The Original You Might Say

[Mark]

Due to an unforseen A&E visit last night, I didn't get the opportunity to put the pictures onto Photobucket as I had planned.

They are on my computer and ready for uploading, but that will probably happen tomorrow night now (off Wednesday!!!).

Shame about English Heritage Benjamin. I've had similar replies from loads of various Government agencies, some not even bothering to reply at all!

[spica]

Thanks for trying Benjamin. That information has to be lurking somewhere! If only we had some clue as to who the contractors were. There were obviously several. If the Met have no records what about the Glasgow police. Or perhaps other regions. One contractor could perhaps have produced more than one type of box.
Re my efforts, well I'm just getting the dimensioning done by stages. I'm having to take a bit of a deep breath before doing the ringbeams and signboxes as I will have to do all five. After that I will redo the two roofs, (I think Dinky is ok). Do their dimms, then produce some new renderings of the accurate versions. All of which will come in dribs and drabs. But better late than never.

P.S. I do hope you are ok Mark!

[bach4me]

Shame about English Heritage Benjamin. I've had similar replies from loads of various Government agencies, some not even bothering to reply at all!

Have you ever tried The Met Archives?  When I contacted the Met directly I was told that they may have more (any?) info in their Archives.  Unfortunatley finding an address for said Archives has been tricky.  I think I have found it though.

-Benjamin

[ironageman]

It's frustrating; I wrote to a police museum and received no reply and I was disproportionately disappointed.

I do know who made some of the concrete boxes not far from where I live - well, I don't know because I can't remember, but I'll check later and report back. It was a national company, I remember that much.

[Mark]

I'm fine Spica, thanks for asking.

Every time I have contacted The Met, I have had very little positive response, although I did get some info on GM-Trench, although nothing of real use Police Box wise.

[Mark]

A little bit later than promised, but here we go...

[noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_63JC0027.jpg[/img][noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_63JC0029.jpg[/img]

These pictures give an idea of the construction of the roof unit.

There are (presently) 23 separate parts used to construct this roof (excluding the lamp housing), but with the cladding added to the interior (needed to give the model a 'solid concrete' look (as per the real box), this will increase to 40!

The sign boxes were pretty straightforward, until I came to add depth and detailing by adding the recessed area for the actual signs.

[noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_Photo-0009.jpg[/img][noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_APhoto-0002.jpg[/img]

I first cut a 45' frame to the sign-box front, then added a flat border to the back before adding a second 45' angle frame behind that. Finally the actual sign was fixed in place.

When the whole set of sign-boxes are complete, the unit will contain approx 94 separate pieces, some visible, others to create. depth.

I suppose I really ought to start the other 3 :-/

These last two pictures give a couple of different views of the overall structures together.
[noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_Photo-0010.jpg[/img][noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_APhoto-0001.jpg[/img]
At present both parts are still separate items, both needing a little more work before they are completely finished and ready for texturing and painting.

On the first picture you can see where I started to add the slight slopes that each step has.

I decided that using wood filler would be quicker and easier than other methods. I'll lightly sand the filler and paint over it with PVA glue to make it consistent with the rest of the structure.

Now I have some pictures to show my efforts, I kinda feel I am making progress. The only problem is that the progress is so slow!

Any comments, criticisms greatly appreciated

[purpleblancmange]

Mark - brilliant progress there, I don't have any criticisms about it in any way as I think you're doing a splendid job as you are!  At quarter scale, that'll be quite some beastie.

What are you going to do about fabricating the lens then?

[Mark]

Thanks Purp, definately bigger than I had originally intended!

As for the lens, it seems as though I'm going to have to build one from scratch. I'll do it one of two ways -

1) make a wooden lens using a lathe, then create a mold from this wooden version and finally make a clear resin cast of the lens.

2) Build the lens using clear plastic/acetate, building each ring individually and attaching to a central clear tube, then making the central 'bulge' using some  method I haven't thought of yet!

[TG]

Firstly - glad to hear you are OK  I was worried about you.

The roof looks wonderful Mark
Amazing attention to detail - no less than we would expect from you!
Especially on the sign boxes -they look great

I do understand (from my build) what you're saying about slow progress 
but you have done a lot of the more difficult bits, I think you've made good progress.

What size will the lens be at your scale?

TG

[ironageman]

That's really nice! I keep noticing rims of plastic bottles and thinking 'that would do for the rings of Mark's fresnel' but the round bit is tricky unless there's a transparent ball in a toyshop that would do (but the cast resin option would be better if you're seeking perfection, and it looks like you are!).

Going back a few posts - it was a division of Tarmac Ltd that made the boxes that I mentioned (yes they were made of concrete and not of black sticky stuff).

[Mark]

Thanks for the concern, but really it wasn't as dramatic as it may have sounded (sorry!).

As for progress, I think my next job will be some walls. They may be pretty repetative, but at least the are fairly straight forward!

The lens will work out at about 1 & 1/2" high by 1 & 3/4" wide (the fresnel rings not included).

[Scarfwearer]

A bench/pillar drill makes a reasonable stand-in lathe and is of course useful for more conventional uses too. I'd probably tackle a lens like that with a section of plastic tube attached to the drill then holding a file against it. Fine sandpaper (800-1200 grit) folded around the file could largely restore the shine in the later stages. If you measure and mark the tube when it's stopped and then touch a felt-tip pen to the tube when it's spinning, it will draw a very nice ring around it for you. I did some things like this while making daleks...
Of course I've never actually tried making a fresnel lens like this 

Crispin

[kiwidoc]

A bench/pillar drill makes a reasonable stand-in lathe and is of course useful for more conventional uses too. I'd probably tackle a lens like that with a section of plastic tube attached to the drill then holding a file against it. Fine sandpaper (800-1200 grit) folded around the file could largely restore the shine in the later stages. If you measure and mark the tube when it's stopped and then touch a felt-tip pen to the tube when it's spinning, it will draw a very nice ring around it for you. I did some things like this while making daleks...
Of course I've never actually tried making a fresnel lens like this 

Crispin

I tried to use a drill to create a fresenl for my 1/4 from a plastic bottle of the right diameter.  Trouble is that I don't havea bench mouted drill so I was holding the drill with a spinning (and slighlty off-centre...) bottle in one hand and a scalpel in the other...



Not recommended as it certainly gave a fairly eccentrtic result though it is the 'fresnel' that my wee box still sports...   Safety first people - if you're going to be even close to as dumb as me be sure to wear thick clothing on your arms that won't catch in the drill and a set of good safety googles - I'll say no more...   

[Mark]

Never really contemplated that method Crispin, reason being - I thought it would make the plastic frosted where it had been 'lathed'.

Do you think the 800-1200 sanding would re-produce the see-through-ability?

If so this may well be the best option so far....

[Scarfwearer]

Well I'm no expert at polishing up plastic, but I cut some eye-disks for my daleks with a router and then polished the edges up in the bench drill. I did a test with a 1/4" thick piece (thicker than I ended up using) which looked reasonably shiny after sanding at 1200, but I was looking at a 1/4" thick edge of a 4" diameter disk, so I wasn't looking through it as such.
Perhaps someone else here knows how to polish up a plastic surface so it's transparent again? If you have it in a bench drill you probably only need the right cloth and/or polishing fluid... Or the fine sandpaper may be enough.
I think it's probably worth a try.

Crispin