Meanwhile... back to shopping. There is a used theatre prop store in Auckland that I've been to in the past. Had a look there for fluted Roman columns, a quarter round which can go into my right front and rear and left front corners to both cover the gap in the width of the back and left mirrored walls and to reflect these columns to create eight in total, based on the mirrors. Pleased to find that they have polystyrene/styrofoam ones at 2.1 m high and .55 m wide for only $4. Or more durable plastic ones for $50. I'd have to cut them into quarters, lengthwise, which will take some thinking how to do. But c'mon, four dollars!

Collumn D looks good enough for the Masters Tardis.

Another good day on the box. Missed yesterday since the power company were doing work on the lines but they postponed in the end so missed a good springtime day. Did a bit of work on the placement site, burying cement blocks to stem off future erosion issues.

Today, however, was a major step forward. I routered the three wall squares at last. Easier than I thought. A tip is to rout an inside square in a clockwise direction. Outer squares are done counter-clockwise. I did each square in two passes since the first pass can leave excess material and a rough cut. Now I have to decide if I'm happy leaving the corners rounded or to cut the square by saw. That would be a lot of work. I might just do the doors cut square. Not many people I know would examine the back and sides. Steve Jobs had the insight that a rounded square is more appealing to the brain, perceived as a single object.  A squared square makes the brain look at each of the four edges independantly and assemble the square mentally.

Then I cut my eight door squares, yet to rout. But that will be an hour or less tomorrow.

Minor panic as the two doors together looked short widthwise in comparison to the walls, then I remembered I left spacing for the hinges and the gap between the doors. All good.

Raining all day today, so I'll do some sanding of the cuts/routs in prep for the gluing, screwing of the front and back sheets later in the week. My objective here is to clear all the plywood walls and doors out of the garage floor so I can set up the table saw and its receiving table (same sawhorses and single sheet of ply) and get the base/flooring and column pieces cut and glued/screwed.

One design solution is to sink the floorboards into the base rabbet, leaving the thickness of vinyl flooring to make it flush to the top of the base. However, this would extend the vinyl outside the wall and door profile, allowing for rain egress inside, with no drainage. My solution is to cut vinyl thickness strips of 45 mm wood to inset the strips exposed to the elements. Nice wood to paint.

The columns are L-shaped and get screwed into the two edge floorboards before they are screwed to the base. I'll also use two L brackets to further secure the columns and floor. That small thickness of vinyl will be added to the column height to account for the bit which is slightly below the base top.

I'll make up the first roof tier square to brace the four columns square and free standing. Each tier rests on small blocks inside the column interior angles, and each subsequent roof tier to allow for easy screwing of these members.

I know this is a lot of text jargon, but photos will follow when I get the work done.

Beats having a load of unworked wood in the garage. Feels like the work starts to snowball nicely once you get going.

Quote from: Oor Wullie on Aug 31, 2022, 06:29 am

Column G, although WAY TOO TALL looks like one of the wooden plinths from the 60's TARDIS

Good day's work laminating the front and back sheets of two of the walls. I need more 15 mm screws as each wall takes 150 screws, more than I thought.

Some key learnings. Never open a bottle of gorilla glue before you intend to use the lot. I'd used a small amount to glue a shelf in the fridge and found today that the top glue had hardened and I had the jab a hole in the crust with a nail to get it out.

When you screw glued sheets, start at one side and work across or you can get bowing in the middle. I had the first wall with some bowing in one of the muntin rows but unscrewed it and knelt on it as I rescrewed across, much better. I think I'll wood putty the squares before painting to ensure watertightness.

I put glue everywhere and hadn't realised the window insets were 12 mm recessed. Some scraping with a chisel once dried.

I pre-drilled the screw holes in the back sheets, all three walls at once. Makes screwing with a drill easier and no thought required of where to put a screw.

All in all, I'm happy with the job. One wall and the doors to go.

