Reference pictures: Mk V Console (2005)

[kiwidoc]

Another of my ongoing research topics - added here for future reference for builders.

The "keyboard" on the metal mesh panel facing the audience is actually some kind of electronic control desk - I suspect for video/editing.   I know someone who says they made the design seen on top when they worked in a printing firm so the hardware is probably manufactured on a small scale in the UK and may never be traceable.  That said, I've been hoarding any picture found of this, and have created the following reference shots from perspective correcting some images.

this first image is the control desk fitted to the Touring console in 2006 (later re-purposed as The War Doctor's TARDIS console and this control was attached to the monitor in that TARDIS)


And this image is of the same model of control (but difference instance) at The Experience on the 2005 console.  This one is much dirtier, broken and of course features gallifreyan symbols on some sort of decal.  In due course (maybe tonight) I intend to create a printable version of this control at the right scale and could add that here too if desired.

PS: it's worth noting that this control has been mounted upsidedown at times, is sometimes photographed sitting on the mesh (a'la in the show) and sometimes balanced on the rim of the console (when they move The Experience a lot of the controls seem to 'wander' for a while)

[kiwidoc]

And here is my attempt and replicating the original layout and labels/controls.  It's interesting to note that the DIRECTOR 1 etc labels have been simply blacked out on the console one!



Oh, and this is scaled against the mesh seen in photos above so I determined size to be 45cmx17cm give or take...

[galacticprobe]

Nice graphic, Glen! Those "Director" labels look like they were blacked out starting with the Eccleston year, and it was a bit cleaner and intact when things on the console were "fairly" new. Back then this control board sat in the middle of that panel, down against the rim. Even then those Gallifreyan symbols were already on the control board.

In the Tennant era, when they moved the gyrocompass repeater from one of the cracked ice panels to this metal mesh panel, they slid this control over (to our left) and that's when it started overlapping the rim's edge. Also, it looks pretty well beat up in that second image because Tennant loved pounding on this control with that rubber mallet of his! (Show it no mercy; he probably knocked it off at times which is probably why it's sometimes mounting upside-down. Imagine the stage hands hearing the shout "Quick! Throw that piece back onto the console!" They would have just grabbed it and tossed it onto the panel regardless of which end was up.)

It probably got even more scorched during the serious explosions seen at the start of "The Eleventh Hour" when the TARDIS was crashing - if you watch closely at the first sight of the console you can see one of the cracked ice panels (one of those facing the doors) actually shatter and blow out just before they cut to the Doctor hanging out of the TARDIS doors. (Some of Kingpin's photos of the console from the DWE when it was in London show that missing panel, and the charred internal support bulkhead as well as a broken section of the rim. So I wouldn't discount some pyrotechnics damage to this control.)

And from looking at some reference images, I'm guessing that your dimensions for this panel are about right. (For simplicity in imperial measurements, I'd round them off to 1'6" x 7.5".) And if you've got a nice high-res jpg of that graphic, well, you know my e-mail! <grovel-grovel>

As for that first photo you posted, where the "Director" labels are still there but the Gallifreyan symbols aren't, that one is from the smaller "Touring Console" - the one that eventually got re-dressed as the War Doctor's console:

Here it is on the "Touring" version and you can clearly see the labels. You can even gauge its scale against the phone, whose measurements I posted in another thread on here somewhere. (Hang on a tick...) Here is where I posted the phone measurements: http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=3646.msg67159#msg67159. And if you scroll up a little you'll see photos of the Touring console compared with the actual 2005 console prop. This might help get a better scale of the control board.

So there were always two of these controls: one for the Touring console, and one for the actual prop. So the one on the actual prop probably was there even in the 50th Special, and the one on the Touring console was just relocated so it was attached under the War Doctor's console monitor as part of its frame.

I hope this helps.

Dino.

[davidnagel]

Does anyone have £8495 to spare? If you do, why not get your hands on the original TARDIS central column before the "The Runaway Bride" rebuild!



And I quote:

This prop is the only column and time rotor made for production and is bespoke fabricated from 7mm thick heavy duty acrylic. The column stands 86" tall and has a diameter of 18", the two time rotor sections measure 39" each in height and the tubes are interlocking enabling them to move in and out of each other on screen, this effect would have been created by hanging the section on a heavy duty cable rig connected to a strong motor for power.

That should resolve some sizing issues others have been querying lately

[kiwidoc]

WOW, brilliant, thank you!  And really good reference pictures too 

[davidnagel]

While I'm at it, a perfect version of this space resistor is on eBay! A bit expensive...



For reference, its roughly 42cm in length.

[kiwidoc]

 It's been on there for at least a year David.  This one is the closest I've seen too - there are quite a few more single ones on Ebay (some from the same seller) but this is the only double I've seen and never a triple, though I'm sure that the TARDIS one was manufactured that way.  They don't come up often and at this price clearly don't sell too fast either.  I could almost convince myself to buy it if the shipping to NZ wasn't twice the actual price...
Oh, and they come in a variety of lengths too.  I think that this one might be longer than the console one but it's hard to tell..

While I'm at it, a perfect version of this space resistor is on eBay! A bit expensive...



For reference, its roughly 42cm in length.

[davidnagel]

  It's been on there for at least a year David.  This one is the closest I've seen too - there are quite a few more single ones on Ebay

Ahhhhha. First time I went looking for them you see, aw well, more reference for this thread I guess!

[The14thDr]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned before (I've only had chance to quickly skim through the thread), but does anyone know the approximate width of the entire console, from one side of the rim to the other (not including the ribs)? And does anyone have any accurate measurements of the ribs, ie. width and length? EDIT: if possible, could I also have the overall height of the console, from the floor to the top (not including the time rotor)? From their on out I should be able to extrapolate the measurements and work all the other dimensions out myself.

