A Met Box Build

[Jam Jar Lurker]

Sad to see, but good to know it's in safe five fingered hands.

Francïs

[fivefingeredstyre]

Today's progress. Doesn't look like much; however there is about 10 years worth of paint layers and abortive weatherproofing that I've just taken off



Just letting some rot hardner go off over night and then I've got filling to do tomorrow

[Volpone]

It does have a nice weathered concrete feel right now. 

Your workmanship is magnificent.  This is another build I cannot let my TARDIS see or else she'll be jealous. 

That said, I would have to put a traditional Fresnell back on it.  It is just too jarring to my OCD tendencies to see such a conventional Met box profile with the iconic Hartnell lamp. 

[fivefingeredstyre]

That said, I would have to put a traditional Fresnell back on it.  It is just too jarring to my OCD tendencies to see such a conventional Met box profile with the iconic Hartnell lamp. 

yeah, but I do have a soft spot for the Hartnell cylinder Lamp...

[fivefingeredstyre]

Todays progress.

Hopefully I've got rid of most of the lumpy texture on the roof that has been bugging me for the last 10 years...

Just waiting for some sealant to cure overnight and then i'll slap on some grey undercoat and that will be one side down!

[fivefingeredstyre]

OK, this update is not for the faint hearted...

I've been working on the right hand side of the roof this weekend and found some more rot...











Have to admit the rot on right hand side of the sign box caught me off guard a little; however much digging out of mushy wood, rot hardening and filling later its looking like this...













I'm going to leave the woodwork exposed for a few days as for some reason the middle roof tier is a little wet. The forecast is supposed to be sunny, at least until Wednesday so I'll make the most of the good weather and leave it ventilated to dry out...

And just because it looks a little prettier from this side..

[Volpone]

"You're arm's off!" 
"No it isn't!" 
"Well what's that then?"
"It's just a flesh wound." 

[fivefingeredstyre]

"You're arm's off!" 
"No it isn't!" 
"Well what's that then?"
"It's just a flesh wound." 

Ha!

At this rate I will be on course to be the first person to have a Police Box made solely from filler...

[russellsuthern]

LOL!

Your TARDIS will be "Triggers' Broom"...

The more you dig, the more problems you uncover...

This is why I try not to dig too deep!
I fill the obvious cracks. A coat of roof sealer, a coat of gloss & fingers crossed for another year...

I salute your dedication to doing the job properly!!

Looking forward to seeing the finished result. 


Regards,

Russell

[fivefingeredstyre]

LOL!

Your TARDIS will be "Triggers' Broom"...

The more you dig, the more problems you uncover...

If there's one thing I've learned it's that if you don't go looking for it, it could be too late... 

I just want to get the roof finished so I can crack on with the inside. I've promised myself I'm not painting the outside blue until I've finished the interior, as I know that I'm so lazy I'll move on to something else as soon as it's all blue again. That's why the inside is so grotty at the moment I meant to make a start on tidying it up a couple of years back and never started it because it looked fine from the outside!

Hopefully by stripping everything back to bare woo£ I've caught as much of the rot that is possible to see and I won't have to do this again for a few years...

Fingers crossed...

[fivefingeredstyre]

OK, not the most thrilling of updates as its mainly made up of pictures of bare wood and an object that looks pretty much the same from all angles; however I've finished chasing rot around (for the time being...) and sealing the outside...















and we now look like this...



Next weekend I will hopefully make a start on cleaning up the inside. (Once I evict all the Spiders  )

[moonbeam]

That does look absolutely beautiful, there is just something magical about the met box design, and a proper shame that out of all the numbers that existed so little remains.

[fivefingeredstyre]

OK, its been a while since I updated this thread.

If you recall when I last updated I'd not long lifted the box up in the air and put it on 15mm Acrylic pads to give the underside some ventilation and help the box to dry out.

Basically the plan was to let the box continue to dry out over the winter whilst I build an office in the garden for the Girlfriend to work out of; however Storm Eunice came to call back in February and this happened to the house as her parting shot...



As you can imagine, this put me back a bit as I had to organise the repair work...

And then we got COVID...

Once we got over that I had to make a start on her ladyships office. Which took a while, but actually looks lovely.







(I'm not going to take all the credit for that though. The manufacturers built it, I just did the inside...)

I also had to respray the back end one of one of my cars as well, which set me back a few more weeks...

But. All in all its been a busy 10 months, and all the while these distractions were occurring my Police box has been happily drying out even more, which has also been helped by the heatwave we've had this month.

So now its on to the fun part...

This is what the box looked like once I'd stripped the rotten wood from the inside.



I know, right... Total horror show!

The posts that were designed to hold up the roof had completely rotted through at the base level and the roof was effectively only being held up by the outer corner post cladding! I'd also broken out the old floor as well, which was completely rotten through



As an aside - all the while this was going on, this nosy bugger was keeping me company!



Anyway... Over the last couple of weeks I've set about patching the inside up, and it now looks like this.





I've strengthened the rotten post by adding another 3x3 post each side of the original and replaced the cross bar post underneath the sign box. This is secured with massive screws through into the original posts at higher level which I'm hoping will be more than enough to take the weight of the roof...





Once I finished painting the walls I replaced the rotten floor structure (remembering to sit this on more acrylic pads) and set about laying in the floor panels.

Unfortunately I've hit a lull here as I'm waiting for floor ventilation grills to arrive, and i'm not laying the floor in until these have been fitted.

So consequently, this is as far as I've got...





I've still got loads of work to do yet. As the outside has been drying out for the last 10 months or so cracks have appeared everywhere, so I've another round of chasing around the box with filler to do before I start to make it blue again. But that wont happen until I've finished the inside and reinstated all the electrics.

No rest for the wicked...

[fivefingeredstyre]

Actually, I fibbed...

Amazon arrived with the floor vents and hole cutter, so...



There's some tidying up to do (you can't see it there but there are a lot of screw heads that need filling and some paint that needs touching up) but its feels like progress getting the floor fitted...

And here's how we are currently looking

[moonbeam]

That's looking so good! I don't know if I've missed it in previous posts but what plans did you use?