What he said ^

Quite good how the slight modifications you have added give the box a whole new look.

Will you be posting a before and after shot?

The funny thing is, only you guys will notice it.  I remember watching the old series as a kid and teen and not noticing that Tom Baker went through 3 different props during his tenure (with the occasional model shot thrown in too)--all significantly different.  So my non TARDIS friends thought the old box looked "just like" the TARDIS.  I'm spending around $100 (not counting my time and consumables like screws, paint, and scrap lumber) for something that was only bothering me. 

And it was kind of a challenge.  Back when "Stargate:SG-1" was on the air (and didn't suck) I did cosplay of that.  Being ex-military, I thought it would be easy to do a Halloween costume of it.  I soon realized that the vests they wore were a very particular (and hard to find) vest and the jackets were custom made, based on an obscure Vietnam era jacket.  So I put together a "good enough" costume--and quickly decided it wasn't good enough.  I poked around and found a Korean company that made a knock-off vest that was close enough that it could be easily modified but the real fun was in realizing I could buy a standard BDU shirt (a size or two large) and modify that into a 98% accurate jacket (after finding a place to get the knit fabric for the collar and cuffs. 

I won't bore you with the mods I did for that but this was another challenge like that.  I'd thought I'd gotten my TARDIS pretty accurate while cutting some corners.  But pretty soon I realized the mistakes I'd made.  Initially I thought "oh well" because there was no way to work around the mistakes without tearing the whole thing completely apart but then I hit on this idea and was curious if it would work and I think it is going to work even better than I'd hoped.   

Yes, I'll most definitely be doing a "before and after" photo or two.  And looking at her this morning, I'm going to use the darker shade of blue as my topcoat.  That's about it for now.  We got the rain we were expecting so I couldn't work more even if I wanted to right now (although I may break down and work on signage and such) but in addition to the laundry churning in the back room (if I ever need a TARDIS dematerializing sound effect I may take the noises my washer and dryer make), perhaps it is time to get some groceries, tackle the stack of bills and receipts on the desk, the 124 unread e-mails, and the floors thick with cat and dog hair. 

I know exactly what you mean. As the owners though our views are most important! I was talking to a friend in 2010 showing him pictures of my in-progress build, and he pointed to the mockup SJA sign as said "what's that?". I said something along the lines of "SJA sign, you've been watching it on telly for the last 8 weeks" at which point followed the revelation that Matt Smith actually had a new TARDIS, and it was different than Tennant's, something that I had to a side-by-side comparison of to prove. Ironically half way through said friend's dad, a veteran of the pre-Who world came down and said "SJA sign? Yeah! They all have those, Aaron, wouldn't be a TARDIS without it". Didn't argue, but isn't just the perfect example proving the point?

I was secretly hoping you'd go with the darker blue! What's the current state of play with the windows? What's your plan of action for them?

I'm 99% going with the darker blue.  Blue is a bugger.  Yesterday afternoon this blue looked very good.  Almost Met box blue.  Then this morning it looked practically sky blue.  I thought I must have been delirious last night.  Then this afternoon it looked good again.  I think I'll do the Navy blue last. 

The windows, by the time I got to the front, I'd run out of grey paint.  And I wanted to try an experiment anyway, so I glued tinfoil to the plywood behind the windows.  This didn't work because it was impossible to get the foil smooth, the plastic didn't stick to it worth a darn, and as it turned out, it helped trap moisture on at least one of them.  Today during a break in the rain I popped in to check how dry she was staying and it seemed good.  There were still a couple vexing areas where I could see light in corners, but that might just be coming through the layer of silicone.  At any rate I'll be doing more work on the roof.  While I was in there I poked at a wavy bit of plywood behind one of the "windows" and it was rotted enough that I could scratch my way through to the foil.  Tonight when the solar lamp came on it wasn't blindingly bright, but up close I could see a glow through the hole, so I think I'll at least do the front two windows.  Because of the foil they should be pretty easy to get the plastic off if I come in through the front but truth be told, the ply is thin and soft enough that if I was careful with a really sharp linoleum knife, I think I could get at them from the back. 

