My New Series Doctor Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

This really baffles me, actually. Just from being on these forums, it's pretty clear that people not affiliated with the BBC really are more than willing to share whatever information they've gleaned. If anyone on the TARDIS builders forum had worked out an accurate set of measurements, why on Earth would they keep them from other, like-minded people? It seems to me that if they're not going to share information, they may as well not exist. Furthermore, when there was a Crashed TARDIS on display outside the Millennium Center in Cardiff, apparently not roped off in any way, how come no TARDIS-building enthusiasts were down there measuring every little bit of it?

Anyway, that's my rant. Really enjoying your build. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Unfortunately, the BBC are more than a little bit fickle in this area. For example, in 2009, I was one of several Dalek builders who were invited to go to the Leicester Space Centre in November to help raise money for the BBC's 'Children in Need' charity. The Beeb said they'd waive any legal rights for this event and we'd be filmed fund raiseing. At literally the 11th hour, after we'd all turned up, they changed their mind and we were all stuck outside the building for the evening. Any time one of our Daleks looked like it might be in shot, the camera quickly panned away from us.

The point of the above is that since lots of us use our props for charity fund raising, (and want to be able to keep on doing this) we have to be very careful not to annoy the BBC. The Beeb turns a blind eye to us but we all have to take a paranoid approach in order to play it safe. Sad, but true.


Anyway, on to my real post: this is a simply stunning build. All very tidy and well thought out. I am curious though; are you having to make much allowance for wood movement?

I'm in the initial phases of planning my own TARDIS build so I'm following your build with interest. There's lots of ideas that I may well steal (I mean adapt) ;)

Jon

P.S. You have no idea how jealous some of us are of the setup and support that the Star Wars guys have.
 
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re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

Anyway, on to my real post: this is a simply stunning build. All very tidy and well thought out. I am curious though; are you having to make much allowance for wood movement?

Since wood moves primarily across the grain there's not very much opportunity to see it moving any place that it would harm the build especially as the panels and doors are attached to plywood and well locked down.

The only area I have concern is the base because of the large miters on the corners so I'll see how that goes. I'd rather have done butt joints there but passed on it due to the hand work for it if I had done so. I may regret it and if so I'll make a new one.

As my windows are each cut from a single sheet of PVC and not affected by humidity, that doesn't worry me, though it would if made from wood. If they were in the sun and not painted white like this one will, I'd have to deal with the PVC expanding due to heat. PVC doesn't really work well painted dark colors, but it also may be such a low amount of actual material it wouldn't matter. It would be something I'd test before building with it.
 
re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

I'm incredibly jealous. I so wish I had the money and space to make one of own. I would so love to see this in person.
 
re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

I thought I'd note the first time Doctor Who's Christmas special will actually air on Christmas in the U.S. by updating my build for the first time in a bit.

Work has been continuing but the walls and doors have gone pretty slow. It'd kind of like the doldrums of the build.

The three walls and both doors are built now. Some details on them follow below.

The walls are just clipped into place, and the door is just standing there as well. I haven't yet sorted out how I will fix the walls in place. I'm considering some sort of sliding bolts but I'm trying to avoid spending much money on them since there will be 6-8 per wall. The doors will have three hinges each, which will be pretty easy as the board they hinge to can be on the bench with the door for locating and mortising.

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This is one of the door panels showing the spacer I used to exactly locate the window. Unlike on the walls, the doors have the raised panels both outside and inside, which means the inside panels have to exactly match the outside ones when there is a window. On the panels below they could misalign and you'd get away with it. Using the spacer I was able to ensure they would align without measuring and marking. On the left door there's is a second opening for the phone door, so there is another spacer board for it.

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Here's the plywood for the left door with its two openings cut out.

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This is how I roll the Titebond III glue on. Pour it out, roll it around. The painter's tape protects the edge of the panel and the cardboard protects against drips, which I found on the first panel was necessary when I missed a drip and had to remove it later.

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This is after using the router with its bearing guided flush cutter to cut the window openings in the plywood flush with the raised boards. I first tape it with painters tape the edges to prevent splintering, which will happen if you don't use the tape.