Reposting those dud photos

Its looking good.....! That Gorilla glue is a pain in the proverbials. I bought some a couple of years ago to do my boot heels with and yes; I opened it, and then when I got the heels and was ready to do them, the whole thing had set hard! (I ended up using super glue and milliput as well as a hammer and nails. The repair was good, but needs doing again now!)
  Wood putty on the other hand is great stuff! I've recently done my back door and my window frames with that. Works a treat along with a few coats of paint of course!
  From the way you are doing your walls, it looks as if you are doing this job much the same way as I put my miniature boxes together.

Every Doctor needs a loyal K9. Here's mine saying "Affirmative, Master. Computing, but there is insufficient data."

Finished the three walls and two doors lamination. 2-D at the moment but on our way to the fourth dimension soon.

K9 got treats for posing so nicely. Good dog! My second best friend.

And yep, Andrew, that gorilla glue is a monster. I picked up some Selley's outdoor wood glue, nice and white and liquidy. So much easier than the gorilla glue I did the first two walls with.

Had a revelation as well, that whatever glue you use, you should store the part full bottle upside down to stop the top surface from hardening. My theory anyway, which I've now done with the Selley's.

Looks like you are making great progress & I love the pooch!!


Russ

Yeah, Thats looking great! Exciting when you get to a stage like that. You can start to see the thing in the real world at last! ( Squeezing itself into this dimension!)
  The K-9 is great too, what did you make him out of? (!) Good idea about the glue too!

  Andrew

It's midnight at the oasis (been watching Marco Polo) so, before I send my camel to bed, I've been problem solving a design difference between the plan and my actual need.

Sign box issues are hairy. His plan basically uses two pieces of 45x160 mm timber. One outside the columns and a shorter one behind it as an inset which meets the wall. The acrylic signs just sit on top and get frames by some small moulding. There is no lighting of the sign.

I had followed his design for the acrylic dimensions, which calls for a 20mm border around the printed sign.

My thought was to groove a top and bottom piece, slot the border edge into the groove and then groove the edge blocks to take the outer borders.

So I hunted the hardware store's website for timber at a 30mm thickness, 20mm for the groove and 10mm left over for the outer boxing.

Standard timber doesn't like to play ball but I always seem to refind DECKING as an option. Low and behold, I found the perfect pine decking, smooth both faces, 32mm thick so I get a solid 12mm beyond the 20mm groove and it's 138mm wide. I need at least 108mm for the 45mm outside the column plus the 45 of the column thickness plus the wall thickness (18mm for the walls and 21mm for the doors plus 20-30mm inside the box for weatherproofing. So if I rip trim the roundy edge of the decking, I'm spot on.

The only issue is an extra 10mm top and bottom of the sign box. I can live with it. Plus it's H3.2 so little chance of the rot had I boxed with plywood.

The end blocks are standard 45mm thick and I have heaps of scrap.

The moral is, always consider relatively cheap, yet strong, decking as building timber. The dimensions generally suit where building timber doesn't.

Regarding my last post on sign box wood thickness around the sign, I've dug deeper into the plan I'm using and see that my 32 mm decking is perfect. His surround frames are actually 33 mm, although that does not agree with his other drawing of the full sign box. If his text is 115 mm deep, as is mine, a 33 mm border, top and bottom, make the box height 181 mm high and his full box diagram shows it to be only 155 mm.

So think for yourself, don't just follow a plan blindly.

My next step is to draw a full sized schematic of the relationship between the sign box, the column, the column cap (25mm) and the first roof tier, before I cut any of them. I'll post this drawing later.

Boring, but I got the walls and doors sanded yesterday, both the wood putty seals in the squares and a general once over of the faces. Ready for a dusting and paint.

I remeasured my wood stock to certain the sign box construction and had a Homer Simpson Doh! moment when I found that my tier 2 and 3 wood was the same decking of 138x32 mm that I need more of for the sign box top and bottom. So off to the hardware store for more wood.

Late night diagram of a corner where post meets sign box, capping and roof tier 1. That tier sits on top of the sign box and rises only 90 mm. I could opt to make it 120, but it looks good enough. Compare that to a Met box zoom on the fb TARDIS Owners group.