Mobius's Baroque Victorian French steampunk art-nouveau closet Tardis build

[DoctorWho8]

Actually, it's an octagon. It's got 8 sides.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[mobius]

an octagon was easier to make than a circle would have been, and the medallion I'm using is basically octagonal. I googled hexagons, twice I think, and even saved the file as "hexagon.jpg" (underslept), rather than calculate one, I printed one out, cheating I know, but it ended up taking way longer than doing it by hand would have, for me anyway. d:

today I finished the top of the doors, middle layer, and primed those, as well as painted over the caulk I applied yesterday, cut out the outer edge of the emblem frame, and sanded it, had to chisel a tiny bit in one spot inside for the plexi glass to fit in easily, but snugly. that was easier to cut than a circle would have been as well! my pal Dave who works with me sometimes offered to gold-leaf it, I think it is gonna take a beating though. was planning on painting it blue, but maybe gold, hmm. what do you think? also it just occurs to me I could make the emblem light up too. just cut a hole behind it in the door...might do that. has anyone ever done that? I could be a pioneer! 




vent material just leaning behind vent panels, plan a, put on wax paper, paint outside blue, flip once dry, spray paint inside white. I like the brass tho. what to do?



the walls are getting heavy, toyed with ripping them in half behind the yet to be installed central mullion/stiles, although I have some centred screws I'd have to remove and replace first. I probably won't. I could hinge them and use the hinges as joining plates, tap out the pins to take it apart, I am not moving this thing once it's in place until I move, and after that, never again. one hopes.

stand by for adventure in the amazing year 400 Billion!

[warped in storage]

Today, I was having lunch when the Idea struck me: Why don't you use one of those antique petrol lamps as a top beacon for your tardis? Mare steampunk than that, I can only imagine steam boilers made of copper...
  For the logo to light up, I thing it woulg be just as easy (unless you make the hole round) as the light up effect of the top and PTO signs on the 2010 Tardis, maybe someone who owns one of these can help you.

[mobius]

more concerned with if I should make the emblem illuminated, than how to do it, I can figure it out, thanks tho. as for the lantern, I keep seeing awesome things but I'll only have 4" of height for it so a jam jar it shall be with simple home made cage for it. will make it taller when I move (in a few years). its going to bump the ceiling too. I know that sounds pretty stubby, but its better than nothing, must have a light on top! was going to work on her today but I had an epic soap opera CF of a day. hopefully tomorrow I can get something done!

much thanks to those following my unusual build. still a ways to go, but just seeing those blue panels is making me very happy.

[mobius]

Captain's log, Stardate: 3-7-14 Friday

look what I found in my workshop!



a bunch of long thin rectangular cut-offs from some cherry -actually it was a munton project come to think ot it. 3/8" x 9/16" and easily twice what I need to make window frames and muntons. I hate to paint cherry though. maybe I should just stain the egg and dart trim I'm going to put on the frames to match and not paint them. Cherry is very steampunk. lol. seriously tho, I think it is.  fortunately theres no central authority to report to, the  ministry of steampunk has no authority over me. this thing isn't really going to be especially steampunk, but a bit. there will be no exposed pointless gears. I may wear a top hat in it, but I don't put goggles on my top hat. (because yeah, people in the 1800s wore top hats whilst welding or flying in aeroplanes and dirigibles. d: )
went to Staples, the lad had a devil of a time printing my emblem which I'd printed out backwards, onto acetate, took him what felt like 10 minutes before he thought of trying a different and more cooperative machine. I was going to suggest it but thought the better of telling someone how to do his job. next time I'll know better.



set up my table saw (eyeballed it!) blade height to mill notches in the cherry halfway down for overlap joints. it'll work, but it's going to be a lot of work, and each window hole is slightly different size so each will have to be milled one at a time to fit. still haven't decided on what to use for glass, 2 different types of plexi, or just clear stuff with contact paper, I do like the contact paper I saw at the Homey.  



ooh. instead of trying to stain the egg and dart trim (which is pine probably) to match the cherry, maybe I'll spray paint it gold, I like that idea! this is how I work, things evolve. I try to keep an open mind. can always paint it blue after if I change my mind, I was going to make window frames out of Lauan originally, so it'd be one rigid piece with the cross bars and all, but Lauan chips so easily when cut with a jig saw, even with a fine blade. I might make those for the inside. I have enough Lauan left over, oh but I might need that for the roof, hmm. well, I'll figure it out. We'll burn that bridge when we cross it, as Troughton said. (I quote that line all the time.)

I'm using http://pixlr.com/editor/ to crop and shrink my photos to post here, as I haven't put photoshop on this PC yet. useful resource!

well, just time for a cup of tea then.

[galacticprobe]

That St. John logo looks really good in that frame! Fab job on that one!

Dino.

[mobius]

thank you kindly, I'm diggin it!

[mobius]

had a few spare moments today, drew up templates and guides for window framing. cut all vertical and horizontal bars for the window frames and muntons from scrap cherry, and drew guides on them, using a template I made, for where to notch them so they can interlock. I was about to start milling the notches but it was getting too late to make that much noise. I should turn the saw on and see how loud it is from across the street. I laid out the interior frames on a scrap of lauan, just large enough for all of them! I have that kind of luck sometimes. was going to go to a Doctor Who party tonight where the world's first DW cosplay band was performing, dressed as the first 3 and the 11th Docs, but was not up to it. I figure once the tardis is complete I'll just go back in time so I can go to the party. I'll edit this later when I do. unless I get called away to save the universe again.