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On the doors, I cut the plywood oversize to make it possible to use the same bearing guided cutter to trim the outside edge of the plywood flush to the raised boards. The tape is used again to prevent splintering.

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Backtracking a bit here. I realized I hadn't shown the clamping setup for attaching the raised panels to the plywood. After my first panel where I discovered they required clamping in the middle, I ended up making clamping cauls to apply the necessary pressure in the middle. You can see three of them made from 2x4s in the photo below. They are simple to make, just slicing a wedge from each end of the board, leaving the middle full width on the board. With a clamp on each end, the pressure is applied only in the middle. It can be very powerful pressure, so much that I had to further strengthen the table top I had on my benches below to prevent them from bowing.

This shows gluing down the second half of the raised panel, I did them one at a time because it would take too long to do both at once considering glue open time, even if I had enough clamps to do both at the same time.

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Going back here awhile. This was the process for gluing the trim boards around each wall opening. As I was using biscuits and glue only, it took a lot of clamps. With three per side, times 4 sides, there were 12 to do, with each taking 2 hours to set. It seemed to go on forever before it was done. Next time I might just glue and nail these things up and be done in a couple hours.

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This shows how I first lined the glue area with painter's tape so applying the glue would be easier since I wanted it right to the edge of the boards. After clamping up with board I removed the tape and made sure there was no glue still squeezing out.

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This shows the miter joint of two of the boards with a slight gap in it, which is there on purpose to make sure the assembly of the Tardis is easy to do each time. I expect if this was a tight joint there might be some difficulty getting it together and then back apart without damage.

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This was my setup for applying glue to the boards and biscuits for each piece. I used a glue brush and a plastic cup to hold the glue for the process.

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re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

Today was all about getting the doors hung, which has been completed. Unfortunately, both of the doors are slightly bowed and misalign in the middle. I was worried about this happening, which is why I used the best boards I could get and was careful to build them on a flat table, but this wood is really unpredictable. I'm anxious to work with them tomorrow to see if I can have success removing the bow. I'd really hate to build the doors again, especially as that doesn't guarantee it won't happen again.

Anyway, here's some photos and steps to get them hung. In the photo below the gap in the middle is not parallel because the walls aren't yet attached and the entire Tardis is not yet squared up. When attached, the walls will hold the assembly square.

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Here's an inside view of the doors.

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This shows how I clamped the doors together on edge to locate and mortise the hinges. Doing it this was made it possible to do both at once with a router template which assured they were in exactly the same location.

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Detail of one of the mortises cut into the pair of door edges.

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This is the setup to mark the location of the other side of the hinge that is on the door jamb. This is pretty easy compare to doing a real door since the board is a separate piece that I attached to the post later with screws.

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Detail photo showing how the board is 1/8" past the bottom of the door for clearance. I set the hinge in the door mortise, raised it up against the jamb and marked with a sharp pencil.

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If you've done good work on the layouts and cutting, your pair of mortises should line up like this. When all three pairs line up as well, you know your door will go on the hinges perfect.

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Photo with the hinge stuck down in the mortises. On these hinges, I used a grinder to take off one end of the pin and removed it so they would work as removable hinges. Unlike a regular door hinge, these pins are installed and made permanent by peening them over on the ends.

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Here's the hinge mortising template I used with my hinge mortising bit, again bearing guided. This can be done with a chisel and knife, it's just more work.

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This is a photo of the hinge holes after drilling. I use a little shop aid to do this called a Vlix bit, which is a self centering drill bit designed exactly for this purpose. Sorry the bit photo is out of focus.

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Switching over to the door jambs. After the hinges had been fit to the door and jambs, I decided to screw the jambs to the posts on the off-chance I might see some wear on the hinge screws and wish to replace them later. As it's soft wood and the hinge screws are pretty small, any wear could be an issue. Preparing for this, I first located where I wanted holes, drilled a countersunk hole with a small drill, making sure my countersink just barely allowed the screw to sit below the surface (deeper and the soft wood crushes easily). I then drilled a very slight countersink on the back side of the board to allow room for the wood to pooch up when it enters the post. Finally, I used a larger drill to make the pilot hole larger on the board itself since I didn't want the screw to grab the jamb board on the way in. I used 1-5/8" long coarse drywall screws. It all sounds like a lot of trouble, but doing all this means good attachment and no surprises, like a broken screw.

