Tony's Console Room Measurements

[rob49152]

According to the detailed plans from the outside in

6" solid
10" void
6" solid
3" void (rounded side)
6" solid

then 2'5" of rings to the centre. The rings are described as 'Lita Glass Rings to slot into ply fins'

From flat side to flat side is listed at 10'0". They do not give corner to corner measurements. Again not sure if this was built to specs or not.

On the complete set plans it says (and this is really hard to make out):
Hanging Canopy
Over - Slope
+7' - +12' <- I take this to mean that one flat edge is 7 feet from the main doors to the other flat edge which is  12 feet from the front of the fault locator set piece.  And the hex canopy is sketched out at 10 squares from flat edge to flat edge

I guess you can the say from the flat front of the wall with the doors to the front edge of the over hang of the fault locator room is +7' +10' +12' = 29'

the centre of the console is a little shy of 7 squares (or feet) from the front edge of the fault locator.

[rob49152]

ah screw it. I cropped it out.

[galacticprobe]

What I find interesting is that on the drawing it has a "support" at each corner of the hexagon going through to the round part, and while these are all visible in the photo from "The Chase", only two corners have those supports in the photos from earlier stories: this in spite of it the ceiling unit being thicker and heavier at the time.

And Tony is correct in that it was "shortened" by the time of "The Chase". You can see that by how much space there is between the bottom of those corner supports and the bottom edge of the hexagons, and how that space is gone in "The Chase", with the bottoms of the corner supports and the outer hexagon being flush. (The inner hexagon is still thicker than the outer one.)

And not that anyone is counting (or noticed it, other than me), but according to the drawing there were 7 of those Lita Glass Rings inside the round "drum" (as it's labeled), but on the actual unit there are only 6. I'm guessing, but looking at the innermost ring and the larger gap between it and the next ring out as compared to the other evenly spaced rings, the glass (whatever Lita Glass is) wasn't flexible enough for that innermost, 7th ring. So they just moved that 6th ring in an extra inch or two so they could make do with only six, without having the opening at the center appearing so large without that 7th ring.

Dino.

[Rassilons Rod]

Good man Rob

Dino, interesting comments about the Lita Glass rings

[tony farrell]

ah screw it. I cropped it out.

Many, many thanks for posting these Rob. What other wonders are you 'hiding'? 

It's interesting that these detailed plans show the ceiling unit/canopy as 120" wide (opposite side to opposite side) whereas the floor plan Rob posted shows it slightly smaller (at 118"). The 118" also appears to hold true for the two floor-plates. I've highlighted ththis apparent difference in green.



Tony

[Rassilons Rod]

I think it's just badly drawn to be honest with you, Tony. If you look the horizontal line of the Power Octagon to the top of the image falls short of the end of the corresponding Diagonal.

[timewomble]

Perhaps TX40 is glass etch? Either an etching acid or a coating that gives that effect? That would make sense for the glass rings. For the down lighters it would mean thin lines of light down along their sides (etch, not clear, to hide the lamp inside).

A quick google for TX40 etch finds (only!) one relevant hit, but it's the first one. It might well be a coincidence, however.

- Peter.

[kert gantry]

Further to Dino's post about the ceiling unit's support struts, here's another inconsistency.



Screengrab from The Edge of Destruction.  Note how the strut is lower than in the set photos from Unearthly Child; flush with the bottom edge of the outer hexagon, as in the Chase photo.

[rob49152]

I'd imagine the unit got suspended from the ceiling 'however it worked best' and the people setting up the sets didn't care to be that exact from episode to episode.

From what I've heard the BBC at that time (well pretty much still is to a degree) is that if a person was 3/4 of the way finished something and the 'whistle' went off they'd stop work right there no questions asked. So I'm sure making the unit at the same angle as before was probably asking for more than they were willing to give.

And the poor dalek operators were left in during the tea breaks because no one would help them out.

[galacticprobe]

Further to Dino's post about the ceiling unit's support struts, here's another inconsistency.

Screengrab from The Edge of Destruction.  Note how the strut is lower than in the set photos from Unearthly Child; flush with the bottom edge of the outer hexagon, as in the Chase photo.

To help Kert further my furthering of inconsistencies with the support struts, notice in Kert's image how that strut is just as thick - no, tall might be a better term here - as the walls of the outer hexagon. In 'Unearthly Child' that strut isn't as tall. Going by hypothetical numbers based on Rob's drawings, it's almost like in 'Unearthly' they used a 2 x 12 for the strut, and in 'Edge of Destruction' it has widened to a 2 x 20 to match that outer hexagon's height. (And then both were shaved down as is evident in "The Chase".)

I've said it before... if there is one thing that's consistent in 'Doctor Who' props and sets, it's their inconsistency!

Dino.

[tony farrell]

Further to Dino's post about the ceiling unit's support struts, here's another inconsistency.



