I'm glad the Tardis mostly survived. 

Well it seems my box has taken a few beatings during it's two years service - we're approaching it's two year anniversary now so I thought I'd take a look into how I can revamp her and inject a few changes.
I've got a comprehensive refurbishment course worked out, hopefully to be finished by September. This will be a complete conversion into one of two things: a "McGann style TARDIS" incorporating a whole new roof, lamp, sign boxes and door step detail, as well as paint and windows, or, a "Tennant-ish" style conversion, this will continue my trend of "hybrid style", incorporating trimmed down doors, a thoroughly reworked roof, new lamp, new windows, new lights and new paint - which conversion actually takes place will be decided by July 19th, as that is when I'll find out how much holiday I'll be getting (ie: more time = McGann).

In the meantime, seeing as the lifespan of this TARDIS in it's current form, much like the titular Timelord, is coming to an end, I decided to post a couple more glam shots in the sun - as well as a last-minute addition I thought might be a fun way to send this TARDIS incarnation off with a bang!

I feel your pain, my box is on it's 3 rd year and i have some major reconstruction going on

Richard, Scott, I feel for you both. You've both got great TARDISes and I hope the repairs go fast and smoothly for both of you. (And I like that "BAD WOLF" touch - reminiscent of that scene from "Aliens Of London/World War Three".)

Dino.

Thanks guys - refurbishment so far has been a bugger. I thought this time why not make it a bit exciting?
The BAD WOLF was indeed designed to mimic the Eccles episodes, it's a touch I quite like actually
I've been drawing up plans for one of the possible refurb ideas I could use - the McGann. I've totally redesigned the roof and sign box sections, but, almost as if by magic, I've discovered my hybrid Tennant-Hartnell measurements for the main box are nearly spot on to the McGann! I'll post up my schematics tomorrow once they're all checked and tidied up, and I've got some new photos of what is currently inside my box to show you *wink to Dino there*

Quote from: superrichi1a on Jul 08, 2013, 05:38 pm
*wink to Dino there*

The suspense is killing me! (But I guess you already knew it would be. You just love doing that sort of thing to me! )

Dino.

As far as refurbishing the inside of my TARDIS goes, I'm quite excited about it! Recently we've been working on this:



It's a foam "Iron Man" suit designed with the "Pepakura" software (still in need of paint as of this picture). What some people have done is also build plinths and display stands for their suits in the style of the film.
The inside of my TARDIS, which previously has been used to house things like tools, spare material and the occasional inflatable Dalek, will now become one such example - with a twist! What I'm working on is a display plinth incorporating light-up roundels that will "appear" as the entrance to the TARDIS. I'm explaining it badly, but there we go!



There's a print-screen of a quick and dirty Sketchup model I did to convey the idea. It's not really a good representation to be honest, but hopefully it makes more clear what am saying.
Work on this display is well underway and has been for a number of weeks, although postponed now until the refurb is finished. Playing my cards pretty close to my chest on this one, I don't think I'll post any pictures of it "in progress", partially because this is TARDIS Builders and not IRON MAN Builders, and partially because I'm not sure yet if it'll actually work. But hopefully that'll make clearer what my plans for my TARDIS are!

As my TARDIS stands awaiting refurbishment (I'm still drawing up the plans for revisions - I want this time to make sure EVERYTHING is planned correctly before I start), I thought it would be nice to take a few more photos as it stands now, but this time in the stormy weather that has hit the UK! I was hoping to get a clear shot with some lightning behind, as it was pretty frequent earlier, but I suppose that was a long shot anyway!

Hi guys,
Following on from my post yesterday about last ditch attempts to preserve my ailing TARDIS for as long as possible (thanks for your kind words Dino, I wish de-lamination was all the problem! That's just one of the ailments afflicting the roof!) I've got news!
This was a one-day conversion for the exterior of my TARDIS. Turning it from this (picture taken yesterday morning):



To this:



The main noticeable difference of course is the weathering. Thanks to Slidin_Sidewayz for his tips here! I was aiming for a much more heavily weathered look than most boxes, using mud-browns, metallic greys and jet blacks. The brief was "Time War TARDIS" - I pictured in my mind's eye John Hurt being forced to drive the TARDIS to it's limits through endless battlefields with no let up - and this is what I came up with!