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First thing today before I began the hinge work, I trimmed the door lengths to match each other perfectly. Here's a photo showing the plywood guide, the boards clamped at the beginning and end of the cut to prevent chip out, and in this case I used a large diameter bearing guided bit.

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re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

I've been working on the Tardis windows that last couple of days. Tardis version followers likely know that the Matt Smith version I'm building has very evenly backlit windows, and the phone door is lit as well. The windows on the prop are done with EL sheet, but sheets that cover that area are too expensive for my budget on this build.

Today I tested using LED Strip Lights, which is a flexible metal strip with flat LEDs on them and 3M double VHB tape on the back. They can be cut every three LEDs and individually connected to 12v power or in my case I cut them every 24 LEDS and soldered them from one to the next. Very handy.

I tested with a couple of rows to determine how close together then needed to be and then how far I had to pull it back from the white acrylic diffuser. I was delighted to see it does work, and I only had to set it back 2.25" from the diffuser.

The window assembly is made up of the PVC window frame, onto which I applied 3M VHB tape, and to that a "T" shaped 1/8" clear acrylic for the top three panes and the bottom middle pane. The bottom left and right panes are 1/8" pebbled Lexan.

Onto that, I used the VHB tape again to attach a 1/4" piece of sign white acrylic to serve as the diffuser.

Some build details below.

Illuminated panel

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No illumination.

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Applying the 3M VHB tape to the back of the PVC frame. This stuff is scary sticky.

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Dry run fitting the acrylic and Lexan to the tape, since there's no room for error here.

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Using the router bearing guided cutter to trim the acrylic and Lexan flush to the PVC.

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Same process for adding the 1/4" sign white diffuser. Stuck with the VHB tape and trimmed flush on the router.

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This is test of the LED strip lights. I laid them out on a piece of white acrylic that will be inserted into a 2.25" deep light box that will fit over the back of the window assembly.

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This is the light box with the strips now attached to the thin white acrylic in the box. Each window will have one of these that somehow attaches to the back of the windows during setup each time. It's a simple box with a 1/4" backer made from the same plywood the walls are made from. I used the thin white acrylic to mount the light strip to as a cheat so I wouldn't have to paint the inside white.

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re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

That window looks great. Also that VHB is awesome stuff. It's basically a foam acrylic. I use it all the time. Expensive tape but worth it.
 
re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

Member Primrodo and I have been working on my police box sign graphics for a bit here lately. Because of the BBC restrictions on information about the Tardis', there's no actual set of verified dimensions for the new series prop. This results in some bit of a guessing game based on few known dimensions and much work scaling photographs, which is difficult. I mention this because many of the key elements of the Tardis are defined "in relation" to other elements. IE, even if you get the scale wrong, it will still look like a Tardis.

Besides having built his own Tardis in Canada, he is a graphic designer and designs signs in his work. He had already done quite a bit of work on signs before and has been a great help on my signs, especially as we worked to sort out where we thought the letters sat in the sign, in relation to the other parts and my specific build dimensions.

The cut files are now off to my local sign company to apply to the 1/4" sign white acrylic I dropped off this week.

While working on the police box signs, Primrodo brought up a question about the Tardis windows, asking if I had plans to make them have a black background when not illuminated. I had decided very early to only worry about how then looked when illuminated, but about the same time I was thinking about this again, my wife and I watched the episode "Vincent and The Doctor" again, and there is a scene in there with the Tardis where the left door window is clearly black behind the panes, and the right door window is clearly a light grey. It's not an angle of the shot, or lighting that explains the difference. On further inspection, I think in practice, the black is achieved by removing the EL backlight sheet and replacing it with something black, and when the EL sheet is in place, but not energized, it looks grey. Some examples I searched out today follow:

Clearly Black

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One grey, one black, and the door opened, you can see it has the EL sheet on it. This is from the "Vincent and The Doctor" episode.

