White Lamp?

[Rassilons Rod]

Has anyone noticed this before?

I was just doing some grabs from Robots of Death and I just spotted this lamp anomaly... It seems to suggest that whilst the base of the lamp is square, that the lamp itself has a circular base thats slotted into the square one...

Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake, but I've never seen this before. Anyone else??



-Marc

[DoctorWho8]

Yeah, the lamp cover was originally white.  I originally thought it was clear.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[purpleblancmange]

Yeah, not only is it white, but it has three support struts (spaced evenly) to hold the dome cap in place.  This is also the very same lamp assembly that ended up on the two 80s grp TARDIS props - yep, they had to share a lamp!

[Rassilons Rod]

I knew about various lamps having 3 or 4 struts, but not about any sharing! Is this the lamp from the Brachacki box, or a replacement built for the Newberry box in season 14?

You say that it reverted back to a navigation lamp, but it occurs to me that it would be a waste of cash to build a new one if they still had the old one intact somewhere...

-Marc

PS Purple, feel free to use it on your TARDIS library site

[Rassilons Rod]

I was starting to think it was my favourite prop too, but I can see too many things that I'd want to change...

Perhaps what I want is a Season 18 box with the original style sign boxes... Maybe I should look at the Logopolis version again...

-Marc

[purpleblancmange]

The lamp was "built" for the Newbery box, though I have no idea why they later swapped it for those other style lamps in its final years... maybe they'd thought it needed a bit of a change or they'd misplaced it - the latter tended to happen a lot because the lamp was always looked after by the FX department, while the main prop was taken care of by the Scenery Dept.

The corner posts - yes, there was a quadrant beading there on the three visible corners, but with the thick layer of artex slapped all over the place, it masked them quite a bit.  The best reference photo that I've seen of this feature is on one of the birthday cards from 1979.  Alternatively, it's quite clear in Robots of Death in the scene which the Doctor and Leela exit the TARDIS - the camera goes in quite close at this point.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm really fond of this prop and I really do want to make one.  The only thing stopping me right now is finding the correct 6" wide fresnel lens... if anyone has one or knows where to get one, I'd be most grateful.  Actually, I need two.

[Rassilons Rod]

So what would you change?

Apart from the fact that I like it, this box has the advantage of having the shorter roof, so it would just about fit in here. That said, I might have to reduce the height of the lamp base a little to make sure. And the lamp itself might end up with 4 supports, rather than 3. Or maybe not - the lamp on this box seems to have changed so often that anything would probably work :-)

Also I'd probably do something about the extra wide base of the box itself. Not that I have any problem with the look of it, but it would take up precious floor space, so I'd probably go with a narrower base.

A door handle might be a good idea, too, even though this box didn't have one.

I don't know whether they would be big enough changes to significantly change the nature of the box, though. The lamp and lamp base would be pretty much out of sight anyway, but the base and the handle might be more important. Decisions, decisions...

Rob.

Hmm, well... I'm not fond of this white lamp - actually its just the fact that its white, lol.

I'd prefer the beading to be clearer and I prefer the slightly more stacked roof of the Season 18 box. I do like the original style sign boxes though.

The redressed newberry is closer to what I'd like myself, but with clearer corner beading - and more pronounced corner caps.

It really is horses for courses though. But there are things that I do like about the Newberry box, such as the overall shape (from the sign boxes downwards).

I'm with you on the door handle though. I always liked it when the Doctor would close the door and pay careful attention to locking it lol

-Marc

[Rassilons Rod]

Here are some more grabs, from the end of robots and also from Talons - unfortunately I don't have the Hand dvd... (click to enlarge)






-Marc

[DoctorWho8]

If you notice on the bottom 3 pics, the lamp cap is backwards from the top 3 pics.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[robuk]

Here are some more grabs, from the end of robots and also from Talons - unfortunately I don't have the Hand dvd...

{pics snipped}

-Marc

Thanks for posting them Marc - interesting view of how the "frame" arrangement fits in front of the doors on the middle pic. It looks as though it fits directly on to the back of the corner posts.

Presumably it would be the same for the walls, so I assume they'd be hollow "L" shapes, perhapse with some kind of support holding them together? How wide would you say that "frame" around the doors / wall is?

At a very, very rough estimate I'd say it could be around 2 inches, based on the horribly inaccurate method of measuring the width of the corner post in one of the face on pics at about 30 pixels, and the width of the frame at about 10 pixels. Hardly scientific accuracy, I know, but I'm just looking at a ballpark estimate for the moment.

Rob.

[jona]

Here's a close-up from Robots of Death



jona

[Rassilons Rod]

Thanks for posting them Marc - interesting view of how the "frame" arrangement fits in front of the doors on the middle pic. It looks as though it fits directly on to the back of the corner posts.

Presumably it would be the same for the walls, so I assume they'd be hollow "L" shapes, perhapse with some kind of support holding them together? How wide would you say that "frame" around the doors / wall is?

At a very, very rough estimate I'd say it could be around 2 inches, based on the horribly inaccurate method of measuring the width of the corner post in one of the face on pics at about 30 pixels, and the width of the frame at about 10 pixels. Hardly scientific accuracy, I know, but I'm just looking at a ballpark estimate for the moment.

Rob.

Oooh yes, Rob,  i Hadn't noticed that frame before...

Thanks Jona for posting the closeup On my screengrabs I was mostly looking for the lamp so I didn't think about closeups

-Marc

[robuk]

Jona, thanks for posting that! Shows the beaded corner posts and frame very well indeed!

I based my estimate of the frame width on the assumption that it protruded outwards from directly behind the rounded edge of the corner post (based on the middle pic above with the right door slightly open). If that had been the case, then the sign-box shadows on the first two pics Marc posted suggested that the frame was quite wide.

This grab seems to show that it isn't like that. Rather, the corner post seems to have the same kind of depth as the posts on other boxes, maybe with the frame attached to its inner surface directly in front of the walls.

I can't quite decide on the size of the frame itself, though. At first, looking at Jona's grab, I thought it was squarish, about half an inch wide. But looking at it again, it might be a bit deeper than it is wide. And looking at Marc's pics above it still seems wider than half an inch. Hmmm, could it be that the frame around the doors was wider than that on the walls (Jona's pic seems to be a wall - no phone panel!)?

Marc, I think the frame is what gives this box a lot of its character, somehow. It's a subtle thing, easily overlooked, but it changes the whole look of the box.

Rob.

[Rassilons Rod]

Marc, I think the frame is what gives this box a lot of its character, somehow. It's a subtle thing, easily overlooked, but it changes the whole look of the box.

Rob.

I certainly agree with that. Subtle detailing is what its all about!

[purpleblancmange]

It may be worth while pointing out that this box shares many measurements from the previous prop, believe it or not.  It is in fact a direct answer to the problems that happened with the 1963 to 1976 model.

For example, the extra framing around the pillars are there because previously there weren't any and the doors were prone to coming too far forward and almost snapping off their hinges - see Spearhead from Space when the Doctor falls from the threshold.  The knock on of this framing is that the window sizes had to become slightly more narrow.

It doesn't take too much effort to retro-design this prop by using the dims from the old one.