorabilia I have from the Denver Sci-Fi conventions. It reminded me that I had once bought a Tardis kit from a vendor at one of the Cons I went to sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. It was die cut chipboard that was held together with glue, but I had never assembled it, nor could I find it in my things. So I got the idea to make my own from all of the leftover mat board I've had lying around for years. I based it on plans I found on the Tardis builders site. I began making it during one of my Chemo weeks, which was a mistake, since I didn't pay attention to the dimensions, which I assumed were in metric. So I did some rough conversion from metric to Imperial and scaled it from there. Only after I had made considerable progress in cutting out panels did I notice my mistake, but it seemed like everything was fitting together regardless; so that explains the approximate 1/8th scale, whether or not it is, is open to interpretation, especially since I've seen varying reports of what the size of the actual prop was.
From the beginning, I set out to make my Tardis functional as a storage box; I have neither the room, nor the inclination to have a model of that size just for the hell of it. With that in mind, I designed and assembled it with the entire front as a door for easier access to the interior. Because of the varying thickness between the front and side, the wing on the right of the hinges are screwed in, while the wing on the outside is CA glued. I have also installed magnets to help hold the front/door closed. The interior houses various tapes, cheap brushes, sandpaper, and various colors of Sharpies among other items. Some of the panels are decorated with holes alluding to the walls of circles in the Tardis interior of that era.
Finally, the part that was the most complicated, and yet the smallest in relation to the rest of the model: the beacon. Since my scaling was off from the beginning, my final one is probably not in scale with the rest of the model. I found an old CA glue lid for the Fresnel glass, using my variable speed Dremel as an improvised lathe, and forming it with various small files. The top was an amalgamation of mat board and a piece of plastic, while the supports are snipped finish nails.
If I can think of a use for it, I may make a reboot series Tardis sometime in the future. But since I used up all of my scrap mat board, I'll have to determine a different material.
