Richard's Smith/McGann TARDIS

[rocket]

32C here today, should be hitting the 40's in a few weeks time 

[Rassilons Rod]

-50 I heard once, from Rob S...

[superrichi1a]

I was mean't to be going to the Alps this February. But, The Doctor Who Experience got in the way. I managed to placate my girlfriend by promising to take her to Spain in June. She was fine with it after that (actually, I reckon she didn't give a damn, she loves Doctor Who too, she just wanted to go to Spain and for me to pay lol ).
Anyways, I have been graciously told by the radio station that tomorrow in the West Midlands that "The Big Fella up there will be taking a dump", ie: I'll have my snow craving satisifed at last. And iGoogle seems to think I'm going to be getting a lot of snow by the end of the week. Meh, we can all hope, right?
I've been trying to post my resin McGann Sonic thread, unfortunatly, I'm too lazy and lost interest yesterday when my girlfriend (wow... 2 mentions in one post, she's getting famous lol) mentioned that she hadn't seen the new Harry Potter yet and that I should take her. I'll post it later when I have more time, but, in case anyone see's this first. What do you think? My cast has gotten a bit mishapen during finishing, and I think it'd make an excelent "ravaged" Time War Screwdriver/ Does anyone have a particular desire to see a weathered classic sonic?
Peace and Snow Be Upon You

[drew30]

aha. a canadian here. lol. we got snow. we've been getting snow for abit now. too cold to even think about working outside. plus i live in an appartment so even thinking about building a tardis is just out of the question for me right now unless i can find someone with a heated garage or a heated basement. but the idea of making a snow dalek instead of a snowman is an excellent idea. you who fans have all kinds of great ideas.

[galacticprobe]

How about a snow TARDIS? (What would you call that, a SNARDIS?)

Dino.

[superrichi1a]

Aaahh, fun, but no point lol. The one Crispin did a few years back would instantly put anything I could do to shame!

[galacticprobe]

Damn it, Crispin! Why do you have to be so good - at almost everything, it seems!?

Dino.

[superrichi1a]

Well, evening UK peeps Happy lunch time to all Americans and good morning all Austrailians. *Thought just struck me- For you guys it's only 2 days till Christmas isn't it? Hehe. Any of you live in Melbourne? That's where my brother is at the mo. *
Anyway, this will be the first of 2 updates tonight (this lunchtime/ morning whatever), and there will be one tomorrow (hopefully).
I've pretty much stopped work on the Police Box until Janruary, but I thought I'd fill you in on a few of the minor things that are going on. First off, I have decided to slow the whole build down, with a deadline of next Spring rather than as soon as possible. This is because, well, that's when the next series of Who starts, and the whole idea of having the box finished for Christmas was to be able to watch the Christmas episode with it sitting in my back garden. Well, that won't be happening now, so the next best thing is Series 6. Because of this, I've taken the liberty of trying out a few cosmetic changes to the doors, which I won't bother mentioning, because you'll all die of boredom if you havn't already. The main thing is though, I've been toying with the idea of adding frames around the sides, new series style. The original plan was not to bother, as I have McGann-style corner posts I thought I could get away with it. Now, with my extended deadline, the question has arisen again. Do you think I need to bother? I did a quick test and thought it looked OK, but perhaps unnecessary and made the sides look too slim. I don't know, I may post some pictures in my next update in a few hours. Rightio, that's it for part 1. Wasn't that interesting? No, I didn't think so either. Ah well, I'll have something more interesting to report in a few hours. And more interesting still to report tomorrow (if all goes to plan)

[superrichi1a]

I'm seriously considering re-doing part of the base. I'll post up some pictures later but this "surgery" I mentioned a while back is not going well at all, It'll look quite ugly I imagine. My problem is that with the paint added to the MDF panels, the doors won't open very easily. This is because there were paint ridges around the edge of the panels that act as a door stopper, and even without them the doors do scrape aloung the floor something horrible. My plan is to remove the MDF panels, and replace them with some thinner ones, so there is a slight recess in the height of the base panneling as compared to the sides. I will take some exterior ply wood and place that over the MDF, creating a nice looking effect and hopefully helping it to fare better in the weather. It's a good weekend's work, but I hope that I can get this box finished soon.
I'll have a quick Merry Christmas post later, I've got some rather nice pictures of various snow-covered things to show you, so, yup, see you then

[superrichi1a]

Thought I'd post some pictures of what state the box is in at the moment, to bring together all the mismatched posts of the last month or so.



