Steve's First TARDIS

[steve1419]

I've been wanting to build a TARDIS for quite a while now, and after stumbling upon this site I thought I would give it a go.  Since my woodworking and painting skills are pretty subpar, i decided to do a non-era specific, solid wood model to get my feet wet.

First I made a sold core by gluing together four 2x2 wood blocks.  I then attached two sandwiched corner molding pieces to each corner that I found in the Home Depot trim section.  In my stupidity, next time, the inside trim piece goes higher, but oh well, we're just experimenting here.  I then started framing out the doors and windows with tiny balsa strips from my local crafts store.  Again, nothing scale specific here, just eyeballing everything and hoping for the best.




I made the sign boxes by just framing out tiny balsa strips that I cut with a hobby knife.





The pain in the arse windows

[steve1419]

The hardest part for anyone like me with no skill is the roof.  Thankfully Wood putty fixes a lot of poor cutting and sanding mistakes.

[steve1419]

Paint going on






Pain in the arse windows again

[steve1419]

Just printed the door and top signs on a high quality laser printer off of the reference section and glued straight on.  Then did a little weathering with a small amount of black paint and a Q-tip.  Door lock was just the cut off head of a penny nail.








Still looking now for the right parts to finish the lantern.

All in all, this was a great time getting my feet wet, and definitely has peaked my interest in making a larger model (as soon as i get a table saw, router, etc.) lol.

Lessons learned:

1 - On solid models, paint the windows first, then glue on the frames.  I thought I had a steady hand but trying to paint inside of the frames resulted in a sloppy mess.
2 - Patience.  This should be fun.  On small parts like cutting the window frames, I found myself getting tired, and rushing through some of it, resulting in sloppy cuts and poor gluing.  Just do small chunks at a time to keep it looking clean.
3 - Test fit before gluing and make sure things are clamped and tight after.  My whole model is slightly tilted because the core I glued shifted a millimeter or two while drying.  This resulted in everything else being more difficult to glue and fit.  Again, see rule number 2.

I would definitely appreciate and tips, criticisms, etc so my next build turns out great, thanks all!

[Rassilons Rod]

Great build!

I think in the last one that the windows look a bit bigger than the panels, but I can't tell if that's just the angle or something...

[galacticprobe]

I think that might be an optical illusion created by the brighter windows and the (smaller) light PTO sign. When I zoom my screen in to get a closer look (albeit it does start to pixelate if I zoom in too much), the edges of the windows in both photos do look like they're even with the edges of the panels.

Dino.

[steve1419]

I would say given my modeling skill they are probably uneven, or that I may have blobbed more paint over the edge of the pane making it look bigger.  Whatever I make next will definitly be better planned, and i will take my time to avoid any poor measurements.