The 12th Doctor's New Sonic Screwdriver

I first thought they were button head screws; which would be more comfortable on the hand because of their rounded dome shape, but there looks to be a bit more rim showing on the screws than a button head would have. That's why I changed my mind to the Low Profile Allen screw.

Here's the photo that I noticed it on. (I wish the resolution was a bit better)
View attachment 563659

You can zoom in on the screws and see what I mean.

They definitely appear to be low profile. Based on the reference images I put together from screen shots, they protrude 1.5mm which would be consistent with the low profile screws. It's still hard for me to see if they're definitively hex - but by all indications and general knowledge they must be unless Nick fashioned custom screws, which I don't see him doing without a very good reason.

I'm convinced. I'll make the changes to hex and hopefully as more information reveals itself, we'll be proven right!

EDIT: Aaaaannndddd changed. I also made the head thinner, took it from 1.5mm to 1.125mm to better match the image above.
 
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I'm pretty sure they are Allen drive screws. If Nick wanted to be intentionally difficult, there's a chance he could have used Torx drive screws, but I doubt that he did. Allen heads are much easier to buy, and consequently get used more.

If he wanted to REALLY be difficult, there are some obscure "security" screws available, but Nick would only be making life hard for himself if he wanted to use those. They would't be worth the trouble unless they were really featured and didn't want to look like common screws.
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I'm pretty sure they are Allen drive screws. If Nick wanted to be intentionally difficult, there's a chance he could have used Torx drive screws, but I doubt that he did. Allen heads are much easier to buy, and consequently get used more.

If he wanted to REALLY be difficult, there are some obscure "security" screws available, but Nick would only be making life hard for himself if he wanted to use those. They would't be worth the trouble unless they were really featured and didn't want to look like common screws.
View attachment 563662

I'm sticking with the Allens until/unless we have anything definitively contrary. But generally, I think they look better anyway - they fit the theme of the hexagonal holes in the TARDIS as well as can be found in Gallifreyan text (usually numbers, if I'm not mistaken).

I do a lot of modeling for patent applications of American made products where they use nothing but Phillips head screws so it was sort of force of habit when I was building this one - and I busted that thing out over the course of a matter of hours. I just wish we had better shots of the full thing so I could be satisfied enough to start pricing it out now. I mean, I did a preliminary upload to gauge material costs but between machine space, labor, etc. it's hard to predict what the final cost would be for one of these kits.

I have no doubt that within hours of the Christmas episode airing, this thread will blow up with reference images. I'm very much looking forward to it...
 
Here's a higher res render of the model with updates to the hex screws as well as lights added in for effect! I also combined the face on the slider switch with the switch body itself and recessed the knurled portion to closer match the prop, as well as adding a chamfer to the middle two brass rings, which I noticed in the photo posted to the RB FB page.

I realized too late that the switch is in the off position even though I have the lights on...

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The top half with the lights is really nice but the rest of the design looks a busy mess.

Excellent work with the render though. :D

I agree but if you think about how Capaldi holds things it works well for his version of the Doctor - he's more of a thumb and index sort of guy while Smith was a full on grip Doctor :lol SO it doesn't interfere much with the way he holds it, however busy it is.

I do hope we see some amount of extra functionality with those mechanical bits on the sides, it would be a shame if they didn't open up to reveal something extra but I can't imagine what it could be from a logistical perspective - not much can fit in there and since the upper emitter portion doesn't have any room for bits to protrude up into it from the mid section (what with the clear rods running all the way through) any extra parts would need to be located within the mid section and I don't see that being a possibility. It's possible that within the context of the show "Time Lord technology" is incorporated so we'd end up seeing another build of the prop to incorporate whatever is hiding on the inside.

Plus with the way I've worked out how those mechanical bits fit together, there is only one point of rotation - on the longer single 'hook' of each side, and at the mid point of that piece are the two smaller hooks that could rotate on that pin but would be pointless as they don't connect to any other point of the 'mechanism'. It's not like there is an intricate arrangement of parts that can be pulled open from the handle but again, perhaps they'll build a second version with functionality built in to a different configuration of those parts.

Regardless, like it or not, I'm glad Capaldi finally got a sonic of his own. 'Bout time!
 
