Wonky Toronto TARDIS (aka Metebelis-3)

[DoctorWho8]

I sense a LOL Cats contest with the saw pic.  That is hysterical.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[thingee]

Thanks for the kind words, fellas.

Here's a close-up of one of the posts... considering that I used a circular saw (when a table saw would have been faster and better), I think these ridiculously long lengthwise cuts turned out remarkably straight.

Also, the quarter-round was a little bit thicker than what I originally intended, but now that the whole project is done, it doesn't look wrong whatsoever. The posts are still probably the best part of my completed TARDIS.

[thingee]

So... one of the things that I notice a lot of people on these boards forget (myself included) along the way is that the TARDIS has to actually *stand* on something. The finished piece is pretty massive and heavy, so just putting it on the ground won't exactly give it the support it needs.

My wife picked out a nice location next to our garden in the back yard, and I started digging up the ground so that I could lay some cement stones.

1. She could have picked a more level spot
2. Digging up the ground in November? In Canada? I should have waited until spring.
3. I spent more money on Deep Cold muscle soother than I did on the paving stones.
4. Carting nine massive paving stones from Lowe's to my house in the trunk of the car lowered it by about a foot and sliced up my fingers something fierce.

Here's a picture of my daughter, helping out.

[thingee]

As a temporary placeholder for the finished full-size TARDIS, we tested out the weight capacity of the paving stones with a miniature stand-in made out of macaroni and cheese boxes.

[thingee]

Next up, I took the family over to Home Depot, and they watched in sheer embarassment as I asked the much more manly individuals working in the lumber department to cut up several large sheets of plywood so that I could build the walls of the TARDIS. We rented a van, drove it five minutes home (with my wife and daughter sitting atop the sheets of wood in the back), unloaded the wood in the garage, and then I drove the van back to Home Depot. The van rental cost less than the price of a bus ticket in Toronto. Therefore, whenever I need to take transit in the city, I have resolved to rent a moving van from Home Depot instead, as it's cheaper.

If anyone in a position of authority had seen me cutting up those enormous sheets of wood on a wobbly work bench with a massive circular saw in the most cluttered garage imaginable, they would have taken the saw away from me and thrown me in jail. It *is* a miracle that I never drew blood.

Below are my wall plans.

[deck5]

I'm really enjoying this photo-journal.  Which part of the city are you in?

[thingee]

Hey deck5,

I'm in East York - nice to see I'm not the only person on this board from 'round here!

Anyway, to build the walls, I took two massive sheets of plywood (per wall) and sandwiched them. The bottom sheet had holes cut out for the windows, and the top sheet I sliced and diced to get all of my angled cuts etc. It actually took a lot faster than I expected... but by the time I got to this point, the circular saw and I were getting to be fairly good friends. We had a mutual understanding of one another.

I'd glue the heck out of everything, and then weight it all down with whatever I had lying around as weights (usually cans of paint) and seal the deal with a few ancient finishing nails.

[thingee]

FINALLY, it was time to start assembling stuff. With the paving stones in place, I put the TARDIS base on the newly-created world's smallest patio. So far, so good.

Three corner posts went into the little slots prepped on the base with no difficulty whatsoever... AND they stood upright, by themselves, nice and snug. Awesome! The fourth one, on the other hand... that thing would simply not slide into place! I hammered, shimmied, twisted, yanked, and pulled that thing for hours and hours to no avail. You wanna know what worked? MARGARINE. No lie - I smeared the bottom part of the corner post in generous helpings of margarine, and eventually the thing went right in there.

So... for all you amateur TARDIS builders or generally clueless DIY handymen, I strongly suggest adding Earth Balance® brand margarine to your arsenal of tools and building equipment. Not only does it act as a fantastic wood lubricant, but it's extremely low in cholesterol.

[thingee]

Here's a photo of the four posts jammed into the base, with some of the walls starting to be nudged into place. See how that left-hand post is starting to fall over? THAT's the reason I strongly suggest not building your base the way I built it. The posts ended up prying the heck out of the base over time. Pretty unfortunate... it's the one glaring problem with my otherwise pretty much perfect TARDIS - one of the corner posts is tilted inward a bit, and I had to use metal braces to keep the front-right corner of the base from snapping open.

Sigh.

[deck5]

I'm in East York - nice to see I'm not the only person on this board from 'round here!

Only 5 miles or so from me.  And as I recall there's another blue box out your way, too.  Thin edge of the wedge, there'll be one in every yard soon!

[thingee]

...and here are the three solid walls in place, with a wooden patio chair thrown in for good measure. If you look closely, you'll notice the front-right corner of the base already starting to snap open.

[thingee]

Here's the reverse shot.

If you look through the window-holes, you'll notice the my yard sits atop a fairly high ravine, which is full of trees and poison ivy and man-eating plants and such. At the bottom of the ravine are some formidable apartment buidlings and stuff. I didn't think about this when I STARTED building, but in the winter time, when there aren't any leaves on the trees, people have a pretty good view of my yard and my house from said apartments. In fact, anyone taking the Dawes 23 bus down Rexleigh can see it from the street.

Imagine my surprise one day when walking the dog along that very same road, I looked up and saw my in-progress TARDIS at the top of the hill, for all to see. So much for concealing my full-frontal-nerdity from my neighbours. Ah well. I can always say it's a blue garden shed (which I guess it actually sort of is).

[thingee]

Here's my daughter... Queen of the back yard!

[deck5]

Quite regal!

[thingee]

So, I made four walls, and then took the nicest one (since it was the one that would face forward) and sliced it up the middle and made doors out of the halves. Add a few other tweaks (slicing up the edges for hinge-mounts and creating space for the door sign) and I was ready to go.

The door sign actually gave me SOME trouble - I didn't cut a 'trench' for the hinges, so the thing kept popping open. Eventually I attached a little latch to the back and everything was fine. I wanted to make sure my daughter could open-and-close it so that she could play 'lemonade stand' from within. Sure enough, as soon as the TARDIS was finished, she didn't use it to play Doctor Who... she used it to play 'lemonade stand'.