I really don't want to empty the whole thing out, but because of my discovery of water pooling in the vapor barrier I probably should so I can pull up the floor.  Then I can create a mound of earth under the floor to cause water to drain instead of pooling. 

Last night I finished up the cosmetic structural details on the corner posts above the signs.  Today the rain held off enough for me to paint them.  In a perfect world I'd have gotten in some work with expanding foam and maybe waterproofing but there was nowhere near enough time for that. 

I need to talk about some of the fiddling details--how I'm going to light the top signs, getting more brightness out of my solar lamp in my signal beacon, construction of the beacon--but for now I'll just say I'm kind of glad I don't have time to do my final coat of paint yet because I'm still on the fence about how to paint it. 

The dark blue I bought looks really good and I could get a pretty decent early Brachaki look, but the reality is the most familiar TARDIS is lighter blue with blue windows.  Every Time Lord Doctor (even Smith, albeit briefly) has had a TARDIS with blue windows.  The actual Met boxes were lighter blue with blue windows for the first half of their lives and it is the most familiar paintjob.  Plus, it is easier to "weather."  The dark, dark blue, you really can't "dirty" it very much. 

Well, I should get going.  Next time my phone's batteries are dying I'll upload more photos.  Right now I should be doing one of the many non-TARDIS renovation things I've been neglecting. 

Quote from: volpone on Apr 22, 2014, 01:06 am
Right now I should be doing one of the many non-TARDIS renovation things I've been neglecting.  

"If you like. But where's the fun in that? Ha-ha-ha-ha."

(I couldn't resist quoting River Song for this one. )

Dino.

OK.  All the cosmetic work is built.  Still needs some more waterproofing and then I'm going to see if that thinset is still good and use it for texturing.  And of course there's the detail work.  For now the old signage is stuck on without proper mounts just to get an idea of how it looks.  Most of the window "trim" is just the original color before weathering. 

That's looking worlds ahead of before! The change has rendered me speechless, literally Seeing it with all the finishing touches will undoubtedly complete the change, at the moment it's still too easy for me to picture how it used to look.

A non-update update as we roll into the weekend:  It has pretty much rained continuously since my last work.  I mean not a constant downpour, but I don't know that there have been two hours back to back where some kind of water wasn't coming out of the sky.  Some of it has been quite torrential and I didn't have the time to finish "buttoning everything up" before the rains came.  For the first day or two it held on quite well but at this point the parts where the corners of meet the walls at the roof are quite wet inside so I'm stalled on any more work on the "hull" until she dries out.  So if I work this weekend it will be on finish details.  And that is fine because it will give me a better idea how it will look with the lighter blue before I commit to keeping the early Met box paint scheme instead of the darker blue with white windows.  I may even paint one side dark to get a better point of comparison before making the final decision. 

I roughed in the frame for the phone door but one of my cuts was a bit off so it wasn't square and I haven't had time to redo it or I'd be looking to get the phone door on tomorrow.  Well that isn't entirely true because I've still got to do some rummaging to find some plexiglass I have laying around to do the phone door--and the top signs. 

I think that's definitely a wise move to paint only one side first. The back wall of my own build is actually still it's original colour, partly because I'm a tad lazy and partly because it being pressed close to some trees no one will ever notice and it's protected from the weather, but mostly because it gives me a solid colour reference to base new choices on. You can't really get a feel for a colour until you see it on the full thing, and comparing the back wall to my first refurb I realised how actually didn't like the second colour, and comparing it to the current coat I've realised how actually I prefer the new blue much more! Point is it can change your whole perception of how nice/suitable a shade it is.

Bah. The top signs.  Kudos to the people that have the skill/patience to do them with stick-down letters.  And the people who are willing to write the check to have them professionally made.  The rest of us play a merry-go-round of catch-22s. 

Since the buggers need to be around 31" long most of us don't have a printer that will do it.  If you print on paper you wind up with a couple seams.  Transparencies are tricky if you don't have a laser printer.  And you still wind up with the seams.  You could print the white lettering and then just spray a background on it.  But printers don't have white ink.  I was hoping to do a 10% grey or maybe a very pale peach color but a close look at that reveals that it is just a halftone effect--tiny black dots on white paper--not something you can overspray with blue paint. 