The full list of jobs I got completed yesterday is:

- Clean box, sand it down.
- Seal all cracks.
- Remove all signs and windows. Remove Lamp.
- Paint 2 coats of Dulux Weathershield Oxford Blue (the sun was beating down and it was very hot, the paint dried almost instantly!).
- Give a murky wash to darken paint.
- Add a mud brown weathering.
- Add metallic grey weathering.
- Add black weathering.
- Add 2 coats of satin yacht varnish.
- Clean all windows.
- Add weathering to windows.
- Re-attach windows.
- Clean signs.
- Cover signs in laquer.
- Re-attach signs (front POLICE needs doing again)
-Clean, rebuild, and repaint lamp.
- Weather lamp.
- Fix handles.
- Fix broken window (last job of the day, hence why it is still missing in one picture).

When I finally finished and breathed a sigh of relief, I was greeted by this sight:



So hopefully I've done enough to help my box through the coming year, if the news is to be believed we're going to continue getting more and more snow every winter, and hotter summers so really it needs it!
I'm also doing a one day conversion on the interior, adding new lights, painting it all in Weathershield, adding a scrim in the roof, and adding interior decoration (either replicating the current console room or adding in pictures of a personal favourite of mine, whichever option is open to me), but that can wait until next week! I'm totally burned out! I need a big long rest and lots of cake! So I hope you all like my new-look TARDIS, I'm much happier with it now, and it's lost that air of fragility

And just a little extra thing. I just knocked this up in 5 minutes. Nothing special photo-work wise, it's just a really quick job - but I thought it would be quite fun. My TARDIS in it's natural habitat:

A couple more photos from today. Firstly, the repaired window:



I've nailed the struts in place this time, and screwed the plastic in with far more screws than were necessary. So hopefully this window won't need any further attention... EVER!!! *maniacal laughter*

And secondly, not a revolutionary picture, but a big moment for me nonetheless. After nearly 2 years being out of service, the mighty lamp shines again!



I've added some reflective discs into the housing this time so it has more of a solid glow, rather than just having an obvious bulb. The photo was taken as I started cleaning out the inside for work on the interior of the box.

I was a little apprehensive at the first "weathering" photos, but it is growing on me.  And if you do decide it is too much, you can always "dull it down" with some blue paint.   

Thanks Volpone! Yeah, I was thinking whilst I was doing it that this level of weathering was a bit unorthodox and not to everyone's taste. Personally I really like it, as it fixes in my head the idea that my box is from the Time War, however, essentially, it's just a practise run for the NST I'll be building next year, which I'll use slightly different techniques and colours for, and to a much lesser extent.

I know I said I was burnt out, but hey, I got bored, so started on the interior today! I'm going for a 2013 console look inside, and here's how I got on (obviously not finished). I had a budget of 0 for this, so I had to think outside the box on how to decorate inside my box



Note the arch in the back, which will soon be decorated with Gallifreyan writing and surround the image of the console room to adorn the back wall (basically its a rough replica of the arch on the set but turned around to face the front). Also the conduits on the side walls feature removable panels over the windows which can be removed easily when the TARDIS is lit up.



You can see in these pictures how the windows look from the inside, and also how I quickly marked out the positions of the panels on the inside of the doors. This was just to make it slightly more screen accurate, I was thinking of cladding them in hardboard but then decided I could put it to better use.

And finally a couple more photos of the exterior from new angles and in different lighting conditions:





(And for archive purposes, a repost of the Time War picture)



I now need to think about how to put a graphic of the console room up in the back. I was thinking of getting a large poster of it printed out, but the cost is astronomical! (suggestions welcome here!!!!! !!!! !!!!!!!)

Richard, your "weathering" right now looks more like the TARDIS did in "The Snowmen" - very much so! So rather than as a result of being in The Time War, you could always say it's the result of a (couple of?) hundred years of sulking in isolation after having lost some close friends, one of whom was a Roman Centurion.

Dino.

Thanks for that Dino! That's actually very heartening for me, as when I was doing it I had a picture of "The Snowmen" TARDIS in front of me, and it was only later when I realised that that dash across the right door looked like a battle scar that I thought "HHMM, Time War!" and pretended it had been my plan all along