Screengrab from The Edge of Destruction.  Note how the strut is lower than in the set photos from Unearthly Child; flush with the bottom edge of the outer hexagon, as in the Chase photo.

This is all very perplexing. Can I just sum up:
The Tardis set was designed and built in the autumn of 1963. The Pilot Episode was recorded on 23/09/63 and the remounted first episode was recorded on 18/10/63. Between these two dates the following seems to have happened:

The decision was made not to use the Police Box's doors as a vestibule to the Tardis set. (The front of the Police Box was then permanently fixed to the rest of this prop. The box gained a "Police Public Call Box" sign in the right hand side box, door handles and - apart from being dirtied-down - remained essentially unaltered until 1966).

In the same month (October 1963), the Fault Locator wall was built to replace the 'blow-up' photo of various light bulbs and fluorescent tubes and the TV gained a 'proper frame' to disguise its supporting wires. Like the scanner/down-lighter assembly, the fault locator was modular - and, like the scanner/down-lighter, remained in use throughout William Hartnell's tenure.




For the Pilot Episode, the photographic walls were just two printed 'canvas-type' sheets hung from the studio ceiling and either stitched or glued together. This join was hidden from view by the computer tower/light-box. For the transmitted version, these canvas sheets were re-mounted onto three 10' wide by 12' tall wooden frames separated by upright strips. These photographic frames remained in use up to 1966 when they were replaced.



Both the Pilot Episode and the transmitted version show two hexagonal floor-plates (one made of six separate metal sections and the other a pale beige single-piece plate). The beige plate only appeared up to episode two and then again briefly in Power of the Daleks episode 1 (behind the console in this photo). The metal plate was in such a state of disrepair that it wasn't used (as far as I know) after Daleks Master Plan.



In the Pilot Episode, the 3D walls had no wainscotings (skirting boards). These were fitted for An Unearthly Child and remained in intermittent use thereafter. The main internal door opening mechanism seems to have been added at the same time though the difference in the widths of the doors was always there. Apart from the removal of the bucket mouldings from the backs of two of the three walls built, the wall remained unaltered until 1966 when they were reduced in height.



The ceiling unit (canopy) remained (oddly) unaltered between The Pilot Episode and An Unearthly Child but was altered for Edge of Destruction when the fins were increased in depth and the inside of the hexagonal sections lost their hardboard (Masonite) fascias. In response to continuing complaints from the scene shifters about its weight, the canopy was reduced in height by the time of The Chase. (In the last photo both the door opening mechanisms and the absence of hardboard lining on the hexagonal parts of the canopy can be seen.)



I'll draw up plans for all three versions of the ceiling unit.

Any comments/changes are as always very welcome.

Tony

[galacticprobe]

Only one real correction... more of a trivial detail, actually. Once the TARDIS shell was fixed together for production, all of the handles on the doors were removed. That's why there is some discontinuity in the entirety of the first story as some of the pilot footage was reused. This is why the PTO door frame is blue in some scenes, and white in others. It's also why on the blue-frame PTO (a.k.a. Production shell version) there are no handles on any of the doors, but in the reused stock footage from the pilot when you see the white PTO door frame the doors have handles.

The TARDIS shell remained without door handles throughout the Hartnell era, and you can see the actors pulling on her doors' stiles to close them. It wasn't until (I think) "The War Machines" when she was given a bit of a refurb when her doors were repaired/replaced, their windows got blue frames without "window sills" (the other windows also got blue frames but retained their sills), and the right door lost all traces of the St. John logo. Again this caused discontinuity during that story as in some scenes we have the original shell (white window frames with sills all round, and traces of the St. John logo) while in others we have the refurbed shell with the reworked/replaced doors, and this happens throughout that story.

I know the door handle on the right door appeared when the PTO panel was replaced in the Troughton era, but I can't find any clear images of the doors around the time of "The War Machines" refurb to see if the right door picked up a handle that early on (but I think there is a handle on the door in "Power of the Daleks").

Dino.

[tony farrell]

As promised both versions of the Ceiling Unit or "Canopy": The first as it was seen in the Pilot Episode and An Unearthly Child, second as it appeared in Edge of Destruction and Brink of Disaster.


Tony

I feel some more renders by Marc coming on!  

[galacticprobe]

Tony, please forgive me if I'm getting too picky with the details, but I think the "canopy"'s rings would fit the screen grabs and photos better if you adjusted the spacing a little:

If you adjust them to match the red ones, and remove the innermost ring (which looks kind of "tight" in its curve), then I think the spacing of the rings would be closer to the original as-built canopy: evenly spaced for the first 5 moving in, with a slightly larger spacing between Ring 5 and innermost Ring 6.

Dino.

[Rassilons Rod]

My only whinge is that the distance of the voids are missed off