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60's Wall/ Door roundel discusion

Started by Rassilons Rod, Nov 18, 2011, 12:51 pm

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BeeblePete

Quote from: mechanoid on Nov 24, 2011, 10:01 pm
Just watched 'Edge', where Ian is in front of the doors which are opening and closing, with info text on, and it says about the doors that "They were built on a welded metal framework"


I was just thinking yesterday that the panel in this shot looked awfully thin to be anything other than heavily painted metal. It would certainly explain how the flats lasted fourteen seasons.

TARDIS wainscoting 13 (3S) ref.jpg

Even more of these flats were made (or partially made) for Time Monster, then you can see they cut one down to two columns for the Three Doctors set, which is door sixcol flat, sixcol flat, twocol flat. After that bits are used in odd ways until their final appearance as corridor walls in The Masque of Mandragora.

BeeblePete

Quote from: croooow on Nov 25, 2011, 12:16 pm
It's also used as a wall extension at the end of "The Rescue".
vlcsnap-2011-11-25-06h47m04s141.png


That's a fantastic shot! The reason I love it so much is that it canonises the notion of a proper 3D control room wall with more than six columns of roundels :)

kert gantry

Nov 25, 2011, 08:20 pm #32 Last Edit: Nov 25, 2011, 08:26 pm by kert gantry
Big thanks croooow.  Those grabs of yours prove what I said when I started this blimmin' subject.  Most notably; in your final pic from The Rescue, if that had been the door section re-used as the wall extension, the zig-zags of the left-hand door would be visible on the far right of the screen. They aint.

mechanoid

Nov 25, 2011, 09:18 pm #33 Last Edit: Nov 25, 2011, 09:19 pm by mechanoid
I've just been watching "The Chase" (OK, I know, but I like it!) anyway in the first episode when we first encounter The Time Space Visualiser, there is a section of the presumably photo blow up wall side ways on as in the right of the picture here. It is probably artefacts of the quality but it seems to show some 3D relief where the roundel meets the cut and also a slight depression in the mid point.  I don't know if thee is a better shot later on as I have just seen this......wall.jpg

BeeblePete

Quote from: mechanoid on Nov 25, 2011, 09:18 pm
photo blow up wall ... seems to show some 3D relief


An entertainingly distressed edge of photo blow up but my very little brain says that's all. Someone closer to that studio session than I could disagree. Me, I wasn't born then :)

- Pete

celation

There's a very interesting picture from the Mandragora corridors thread, which supports some of the theories of wall-building:

VTS_02_1-1_MOD.jpg

You can see a little patch of the inside of the roundel has chipped away, which supports the idea of each roundel being lined with a curved piece of thin plywood - as put forward by exleo. This also suggests that the plywood is inside and attached to the edge of the roundel - which makes sense. So - it seems the walls were two sheets of ply with holes cut; more than likely braced in some way; and the holes lined with thin ply.

Kind of makes perfect sense, really - when you think about it.

Perhaps there should be another thread for wall construction... Perhaps there already is?

Rassilons Rod

Dec 03, 2011, 06:07 pm #36 Last Edit: Dec 03, 2011, 06:09 pm by rassilonsrod
On my "Invisible Enemy" floor plans, it specifically says about the doors:

QuoteMetal workers to make new DD/flat to take existing doors 3300 x 3000.
Doors to open simultaneously. Door gear mechanism as discussed with
"Zircon". Fit existing shallow F/Glass discs to flat & to doors.


So metal certainly seems to be an option.

I really must get this thing scanned at some point. Unfortunately my old scanner has a big serial cable and my computer only has USB... Will have to see what I can do about that.
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

croooow

Quote from: rassilonsrod on Nov 24, 2011, 12:43 am
That is one wall, one blow up, and one set of doors. There is another wall too.

That is a great shot, though :)

It is, however, interesting to note that by the stage of "The Daleks' Master Plan", this wall had not received any casters as yet.


I think it lost it's casters rather than never having any. Both walls look like they originally had six (two left, two center, two right) but, in the fourth episode of "The Chase" the wall they use is missing it's left side ones and possibly its center ones as well.
vlcsnap-2011-12-03-18h51m43s133.png
You can see the left side is on the floor while the right side isn't. The remaining casters probably broke off or were removed not to long afterward and they kept using it without casters.
"I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid, and I went ahead anyway." - Crow T. Robot, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie

galacticprobe

Dec 04, 2011, 07:36 am #38 Last Edit: Dec 04, 2011, 08:15 am by galacticprobe
Quote from: celation on Dec 03, 2011, 05:32 pm
...which supports the idea of each roundel being lined with a curved piece of thin plywood - as put forward by exleo. This also suggests that the plywood is inside and attached to the edge of the roundel - which makes sense.

