A Met Box Build

[fivefingeredstyre]

Thanks mate... looking at a number of the builds on here I've noticed that most people seem to use the Triton... It was a bit daunting to use at first, but I soon managed to get the hang of it... 

Little bit of progress today...

Started work digging out the for the concrete base. Never been any where near laying stuff like this, so its a bit of an adventure 

What could possibly go wrong?

I live on a slope (which makes moving the lawn a complete pain in the arse I can tell you...) so the first step was to dig out a level footing...



Next up was to build the former in which to pour the concrete. once I'd got it in to place and levelled it up I added a plastic sheet and then broke up some paving slabs to act as hardcore...



And that's about as far as I've got at the moment as I want to let the ground settle for a few days before I start pouring in concrete. I'll probably add a bit more broken paving slabs as I dug down a bit too far on one side 

[anson]

I'm really enjoying your progress shots - looks fantastic so far!
Not enough folks build Met Boxes...

[fivefingeredstyre]

Weather was good today, so I cracked on...



It was suprising just how much hard work this was, even with a cement mixer... And I miscalculated on the number of bags of ballast I needed, so I had to rush out and get another load...

Still, got there in the end...



I don't think its turned out too bad considering i've never laid concrete in my life...  

I'll take down the wood later in the week, back fill around the sides of it, so its flush with the ground either side of it and then it should be good to go next weekend...

Next Episode:
Some Assembly Required

[DoctorWho8]

That looks pretty decent for a first timer. Did you use a plank of wood across the top to shimmy out the smoothness?
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[domvar]

You know i'm actually more excited about seeing your build finished than I am about lets kill hitler (stupid title putting me off)

[geminitimelord]

Nice job on the pad.  For my box, after calculating how many bags it would take to pour my pad I opted for the Pre Cast 1'X1' cement squares on a bed of pebbles. Was much easier to accomplish with similar results

[the_doctor]

Looking great. It's exactly the route I want to go down, when I can get things off the ground.

[fivefingeredstyre]

That looks pretty decent for a first timer. Did you use a plank of wood across the top to shimmy out the smoothness?
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

I did indeed... There was a couple of rough bits which I chipped off with a lump hammer and a bolster this afternoon, but all in all it didn't finish up too bad.

Thanks for all the positive comments guys...

The concrete dried out far faster than I thought it would (Told you i'd never laid concrete before...  ) so I took the opportunity to sort the ground out around it this afternoon (as well as remove a dead tree from the vicinity of the pad...

as a result it now looks like this...



Hopefully I will be picking up my signage on Tuesday or Wednesday, fitting it next Saterday, and then (fingers crossed) there will be the big build on Sunday... 

[type55tardis]

I'm looking forward to seeing the end result ,you have put in so much hard work on this build.

[drew30]

i can't wait to see this one finished either. you have done alot of hard but great work into this sofar. excellent job sofar.

[fivefingeredstyre]

Cheers guys. Very quick little update...

I picked up the signage today

Couldn't resist the opportunity to quickly fit the door signs...



There's too much light around to get a decent shot of the Phone cupboard sign, but heres a closer version...



I'll post a better version later... Heres the SJA sign...



I'm counting down the minutes till Sunday...

[the_doctor]

Stunning!

[fivefingeredstyre]

I've also found the time to install one of the signs to the sign box, to see how it looks...

The fonts not 100% right, but it was the closest the makers could come up with to the original typeface... Its a little too rounded in places, but I quite like it (I think its kind of like the McGann prop type face...)



The photo makes it look lighter than it actually is...

I'm on the home straight now...

[DoctorWho8]

Is that my Hartnell door sign?  Nice on the signs.  As far as the Police Box signs, I think Ironageman made some PDFs of Police Box signage somewhere in the archives.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[fivefingeredstyre]

The phone sign is one I made up from Perpetua... I made it a while back using Ironageman's jpg, scaled up, as a template and over wrote the lettering...

The 'U' isn't quite right, but it's pretty much there....