That shows the sides, with one coat of preservative (I added the second and final one today). They survuved the cold Christmas weather in an unheated garage pretty well actually, not really had any problems. I am very pround of my roof, which, unknown to me until yesterday, has been sitting under a huge leek in the garage roof - and I mean a big leek! I checked for water damage, expecting the worst, but, nothing, it was fine. You know what? I'm starting to think this box might survive in the British weather better than I thought... Not going to let that deter me from extra precautions though! I'm giving each part of the box 2 coats of "Cuprinol" wood preservative, and 2 coats of MDF primer for the MDF parts. On top of that, I am considering adding 2 coats of "Dulux Weather Shield". This is a undercoat designed to protect the stonework of houses from the elements, but I figure it can't go too badly wrong with wood, I have a friend who used it for his garden shed, and so far, no problems, fingers crossed! Has anyone ever used this for a TARDIS? Be helpful if anyone else has got some experience... not holding out much help though... Anayways, either Weathershield or 2 coats of some sort of primer, to even out the colour coverage and add some extra protection. On top of that, there will be the blue... I'll get to that later...



Here we have the ugly surgery on the base, which is necessary to let the doors open. Yes, it is VERY ugly at the moment, but needed. As I stated before, I may need to replace the panels, but, I'll sand this down, and add at leadt 3 coast of MDF primer on top of it and see how it looks. I don't think it will be too bad once it's all smoothed out an covered up.



Now we reach the main reason for my update : "A Lovely Shade of Blue"

Actually, that picture up there is useless, because my camera's colour levels can't really pick up the differences between the colours, but, hey-ho, just pretend
These are the final 3 colours I tested, out of about, 12 I think, and 11 of those 12 colours turned out to be a disappointement, there was nothing particularly wrong with them, they just weren't "my blue". Here, we see 3 colours. Dulux's "Wild Water 1" and "Saphire Springs 1", and Cuprinol's "Iris" wood stain. Iris is the one on the far left, you can just about make out the difference from the other two. As it happens, Iris is an all-in-one preservative and stain, but I'm not to bothered about that, because it will be applied over an undercoat. The Dulux paints were both nothing like I expected, they turned out nothing like what the sampler cards were showing. Far too light for my Smith TARDIS, which needs to be a deep, rich blue. "Wild Water 1" may be a good choice for other boxes, "Ozzywald" has used it to great success on his box, just, it didn't fit with mine.
Iris, on the other hand, was a bit better. I expected a wood stair to be runny and not much use as a paint, like the preservative I used, but no. It went on like a charm, and came out with a very interesting colour. A deep, matt blue. I'm still not sure if it is right, in some ways, it looks right for a Tennant box, in some ways, a Smith box, so, in the proper daylight tomorrow I'll scrutinize it, and see if I think it is suitable. I may still use the correct "Subaru Liberty Blue" to paint, but, the problem is, it is very expensive. Nothing I didn't expect, but, simply too much to buy enough for two coats, which I think are needed to help stop fading and scratching. The other issue is, it is car paint, and my not work well with exterior wood.
What do you think about using Iris? It's a wood stain, I believe, not a paint, but, to me, so far, seems fine. If need be, I was thinking of putting some sort of varnish over it to protect the colour, but I'm not sure how necessary it will be.
Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
RIchard

[superrichi1a]