Kind regards, The14thDr

[davidnagel]

14dr, use the old time rotor measurement reference above in photoshop that should give you enough extrapolation given there are lots of sides of the console

[galacticprobe]

Here's a little something that might help with some guesstimeasurements. (Yes; I've resorted to making up words again.)

I've used the 18-inch diameter column measurement above as the reference since we seem to have a definitive measurement with that now (if the measurement in the auction is correct).

Sorry for the rough diagram, but it's the best I can do with this graphics program I've got on this computer. Anyway, using the yellow arrows to mark out 18 inches all the way across the console (since this is about the best "edge on" image of the console showing its widest points - ribs and rim), then carefully finding the mid point of that I've marked out the "in between" 9 inches in green.

Again, carefully finding the mid point of that and working it across the entire console I've marked out the 4.5-inch points in white. (Oh, ignore that yellow arrow under the "4.5 inches" next to the column; it's late, I'm heavily valiumed because of a severely painfully spasmed muscle under my right shoulder blade - the kind that makes it painful to breath - and I just forgot to delete that arrow when I finished with the image; it was one of my test arrows.) Finally, counting out the measurements according to the above (and using another mid point for easy calculations - marked with the black arrow on the right side) We have a width of the rim at 83.25 inches.

That said, you'll no doubt notice the black arrow doesn't reach all the way to the outer edge of the rim on that side; there is still a sliver of a gap in there. As small as that is on this image, it could be another .75 (a.k.a. 3/4) of an inch, which would put the total diameter of the console's rim at 84 inches - or 7 feet - about the average height of a normal household doorway (at least in most US houses).

One can use the same method of calculation to figure out the width of the ribs. (You just have to grab a good image from the Reference Section that shows both the wide, and narrow, ribs straight-on to get that.) You can use that for just about any measurement for this console, when you think about it.

For a scaled-down, model-size version of the console, I think the best bet would be to print out a photo of the console at the size you want it, and then take measurements from the printout and work from there. (It would be easier than trying to figure out the full-scale measurements, and then re-calculating things to scale them down.)

And just in case anyone is wondering, here's the image I started out with:

before I cropped it and put all those arrows all over the image. This image shows the full height of the column, which the measurement in the post a little further up says is 86 inches tall - only 2 inches longer than the console's rim is wide (if my guesstimeasurements are right). And that image was itself cropped from a wide shot of the entire console room (which I think I posted in the Reference Section a couple of years ago, when Bonham's was auctioning off part of the room; they had a great "mouse over and zoom in" feature, and I was able to piece that image together like a huge jigsaw puzzle!).

I hope this helps out at least a little.

Dino.

[BioDoctor900]

Just reading through this again and saw that there was a mention of a Sonic Screwdriver Charging slot, I do believe there actually was one, but it was only seen once in Eccleston's Era, it was when he was standing looking at the screen, near the doors, you can see the sonic standing up on console, near the neck... Aliens of London, I think it was....

I can't find a screenshot, but maybe I'll have to watch it and screenshot it....But contrary to that, I've never really seen a bit on the console in which the sonic could have stood up and looked like it was charging, I had the thought to incorporate one into my console

BioDoctor900

[galacticprobe]

Throughout the entire Series, no version of the sonic screwdriver ever needed charging. (Even Sarah Jane's sonic lipstick never needed charging.) The only times any sonic failed to work was when it was in an energy-damping/disrupting field (i.e. Skaroth's time distortion device in "City of Death", the Slitheen's energy-draining devices in 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' story "Revenge of the Slitheen").

The first (and as yet only) reference to this "sonic charging port" was in "The Time of the Doctor" when the Doctor told Clara to plug that gizmo into "the sonic charging port", which only succeeded in activating Emergency Protocol One to take Clara home. (Remember Rule 1: the Doctor lies.) That "socket" has never had the sonic plugged into it - ever. And the way it operated leads one to believe that it's not a charging port at all, and the Doctor told one of his "clever lies" to Clara so she would send herself home before realizing what she'd done. Inserting that gizmo is probably like a key to activate Emergency Protocol One in much the same way that "CD slot" in the "Blink" onwards 2005 console is used for inserting control discs (Security Protocol Seven-One-Two: detection of an authorized control disc) to activate a one-way journey (though in "Blink" no coordinates are ever given so one must believe this protocol is designed to home in on the Doctor's location where/whenever he may be).

Of course, with console controls always changing what they do (Mat/Demat Levers aside), that port from the 2013 console could end up eventually having the sonic charging in it one day. (But knowing how things work in the Whoniverse, unless the story calls for the sonic to be out of action, it will probably be a quick "insert - 'buzzzzzzz' - remove: there we go; all charged up for another few centuries, so, right... off we go again" type of thing.)

Dino.

[kiwidoc]

All true Dino (you've a good memory!!) but there was one other reference.  In the design work for the sonic from 2004/5 there was concept sketches showing the back end splaying open to fit into a port on the console but it was dropped as unimportant/impractical (as was the swivelling head for the emitter end) so was never realised in the physical world.   I'd be interested to see if they ever implied it being plugged into the console, even in passing, in an early episode but I certainly never noticed it.

[BioDoctor900]

Here you go guys, It was Aliens of London...Here's the screencap...



I've circled the Sonic....Also watching the episode, the bit where he goes off and mickey hits the couregated fence, he actually takes the sonic out of his pocket and places it onto the console, in some sort of port....http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cug7w_doctor-who-s01e04-aliens-of-london-part-1_tv (at 16:00 in)

BioDoctor900