So I started a new project yesterday!



The wood is 3mm MDF, cut with my trusty laser cutter. Except it's not so trusty anymore. I was meant to move to High Wycombe during the summer. I didn't, but that didn't stop my stuff ping-ponging from High Wycombe to London for a little while. The laser has been parked in my new garage for a while, on it's side, and generally being neglected and collecting dust. These Christmas holidays started early for me, so I took the chance to set up the laser again and cut the Brachacki model I designed about two months ago.

When replicating the Brachacki Altered, or the Brachankenstein, you need to draw a line on the damage and the wibbly wobblies you will include (unless you're Scarfwearer, of course). I ironed out a lot of the wibbly wobblies (off-centered top signs, badly hung doors), but as it turns out, a laser that has been neglected for six months without any proper sort of maintenance cuts a little off...



Believe it or not, these doors are designed to be the same height. But the laser decided to do its own thing and make them different heights. In other conditions I'd be terribly angry, but in reality this actually makes my model closer to the prop. "Serendipity", as Russell says Dr Jones would say!

I did fix the laser, but I still had a collection of slightly off pieces. I could assemble it, but the top is a nightmare. Horribly misaligned and a terrible roof fit. I attacked it with some sanding before taking these pictures. I'm still not done sanding the top to make it straight.





But since I suspected I was going to do an awful lot of sanding, I thought I might as well sand the base to do the chamfered edges. I wasn't planning on doing this, but I think it makes a big difference.



And now, the doors. My original plan with the model was to go full-on Scarfwearer and have it so it could go through the transformations the Brachankenstein went through the years. I decided against this in the end, because, as impressive and tempting as it was to have a fully transforming Brachankenstein, I knew that in the end it would spend most of its time as it looked during the Troughton era, and I'd only change it to a more Pertwee-Baker style if I ever got Tom Baker to come round to visit my house. HOWEVER, I still kept some of the features I designed for that and my doors can do this:




The doors have holes in the back and they have these inserts with the phone panels:


They slot in the back, in whatever position I like, so I can achieve any look of the 60s! Forgive me on how the back looks, it needs to be cleaned.


Many things to do yet, but I'm actually quite proud on how well it's looking at the moment.

Cheers!
Andy.

You should be proud, mate!


That's awesome work!

Really good!

Can't wait to see more.

Russell

I love that "mécanisme" you came up with for the changing doors.
I thought i'm having it hard with my matt smith box's lamps

The model is now ready to be painted. I had to remove the signage to keep working on it (it was only held with some sticky tape).

The first thing was the steps underneath the sign boxes. I was worried sick about them because I don't have thinner wood to cut to make the steps. My only option was to cut them with the 3mm MDF and sand it down. I've been sanding a lot this model, that was not a problem. I even sanded off the drip sills of the windows. But the steps would need to be very thin, one millimetre or so. So, I went for the nuclear sanding option and got the Dremel. Should have gotten the Dremel out sooner, it would have saved me a lot of time.

Anyway, so I got some pieces of wood looking like this:



Very pleased with the results. And the front steps have the clover leaf stoppers!



Let's see how long they last before I break them...
And I also glued the corner post quadrants. By the end of yesterday, the box was looking like this:



This morning was the time to attack the lamp housing. It's mostly very simple, just a square of wood on top, some struts on the corners made from toothpicks. The problem is the dome on top. I looked around the house for something I could use for the dome, but no luck. So I fashioned my own.

It was actually quite simple: I cut three wood circles with a decreasing diameter and glued them together.

And then I used the Dremel to sand it into a dome. A bit wobbly and rough dome, but a dome at the end of the day.

So I assembled the lamp housing and used some paper to double as the lamp. The paper was just a rough mock-up, but it'll probably be what I use if I can't find a plastic cylinder of the right size.


These are all the pieces, ready to be painted and finish the model.


Just one problem.

I need to remember where I hid the paint!

Cheers!
Andy.

Looking great.
Can't wait to see the paint go on.


Regards,


Russell

I can wait to put the paint on.