Steaming and bending ply for all of those roundels would have taken a lot of time, effort, and of course money. Not to doubt Exleo (he's right on so many things), but could these roundel linings have been those thick cardboard tubes that are usually used as formers when pouring concrete pillars? The tube walls are at least a half inch thick, maybe three-fourths of an inch. (My family was in construction and I remember as a kid easily climbing through the "cast-offs" when the tubes were cut, so they're definitely large enough in diameter to serve the purpose, and they're already round. They'd just have to be cut to length, and not steam bent.) These are the tubes I'm talking about: http://www.sonotube.com/products.aspx. And here's an image of one so you can see the wall thickness:
Sonotube.jpg
(You could get at least four, maybe five roundel linings out of this short guy!

Quote from: celation on Dec 03, 2011, 05:32 pm
So - it seems the walls were two sheets of ply with holes cut; more than likely braced in some way...

On this one, since the walls were only about 8 inches thick, wouldn't the rigid, round lining of the roundel opening have provided some bracing? Whether ply or those thick cardboard forming tubes, they would have been short enough to be sturdy enough to provide support for the walls. (On the cardboard tubes, while I can't remember how thick the walls of the tube actually were, I do remember grown men - construction workers - stepping on them with their full weight, and the tubes never flexed. Surely that would be strong enough to provide structural integrity, wouldn't it?) Plus you'd have the solid end on each side of the wall, and the solid bottom, which you can see in the photos, to anchor the casters (until they vanished, though I doubt they'd stay vanished for long; those walls wouldn't be easy to move without wheels). The tops of the walls look solid also as evidenced by the half roundels, so you'd have a six-sided "cube" (four walls, a top, and a bottom) with the honeycomb structure of the roundel lining. That alone would be strong enough without bracing. Even if the back of the wall was open, with the two solid sides, solid top and bottom, you'd have a set wall that would have been strong enough without bracing?

After all, when you look at the photos, there isn't really any room to fit any bracing inside the walls; the roundel linings would get hideously in the way.

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Rassilons Rod

Dec 04, 2011, 09:00 am #39 Last Edit: Dec 04, 2011, 09:01 am by rassilonsrod
I see your chase photo and I raise you a "Power of the Daleks"
power10.jpg

and an "An Unearthly Child" ;)
d1-1a-011.jpg

I suggest they were originally caster-free, gained them, lost some and had them replaced :)
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

Rassilons Rod

Dec 04, 2011, 09:10 am #40 Last Edit: Dec 04, 2011, 09:15 am by rassilonsrod
Dino those tubes look perfect for the job :)

They appear to come in 24" diameter and a 3ft length would get you 6 roundels. I believe they were 6" deep, right?

Shame there's no pricing info though.
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

Rassilons Rod

Dec 04, 2011, 09:25 am #41 Last Edit: Dec 04, 2011, 03:43 pm by rassilonsrod
That other image is from a rehearsal I think, because the Doctor is not wearing the full costume. But it's definitely aUC, (not the pilot) you can tell because of Susan's clothes. I also offer this shot from the end of the serial where they still do not have casters.

d1-1a-c125.jpg
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

celation

They do look excellent. "Industry standard for more than 50 years" the website says. This definitely looks like a possibility.

Nice find Dino! :) And you're right, of course - a wall with cylinders bracing it all the way through would be very strong already.

galacticprobe

Dec 04, 2011, 05:23 pm #43 Last Edit: Dec 04, 2011, 05:30 pm by galacticprobe
Thanks! I know the actual site has nothing about pricing, but I think I saw on a Google search that the tubes are sold at places like Home Depot, Lowe's, or the like. And being around for more than 50 years means the tubes were available in 1963.

Slicing one of them into roundel-thickness pieces would be far faster than steam bending plywood to make the linings, and I think would have fit more with the time constraints and budget allowed at the time.

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

BeeblePete

Quote from: rassilonsrod on Dec 04, 2011, 09:00 am
I suggest they were originally caster-free


Notta bitta vit - they most likely had casters from the start. The 'casterless' look in the early serials is just the seamless wainscoting. In the wainscoting thread you can see the caster-height gap in the pilot is then covered for the premiere episode. Thereafter things looks nice for a while until, as you point out, the wainscotings and casters start their comings and goings...