So I just picked a promising color of blue, reset the font to white, and printed on my inkjet transparency paper.  I'll need to carefully spray a clear fixative over the ink and then lightly spray the back with white and then trim it all and fit it together for my signs. 

If you'll recall, my topsigns are 2x8s (now cut down to the proper size).  With the modifications they aren't as important structurally.  Still, rather than make the whole sign light up I plan to do cutouts for the writing.  Yes, this would work better with the TARDIS black background over the Met/TYJ blue, but I'm doing the blue.  I can always change it if it bothers me. 

As it stands right now, I've got the phone panel frame glued together and I've scrounged up all my plexi.  I've got my top signs printed up.  Next we cut the plexi to size, finish the top signs (paint; fixative), and finish and fill the phone panel frame ("hinges" will come later).  Then we get to start cutting holes in the hull--windows, phone panel, top signs. 

One of the other reasons I want to do light-up top signs is ventilation.  I've got a gap between the signal lamp glass and the rain cap to allow some ventilation and some ventilation from below the base but I want more.  So when I put in the "steps" above the doors, I left a slight gap under the top sign.  Once I drill holes in my plywood it will not only allow light out but also moisture (while hopefully not allowing any moisture in ).

Duh. I figured it out.  Spray white on the back of the transparencies.  Then trim them down and position them on the plexiglass.  Then spray blue on the plexi (as long as my blue spray paint is a close match to my blue on the transparencies. Pictures when done.

If it's not absolutely necessary for the backgrounds to be blue, you could go to a place like Office Max to get the Top Signs printed off. They can handle printing things up to 36 inches wide. (I just had them print our a poster for my wife. The poster was in B&W, 32" x 21", and the cost was about $8.00 US.)

They might even be able to print out all four signs on one sheet of paper since they're only about 4 or 5 inches tall. Then you'd have a really good print job and there will be no seams in the paper. They can do the same if you really need the background to be blue, but the color printout will cost more. (Not sure how much more since I've never needed anything printed out in color, so I can't help guessing at a price. Sorry. )

Dino.

I should NOT have an update right now.  I SHOULD have been asleep for 2-3 hours right now.  But yesterday was beautiful.  The weather finally broke.  Today is beautiful.  Pretty much all week is supposed to be beautiful--perfect TARDIS renovating weather--while I'm working nights.  And there's a 20% chance of rain Saturday. 

This week was mostly lost.  Paid bills, cleaned house, socialized, bought groceries, etc.  But I did start on my phone panel.  I found some scraps of old plastic I had laying around that are nicely weathered and just the right size for the phone panel and the POLICE BOX signs.  Found my transparency paper.  Modified my POLICE BOX sign file and printed up signs.  I tested my blue spray paint and it looks close, but I think I'll content myself to just trim the printouts very carefully and use them for the whole sign.

Signs, staged for spraying:


White backing:


The signs next to a test painting on plexiglass:


One cut and positioned: 


The phone panel, wood puttied.  (I was trying to make it look like the metal police box frame.  The result was...less than successful in that regard):


So anyway, why I'm not sleeping?  After walking the dog, I marked up some trim work for the POLICE BOX signs for the weekend.  Then I couldn't resist the temptation to clean up and cut away the plywood on one of my false windows.  The one on the left actually lets light through.  I can't wait to see how bright the solar light is on the panes at night.  (I also couldn't resist placing the phone panel in position.  I've still got to cut out the plywood and mount it, but before I do that I've got to get out the thinset and "frost" that panel.  And before I do *that*...)

Upgraded the other front window.  I'll post pics of the actual process when I bang out the other 3 sides.  For this I just wanted to get the window done so I could see how she'd look with blue windows.  The old "glass" was too badly damaged to use, so I used up my last piece of "glass" that was big enough.  As I pushed it onto the white silicone I got a very nice look at how it would look with white windows.  Even with the lighter blue it was so nice I'm again considering a classic 1963 paintjob.