Foam Core Model....Start.

[freakstardis]

That...In short...Is amazing!!!

Macros, I'm very impressed and excited. One of the things I've wanted to do before I die is to build a TARDIS, and while I want a full sized one of course, I have no skills in carpentry. No tools either.

Looking at your foam core build however has inspired me. I think for a test run I'm going to follow in your footsteps and try to build a half-scale foam core version. That way I can use this upcoming summer to practice.

I know that you know your build is awesome. You have eyes, plus everyobne here's told you already. Add my voice to that though, plus I thought you might want to know how you've inspired me.

Amazing!

[macros]

Hiya Freaks Tardis!

Thank you for your kind words! Its fantastic to know that i have inspired you to go ahead with a foam core model. It makes me feel i have truly contributed to this forum....and given back. Which was one of my goals. I have gained inspiration from this and other sites(kiwiDoc)....and without them, and the great people involved, i may not have even considered doing a build.

Its been very insightful and rewarding experience for me. I will take the knowledge i have gained from this build and improve on the old. Like yourself, i am planing a full sized blue box. This build was a mish mash of idea's/ models. I would like to eventually build a full sized season 12 Tom Baker replica.

I hope your project goes smoothly, and wish you the best of luck. I am looking forwards to seeing your progress!

Oh and remember!!! Time "IS" relative till the top light goes on your build and starts to flash. 

[freakstardis]

Macros,

I have a couple of questions. First off, "foam core" is that stuff that an art teacher would mat pictures with, right? Or is it something different? Thicker perhaps?  I looked at Wal-Mart last night and I found a sheet of what my old art teacher called "matting board" and it seems like what you used.

Second, for really long pieces like cornerposts, did you have to join two pieces together? If you did, how did you do it to make so that the join is not a weak point? I'm going to try to make 1/2 scvale of the plans that I have, which would make my cornerposts about 45 inches tall. The long side of the mattboard sheet is 30 inches, so it seems that I'll need to splice two pieces together somehow.

Thanks you in advance for any help you have to give.

[macros]

Heya FT,

Foam Core (Foam Board) has the same type of card quality as the matting, but its at least a 1 cm width including the foam in between. So its really something different from what you were describing. Elmer's produced it for awhile and so did x-acto. I got mine from store called Micheal's and it was on sale for 70c per sheet 20 x 30 x 3/16". Hope that helps you out there.

For the thicknes of the corner posts i glued 3 equal strip lengths together for each corner. This was all done by eye so i was just guessing, and only to the edge of each wall. As you can see from earlier pics there was a gap and the posts didn't meet. To strengthen the corners i used a long strip of 1" x 1" balsa that run the complete length of the gap. Once that was all in place i found some pine corner moulding that fitted exacly over the balsa and met the sides.

Glued that into place and filled where the sides met the pine moulding with fast drying wood filler. Sanded it back with a B&D mouse sander (had to be careful not to rip in the surface of the foam core while doing this) with a fine grit sandpaper.

For added support i used 3 layer foam core blocks inside the box to hold it together which added strength to the corners before i had filled them.

[freakstardis]

Thank you, Macros.

We have a Micheal's here. I think I'll go there on my way to the comic book store tonight. The store is having a showing of "Father's Day" and Micheal's is on the way there.

Balsa wood too, eh? Facinating. I'll look into that as well.

Thank you again.

[freakstardis]

OK...I looked at foam core sheets, and I found the thicker stuff that you mentioned. I also looked at balsa wood and x-acto knives and such.

My plan at the moment, and it makes things more diffucult for me then they need to be, but I'm going to make each indvidual board of the plans that I have and try to put it together. That way it can literally be practice for a later date when I have the money, tools, and space to make a full sized build.

Anywho...I don't have enough money to buy any supplies until this weekend. I don't have time this weekend, being involved in a Tables, Ladders. & Chairs match Saturday. I fully expect to be too laid up on Sunday to do anything. And the next weekend will be a ren faire that I promised to take my wife to...But soon. Soon, I'll be ready to start, and when I do I'll be sure to put a ton of pictures here.

[macros]

Hey Freak,

Its good to hear you found the materials. Stroke of luck you had  Micheal's near you too! I didn't really know where else i could tell you to get it from. My wife mentioned to me to go check it out. As i said the stuff was dirt cheap when i got it on sale. Get  bunch of X-Acto blades...you'll know why! 

[nik]

Your FC Police Box is quite impressive. I have also decided to use foamcore to build a full sized TARDIS. You can find some of the phtos of it on the TARDIS Builders Guild MSN group.