I wasn't looking for an accurate paint job. At least that's what I thought. Because I have read a lot in here about matching paint, and so I thought that I'd just look for a close enough blue because if I were looking for total perfection, I'd never find it and I'd never be happy with the model. But when I got to the shop, I rejected each an every single shade of blue they had in offer. It turns out I was looking for a an accurate paint job!

In the end I settled for a shade of blue. The paint itself looks very season 11, but they had this bit of wood that was allegedly painted with the shade I chose. It had darkened and gained some greyness, not quite but close enough to the colour pictures from "The Abominable Snowmen". I don't trust much these samples of already dried paint, but I thought, just in case, I'd give it a go.

But even if the paint does end up looking as the sample in the shop, I'm thinking of getting some other blues and trying to give it that patchy and that "The stagehands keep abusing the prop and we need to repaint some bits of it with whatever blue we have handy" look we all know and love!

Quote from: scotland yard on Dec 30, 2020, 07:53 pmI can wait to put the paint on.

I wasn't looking for an accurate paint job. At least that's what I thought. Because I have read a lot in here about matching paint, and so I thought that I'd just look for a close enough blue because if I were looking for total perfection, I'd never find it and I'd never be happy with the model. But when I got to the shop, I rejected each an every single shade of blue they had in offer. It turns out I was looking for a an accurate paint job!

In the end I settled for a shade of blue. The paint itself looks very season 11, but they had this bit of wood that was allegedly painted with the shade I chose. It had darkened and gained some greyness, not quite but close enough to the colour pictures from "The Abominable Snowmen". I don't trust much these samples of already dried paint, but I thought, just in case, I'd give it a go.

But even if the paint does end up looking as the sample in the shop, I'm thinking of getting some other blues and trying to give it that patchy and that "The stagehands keep abusing the prop and we need to repaint some bits of it with whatever blue we have handy" look we all know and love!

at this point in the show, it as been patch quite a lot, so i think if you have to touch it up, it will look even more the part. i'm pretty confident in you handeling it.
good luck any way and cheers^^

First things first, but not necessarily in that order, happy new year!!

Second things second, I suppose! The paint I bought did seem to darken, but it turned out to be a result of being in the evening in a poorly lit room  . Silly me! I decided to use the first shade of blue I got anyway as an undercoat. The box looked very season 11-12, which I quite liked, so I might will attempt another Brachackenstein from late Pertwee-early Baker at some point down the line. Back on topic.

Applied the blue I got as an undercoat, then time to get some more blue. Wickes is the nearest place to me that hasn't gone bankrupt or is closed that sells paint. It's not the most conventional place to get model paint, I know, but it was either that or not finishing the model until next Christmas. So I went for two of their shades of blue. But it turned out alright (I think). Well, I mean, of course it was going to be alright, the paint on the real thing wasn't very good...

Signage was applied, the glass for the windows was sourced from a bottle of milk I butchered. Not quite pebbled, but similar enough for the time being. The doors were hung, and the model was done.





And this one just to do your head in!


The doors open.


More pictures (because I can't stop photographing this thing!)




And the obligatory black and white pictures.





I'm really proud of how it turned out. But I've already identified a number of things I'll tinker with. But because the next time I'll be able to work on this will be next Christmas, I'm calling this provisionally done.

Cheers!
Andy.

That looks amazing.
You should be proud.
I know what you mean about the pictures.
Whenever I complete a new build I take a gazillion pictures of it, then I think, "Which ones do I post?"
Then I think , "Sod it, I'll post 'em all!"

Believe me, you can post as many pics of this box as you like... It's fantastic!!



Best regards,


Russell

So... snow!!

It would be a shame not to post (some of) the pictures I took on the snow.





I don't know why, I wasn't a big fan of the PTO sign on the wrong door. I didn't dislike it, but it has grown on me quite a lot actually! Most of the time the box is set with the original phone panel in the right (right as in "right or wrong", not "right or left"!), but I think it's fun to take pictures with the phone panel on the wrong side, because it's not a very common sight and it makes it a bit different to the norm, really. And I'm okay with that, because I'm a rebel 

Cheers!
Andy.

Oh geez... Who's the model builder from the early days of this site?  Doesn't post anymore so all his threads are buried and dormant.  This takes me back to some of his model shots.  Very nice.