I've been giving the "Iris" sign panel extra coats (3 I think now) and I am really starting to think I have found my colour. I'm still not sure if it is more of a Tennant box or a Smith box colour, but I don't think that actually matters all that much, as perhaps it has elements of both shades in there.
I have also been rethinking my weatherproofing strategy. I outlined my original plan in the previous post, but, now I'm not so sure... The "Cuprinol Garden Shades" woodstain is designed to be used on (preferably) pre-treated wood to help prolong it's protection, and obviously lets a nice grain show, in fact, it works the same way as the Subaru paint in the way that the wood absorbs it in exactly the same way, so you get the two-tone grain effect without really trying. I'm thinking, if I go ahead with a undercoat now, it may mean that the Iris shade doesn't work as well. I really need second opinions on this, because the descision is driving me nuts. Do you think, that with two coats of preservative (MDF primer in the case of MDF), with two or three coast of Iris layered on the wood will be protected from the elements well enough for say... 1 - 2 years? Obviously I plan to give the box a check over every 3 or 4 months, and perhaps an extra coat once in a while, but, what do you think of it's chances? OR, do you think I need that undercoat, and I should look into other painting methods? I really need help op this one guys. I'm sure others have faced similar decisions like mine - a small descision that spirals into something huge.

In other news, I have had a massive breakthrough with the signage. I discovered that I actually have a local sign manufacturer, something which never really occured to me, I always thought I was going to have to go into town to find some big warehouse or something, silly me!
Anyways, I went to see them after work yesterday. Oh, I wish you could have seen their faces! There was a very nice woman at the counter, and, her son was with her, probably no one at home to look after him that day I'd imagine. Oh, it was picture perfect! I walked into the shop, and she smiled and asked what I needed, at that point I faltered, wondering how one asks for Police Box signs for a TARDIS to be made. I just decided to say it outright "Eeerrmm, I am building a life-size TARDIS and was wondering if you could do the Police Box signs please". The woman just looked at me, then gasped, and said "Really?!?". Best moment of building a TARDIS yet lol, but, what followed was even better. She took the details of what I needed, and I showed her several pictures of what exactly it needed to look like, then, as I was to leaveing through the door, this child, who has been pretty quiet so far, just blurts out, voice squeaking with excitement "Muuumm. Was that The Doctor?". Took all my self control not to burst out laughing. Haha, priceless!
Anyways, yeah, not got the signs yet, but, I have ordered 4 signs of forsted acrylic with matt blackout vinyl over the top, the usual Didn't coast as much as I wwas expecting, as roughly £95, and I'm told I'll get a call in a couple of days when they're ready, so yeah, happy with that. Afterwards, I'll have to get some thin perspex and cut it to sign size and place it infront to create that "glass" effect, much like the "vinyl sandwitch" that they use on the 2010 prop

[DoctorWho8]

Richard, do a search for my PDFs for the signage in the TARDIS reference section.  That should save her grief on making them up.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[superrichi1a]

Hehe, thanks Bill, but, I was already using them, if you don't mind Lucky to have them, too, I'd have had no idea where to start otherwise, so, thanks for that!

[DoctorWho8]

That's cool.  It just sounds like you didn't have them, but hey, it's all good.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[superrichi1a]

Overjoyed at the moment
The TARDIS signs are ready to be picked up, so, yeah, I'm gonna go get them tomorrow after work It's taken 5 days to have them made up, 2 of those days, the shop wasn't open, so, 3 days, don't think that's too bad going! Sorry, rambling a bit here, just that this is a big moment for me, what with the trouble I've had with finding a place to do it.

As an afterthought, when getting signs made up, do people usually have matt black covering (I assume the blue would be matt anyway) or gloss? It was something I was wondering as I was ordering them, as, probably a silly mistake by me, I'd never thought about it. I ordered matt, which, even if it was mean't to be gloss doesn't bother me all that much, I'll be using perspex to create a glass effect anyway... just interested 's all.

Richard