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I do hope we see some amount of extra functionality with those mechanical bits on the sides, it would be a shame if they didn't open up to reveal something extra but I can't imagine what it could be from a logistical perspective - not much can fit in there and since the upper emitter portion doesn't have any room for bits to protrude up into it from the mid section (what with the clear rods running all the way through) any extra parts would need to be located within the mid section and I don't see that being a possibility. It's possible that within the context of the show "Time Lord technology" is incorporated so we'd end up seeing another build of the prop to incorporate whatever is hiding on the inside.


Regardless, like it or not, I'm glad Capaldi finally got a sonic of his own. 'Bout time!

I agree with all you've said. I was not a fan of the sonic Ray-Bans. I'm glad Capaldi now has a proper sonic.

I am intrigued by the latching mechanism (even though it doesn't really seem to function). I believe someone else speculated earlier that perhaps there could be interchangeable attachments that justified these mechies. Perhaps there are different tips stored in the small end - it could be bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, after all...
 
Anyone have an idea when the toy version will get released? The last new sonic that I can remember was the War Doctor's and that got released like two days after the episode aired.
 
Anyone have an idea when the toy version will get released? The last new sonic that I can remember was the War Doctor's and that got released like two days after the episode aired.

My guess is the toy release will be about a month before the first episode of the next season. It'll be part of the develop interest hoopla they do each year.

It usually takes nearly a year to bring a product like that to market, and since they only just finished designing the prop version in August or September, the start of next season is just about right for the toy.

The War Doctor sonic toy had about 8 months between filming and when the special aired, and its development cycle would have been shorter given it was largely made from existing tooling.
 
Ah, but they are not filming the next series until March/April next year- making it highly unlikely that there will be a series at all next year, they simply won't have time to write, cast, film, edit and add VFX/ next time trailers before the end of the year...
 
I was thinking that the brass center core used might be the same OD as the on inside the 11th sonic. It seems to be the same size in the assembly shots and the instagram photos. Could maybe someone who has a replica give us a measurement?

Maybe @phez ?

I was thinking that too. The core of the Smith Sonic is 13mm brass rod. It looks like you can see the center rod through those slots in the aluminum sleeve. I thought the blue parts might be machined blue plastic but it looks they are painted aluminum (It looks really close to the color we use on our R2 builds)

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In this screencap there are end parts for two Sonics, so there must be at least two of them at this point. We need to take into consideration that screencaps and promo photos may be of one or the other so the details could be different.

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I am betting this time around that Nick made this one easy to mass produce right from the get go knowing that he would be selling replicas. I dont think it will be too long before we see the Rubbertoe version of this available on his site.
 
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I am looking at the switch. I wonder if that is a found part? It looks different from the aluminum parts around it. That could be vacuum metalized knob that was cut down. I suppose it could just be more polished than the other parts. (thoughts?)

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nice, very classic sounding! there's a higher pitched warble back there...

It's kind of a mix between classic and the 9th/10th. Definitely not as intense as the 11th's array of different sounds. It'll be interesting to see in the X-Mas episode what other sounds we might hear. I think with the introduction of the sonic "trough" that River is holding in various clips, screen grabs and promo material, and the dynamic between her and Capaldi's Doctor, we may see some humorous competitiveness between them involving what their respective sonic devices can do and as a result, are likely to hear more sounds from his.

But considering the prop itself seems to have been banged out in a matter of weeks for the finale (and the actual physical prop wasn't even completed when they shot those initial final scenes), I doubt they spent too much time on the sound - they probably just dropped in a previous sound byte or combination of them with filter(s) to get the sound we hear in the episode. It's bound to change and guaranteed to have additional sounds added to accompany its various capabilities. If I were forced to create a sound for it now to be as close to what we'll probably hear in the future, I'd go with a combination of classic and 9th/10th since Capaldi's Doctor is a bit of a throwback to earlier DW times all around.
 
I am looking at the switch. I wonder if that is a found part? It looks different from the aluminum parts around it. That could be vacuum metalized knob that was cut down. I suppose it could just be more polished than the other parts. (thoughts?)

View attachment 564009
The only real thing that I can see different about that switch is that it is slightly a different finish from the plate. That may even not be true because the lighting in that photo is very strange. In order to make replicas easy to produce, I doubt that they would use found pieces. Many pieces that look like that, like in the phaser one in TOS, were made from scratch. Who says Nick didn't do the same? We know he has knurling tools in his arsenal.
 
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