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Clearly Black

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As a result I decided to go ahead and design my windows so they could receive an insert between the panes and the white diffuser. It's made so I can insert them from the bottom with the backlight boxes in place. I tested it with a piece of plain black matte board, and just a piece of very light grey plastic and photos are below.

The only change to the earlier window build was to create a channel I could use to slip in the background. I did this by clamping a spacer to the back of the panes and sticking two 3/16" thick runners to the back using the same 3M VHB tape as before. I plan to use 1/8" acrylic inserts that should slip up in this slot quick and easy when needed.

This shows the insert spacer and the two 3/16" runners.

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With a black insert.

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With a very light grey insert.

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No insert, not illuminated.

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re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

Work on the Tardis finished up today with mounting the Pull To Open phone door. I was able to track down the correct hinges but they came in dark metal, so they will have to be replaced with brass, which will be plated nickel. The door is made as a tongue and groove frame, but with a slight twist. The hinged stile is removable to make it possible to install the white acrylic insert with the raised letters on it. Both for assembly, painting and in case it needs to be replaced someday.

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Here's where I used countersunk long pocket joint screws to make the hinged stile removable.

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Gluing up the first three parts of the frame.

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This is the five boards I prepared for the frame. Four for the frame, one to setup with. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the ends that were trimmed to make the tongues that fit into the groove of the stiles. The groove is cut by setting the saw just over 1/4" deep and close to the center of the edge of the board. The setup board is run over the blade, flipped around and run again, which puts the groove dead center. The width is checked against the sign acrylic and if too narrow the fence is brought just slightly closer and the two cuts are run again. This is done until it's perfect, then the other boards are run.

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I also managed to make and attach the door top to the left hand door. As both doors are slightly bowed and I was able to remove the bows, I made this piece complementary to the bows, and glued it to the left door.

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Here's the left hand door bolt that fixes the door in place unless it's raised.

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re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

A truly inspiring project you have here, really great woodworking skills on show.

just had a weird thought about a shed mod... hmm.

cheerio
 
re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

Just a little to show today, though there was some good progress on a couple of the build issues I hadn't worked out yet.

First up, until today I had not yet come up with a way to fix the three large wall panels between the posts that I was happy with. This is because I didn't want to use screws, which would definitely hold them in place, but in time screws into soft wood wear out. The mechanism had to mount flush into the post or the wall panel would hit it as it was being slipped into place, and it not only has to hold the wall flush to the outside trim, it has to hold the panels to the posts so the entire structure would not rack (go out of square).

1/1/18 The following text on the door sign proved to be inaccurate and was later replaced by the correct method.

More good news today as I successfully tested the method I'll use to make the Pull To Open sign door letters. On the Smith Tardis, these are actually raised letters applied to sign white acrylic that is backlit. My experience with gluing laser cut letters to acrylic hasn't been great because it's really hard to line them up and unless you spot it right on the first try, it's easy to smear the glue, or even if you do line it up, it easily squeezes out. Having had such good luck with the 20mil 3M VHB tape on the windows, I found I could buy 2mil very thin VHB tape. I figured if I could apply it to the black acrylic before cutting it, the thin glue would not melt and I could have a perfect strong adhesive contact without fear of smearing or squeeze out. Finding the tape was a huge effort, but I did track some down and tested it and it's perfect. I will still have to be very careful placing the letters, but though tedious, should be doable.

Here's a photo of the Matt Smith PTO door from Primrodo. Notice in his photo you can see the column of LEDs on the left and right side of the panel that are being used to backlight the panel. Very handy to be able to see how they did it. Until he sent me this photo, how they did it was unknown so far as I know.

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Just a couple photos of progress today. This is the three wall panel divider boards that cover the gap between the wall panels.

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Each one is being glued down to the panel using the same gluing caul method as before so I can put pressure in the middle of the panel. This is the first one of the three.

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re: My New Series Dr Who Tardis Build (image heavy)

Beautiful! Can I ask, what are the dimensions for the sign on the pull out door that you came up with?

Thanks!
 

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