I have been watching Dr. Who since about 1983 or so.

This will be my 3rd full sized police box.

I'll post my progress as I build.

'

[macros]

Hiya Nik,

Thanks for the kind words. Seems to be a popular choice of material. Pretty easy to work with once you understood the nature of the FC and have a good supply of x-acto blades. Hope to see your progress thread soon! I still haven't completed my build yet (small details) and i have the itch already to do another more detailed build using the knowledge i gained from my first build.

[nik]

It won't be all foamcore of course. There will be some wood veneer here and there and some wood framing, like for the door and such and molding in other places. But more than 90 percent foamcore, my supply of which came out of a dumpster. Not small pieces either, but large 4 foot sections and the like.

And not the kind with soft white paper, but the really tough stuff with the hard brown paper.

I'll be finishing up the roof section this week.

L8R tardis engineers!

[macros]

Sounds good Nik! 

[macros]

Hiya all,

Welp....finally found a suitable flashing LED circuit and installed it into the lamp. The kit comes unassembled so you have to solder the components to the circuit board. Still looking for a suitable shade for it  Anyways if anyone's interested in the link i got it from...here it is:

http://www.hobbytron.com/vmk102.html

The LED's flash timing is controlled via a pot on the circuit. It comes with 2 x red LED's and had to leave one out from the plan as they do not flash at the same time. Also noticed that when one was removed it broke the circuit and nothing happened. So i bridged the missing LED with some wire and hey presto! Now....whats next on the chopping block lol 

[ironageman]

That's nice - you can vary the flash rate.

(It's got me googling for one similar in the UK but no luck yet; they're all fixed one-second flashes, and if that means half a second on and half a second off then it's too fast.)

[macros]

Heya Ironageman,

Ye the flash rate is quite flexible with the pot adjustment. It meant something  to me to get a flash rate i was happy with.  I have noticed its been varied throughout different seasons of the show. I imagine everyone would have there own opinion on what works for them persoanlly. If anyone wants to go ahead and try this unit out i would advise mounting the LED at the lowest possible point. The circuit in mine i have underneath the top light assembly. The LED poking through a hole in the base of that. Doing this increases the spread of light.

[nik]

For the most part, I think foamcore is greatly underestimated. I built my first tardis way back in 1983 from scrap lumber.

It appeared in PBS pledge breaks (then, Public Broadcasting Stations were the only carriers of Dr. Who), at sci-fi conventions and had a pretty good run. Some years later I built another one and did pretty much the same thing with it. What I can say about both is that they were extremely heavy and cumbersome to move around to sci-fi and Who related events. Eventually, I simply got tired of moving the thing around.

So it has always been in the back of my mind to design and build an ultra light version.

What spurred me into action was the deplorable shape my wood box got in from neglect (some photos of this appear on the Tardis builders guild).

Now, there happens to be a lot of variety for how to build your police box. Different signs, different lamps, different phone cupboards, different sized roofs, and so on. Most of the people who have built police boxes seem to want to model their's after a particular one.

Me, well I'm an old theatre set builder, so I usually build things from that perspective. I'm an avid Dr. Who fan and love the new show maybe even more than the old series. But the featured tardis is my least favorite. If I'm not really looking at it close, it looks fine. But the dimensions of the thing just seem wrong (no dimension puns please). For one thing, of all the police boxes that have appeared in the movies and series, it resembles a real police box the least.

I understand why they built it that way; the doors are a bit larger for easier ingress and egress for the actors.

Probably my favorite police box was the one built for the FOX/BBC movie (the movie itself was a bit of a let down though). Which reminds me, there is an issue regarding the tardis key, which has never been adequately dealt with yet. Their idea was that the "arrowhead" key was inserted into a slot underneath the "facing" of the yale lock. UGH!

Throught the history of the key, it has switched back and forth between the Yale key and the arrowhead key since the arrowhead's introduction in The Planet Of Spiders.

If it had been mine to do, I would have it so that the key was "camoflaged" just like the tardis, so that to everybody but the Doctor and his compoanions, it would appear to be a Yale key. But the Doctor would always see it as the arrowhead version.

The reason the FOX/BBC Tardis is my favorite is because it is by far the best compromise between other police boxes that have appeared over the years and a real police box.

Also, if you take a look at my police box, you'll see that it has touches from the Tardis during Tom Baker's era.

In my Dr. Who collection I have both a Yale key and the arrowhead on the same chain.

Happy dematerializations friend!