Scotland Yard's transforming Newbery TARDIS!

scotland yard · Jan 17, 2023, 09:43 pm

So, yesterday I've decided to start another TARDIS model!

Behind the scenes, I've been doing lots of models I haven't posted here (I'll post them at another time!), and I've been getting the hang of it, so I thought I'd challenge myself and make a Newbery model a la scarfwearer, being able to alternate between its regular look during the Tom Baker years and its appearance in Logopolis! After all, the only major things that changed was the roof and the signage. How hard can it be?

So, after some designing and some laser-cutting, I came up with this:

*Changing signs

The sign boxes are separate from the main build. They are double-sided, to allow for the two sets of signs, and will be held to the main body via magnets. They are built using three pieces of wood, the piece in the middle having a hole to allow for one magnet. The clever thing would of course to have made holes for 2 magnets so I could flip the sign on itself, but the truth is that I only had 10 magnets and if I wanted each sign box to have 2 magnets, I would have needed 16 magnets and I wasn't about to go and buy 6 more magnets

The magnet in the middle of each sign box:

Then, the next bit of course is putting the magnets on the TARDIS's main body. The box itself is built using a layered construction, so one of the layers has a hole for the magnet.

Since I'm only using one magnetic connection per sign, meaning I can't flip signs on themselves as the magnets would repel, I had to mind the polarity of the magnets I put here, making sure there were two norths and two souths facing outwards so I could swap signs out with other sides while also flipping them all, allowing me to have the two sets of signs I need.

*Changing roofs

The roof is its own separate piece. I was keen for the TARDIS to be self-contained - I wanted all the different pieces to fit inside the TARDIS so having two sets of roofs was a no. My solution was to have a double-sided roof: on one side there's the Newbery roof and on the other there's the TYJ roof fitted in Logopolis. The roof will sit on top of the main body, loosely secure via a tight fit.

*Putting it all together

Much to my delight, I only started this project yesterday but the blue paint moment is almost ready! So naturally, I expect to finish this in seven months

But putting it all together, we have the main body of the TARDIS, lacking a permanently attached roof and top signs:

We can magnetically add the signs:

And we can put the roof on, in both configurations:

I personally like both looks, kind of. The short roof is definitely very odd. Some days I think it looks nice, some days I think, hmmmm, maybe not

. The TYJ roof on the Newbery does look very nice thought, and I'm glad I'm making it work so that I can have both options.

pockets · Jan 21, 2023, 03:22 pm

Nice to see something posted in here, It's been a while . Good job so far by the way.

scotland yard · Feb 05, 2023, 12:38 pm

Of course, life got in the way!

The TARDIS was missing its quarter quadrants. Now, I usually just use full quadrants because it looks so similar anyway but I thought that for the Newbery, the quarter quadrants is an integral part of the look. I didn't have any quarter quadrants so I did what any sane person would do: ~~buy quarter quadrants~~ take some skewers and use a laser machine to chop them in four

Then I glued them, and started painted the TARDIS in its first coat of blue. It's looking like this now:

I haven't finished painting it, this is only the first coat of blue, and it's a tad too light for my taste. I'm trying to mix a slightly darker blue for the final coat.

pockets · Feb 10, 2023, 12:36 pm

Wondering what colour blue you have mixed ?

Volpone · Feb 10, 2023, 03:48 pm

It's a bit trickier when you're trying to do a screen-accurate replica, but I always say it is almost impossible to go too dark on the blue. Pick the darkest blue you think will work and then go at least a shade darker (IMO). It's also nice to have multiple shades of blue for the classic series' TARDISes and then intentionally do a bad job of getting coverage with each successive coat. The different shades of blue really work nicely on a full size box. Models, the effect could be trickier to pull off. I don't know.

scotland yard · Feb 10, 2023, 09:36 pm

I'll agree that most times, dark blue is the way to go, Volpone. As long as it doesn't verge into being fully black, you can't go too dark but you can go too light. That first shade, "cerulean blue", the tube said, was too light, too garish, too much like a cheap toy. But I certainly think that the light blue season 16-17 paintjob works on the Newbery.

I know what you mean about the different blues and layers. On my big Brachackenstein model, I used three shades of blue and intentionally did a bad paintjob. I didn't really try to do it with this model because I didn't think it would really fit it, although I'll definitely return to that technique in the future for some of the other TARDIS models.

I'd like to post how's it looking like at the moment but the lights in my house just don't do it justice - I'll have a rant on lightbulbs on another time - but the end of this model is on sight!

scotland yard · Feb 13, 2023, 07:41 pm

*Blue

So, first thing first was to mix the shade of blue I had in mind. I first tried to mix the light blue I had with black, but no matter how little black I mixed in, the blue was coming too dark and grey for my liking, so I eventually decided on mixing the light blue I had with a dark blue, on a roughly 2:1 ratio (light blue/cerulean: dark blue/ultramarine).

*Lamp

The model has a single lamp. It just sits on top on the roof. Both sides of the roof cannot have their own dedicated lamp permanently attached as then the TYJ roof would stick out too deep into the TARDIS when the Newbery is in its classic configuration. This poses a problem as the Newbery lamp was white for all its existence but was painted blue for Logopolis. I decided to paint it blue because I preferred it like that, even if it makes it inaccurate when the model's on its standard configuration. The separate nature of the lamp allows me to go back and do another lamp in white if I wish, or maybe the police car light!

I cannot make a fresnel this small, but to achieve something in the same spirit, I cut three pieces of acrylic and glued them together:

Then I glued that into the base of the lamp:

Then I put the struts of the lamp. They're toothpicks

. I didn't chop the pointy bits off (yet) because that'll help later...

... to insert the lamp cap - the struts go through the cap so it's better fixed in place. I could cut the struts to size at the beginning, but it's much easier to put the cap like this and then cut off the bits that sticks out.

*Doors

The doors have 3mm dowels doubling as hinges round the back.

The floor has holes for the dowels...

And so do the walls.

I put the doors in and I glued a piece of wood in the wall in both doors, in front of the dowel resting in their gap, to secure the doors in place.

The U-shaped things sticking out of the walls are there to put on some clips to lock the doors in place should you want to:

When those clips aren't being used to ltock the doors, I can put them in some clip holders inside the TARDIS, on the back.

The clip holders on the front and back are both at the same height, more by necessity than by design. They need to be able to clear the TYJ roof and, as you can see here, there is very little room to spare! This is also a cool photo, a TARDIS roof inside the TARDIS

scotland yard · Feb 13, 2023, 07:57 pm

*Configuration madness

So by the end of it all, everything painted, windows done, and signage applied, the TARDIS looks like this:

And then you can put all that together to make the classic Newbery...

Or you can do Logopolis...

It's super easy to switch back and forth between both configurations, just take the lamp off, take the roof and put it upside down, put the lamp back on, and swap the police box signs! And of course, there's nothing preventing me from setting it up differently from what the Newbery actually looked like. We can do for example, Logopolis Newbery with regular signage.