[mobius]

Captain's log, stardate, uhhh 3-10-14 Monday,
I don't think I got anything done on it yesterday, too busy with mundane tasks and work, I hate when a day goes by and I can't get something done on it. today I notched the first set of window framing, goofed a little but it's ok, won't show. also cut the trim, which I jammed into the opening and it stayed via tension, a perfect fit! hoorah! now if only I could decide if I want to paint them blue, stain the trim to match the framing, or make it gold, or what. ah well.

careful with table saws kids, even an experienced woodworker like meself can slip up d:

[galacticprobe]

I love that window frame trim. The more this girl "grows", the harder it is to wait to see her completed!

Dino.
P. S. I also love those skull thingies - whatever they are. They'd make nice throw pillows on my sofa!

[NotaMountainGoat]

Agreed about the window frame. Looks absolutely perfect. And I don't know if this was your intention, but keeping the window and SJA frames a natural or stained wood color would look fantastic against the blue. And maybe you could also have different shades of blue for other sections.

[mobius]

well another day, 9 hours of work in my sister's office, fixing it up, then I had to fix my mum's chairlift. no time to work on the T-40, but,
these 1st 2 were taken with my camera, not my phone (galaxy s4), colour is true-er, but a bit dark. not that it matters as this is just the primer.
the muntons look pretty darn nice, cherry against blue I gotta say. I think I will not paint them, I can always paint them later if I want them to be blue, unpainting them later would be a palaver. so I took 2 shots holding up a couple of sheets of different textured plexiglass I had lying around.



and who's that bloke in my Tardis!?



I believe I will try to stain the trim to match the cherry, it's pine, but we'll see how that looks, option 2, paint it gold, can still happen if staining it doesn't look so great, again, I can always paint over stain, the other way around doesn't work, er, quite as well, in just the sort of way that we should like. if it looks good stained, I can leave it like that, if I don't like it, I can paint it gold, and see how that looks. and can always paint the whole bloody mess blue later. the cherry is almost too nice! not as weathered as the rest of it. well that's time travel for you, full of anomalies and inexplicable things. turtles all the way down, wot.

oh Dino, the skulls, that's my old table cloth, purchased at Target before Halloween. I stock up. every day is Halloween at my house. thank you, and you N.A.M.G., do people often mistake you for a mountain goat? thought about more than one shade of blue, but I am probably too lazy. it looks interesting right now, with black paint, white paint, and enough different sorts of woods to fill an arboretum showing through to varying degrees, it looks pretty cool, but I think I will go for a relatively uniform shade of blue and leave the details to give it its ... what's the word I'm looking for, provenance? no, er, je ne sais quoi? Patina. Funkiness. there we are.

tomorrow, hope I can find some time to mill more muntons and frames.

[Volpone]

Yes, this build is coming along very nicely.  My disclosure: when we see someone start a thread with lots of drawings and big ideas and then nothing happens for a long time, I don't have high hopes of ever seeing anything.  Lack of funds, lack of space, lack of time, Life intervening.  So it was pleasantly surprising to see this build come to fruition.  And pleasant, how nicely it is coming along.  I await the continued progress with baited breath. 

[mobius]

3-12-14
managed to squeeze in a couple of hours milling, notched all my cherry frame wood, messed up 4 verticals, could have used wood filler, but it wouldn''t look great and I had plenty of extra stock so I remade them. a few horizontals I accidentally notched on the wrong side, so some unfinished wood is showing, but I have to finish the edges on some of them anyway so no big deal there.

tried to stain the pine trim with some stain I had that said maple, but looked quite dark. the pine didn't absorb it at all, so I tried some walnut, slightly better absorption, tho the colour isn't quite what I was after. leaning towards spray painting the egg and dart frames metallic gold, or preferably copper, if I can find some copper spray paint. I don't think I'm going to be able to disguise that pine as cherry.

thanks Volpone for the support, yes life certainly got in the way. funds was never the issue since I have so much scrap lumber. (pays to be a carpenter if you want to build Tardises!) and I figured people had written me off, glad my thread hadn't been deleted. hopefully I can offer hope, to those who start and are delayed, that eventually you can get around to it and make it happen. the hardest part right now is not working on it full time, I could actually, but I have clients who need me to fix things for them and I can't keep them waiting especially when it's plumbing, or broken windows, etc.

and now some photographs

I got so much dust in my eyes, really have to hook up the vacuum to this saw. taped them together to notch several at once.


hoorah!


look at this, too pretty to paint over.


these photos were taken with my cell phone, the colour is totally accurate, oddly enough. it can cope with earth tones I guess, but not blue.


stay tuned fellow travellers in time, space and splinters! I will make some time to work on her tomorrow, keep chipping away, and eventually she'll be done.

[mobius]

I am building the walls first because that's the fun part. and the easy part, frankly. well, the most straight forward anyway. once they're out of the way (and the posts, or columns, are built in to the side walls incidentally), I will do the floor, which is really just 3 bits of wood frankly, then the signs, then the roof last. the signs have to fit  the walls, and the roof fits into them, so has to be done in that order.
I also have a lot of iron wood roughly the same dimensions as the cherry scrap I had lying around, which I could have used for the windows but didn't for several reasons, it's the hardest wood shy of petrified wood, there is, and is murder on your saw blades, also the sawdust it produces is pretty toxic I think. and it's much darker too. don't know what I'll use it for, probably bits of a musical instrument or something at some point. got it free from an exotic woods lumberyard (Anderson McQuaid), from their cut-off waste barrel. very expensive stuff too. incredibly hard. used some on our bee hive.
so today I discovered how easy it is to injure yourself with a hand held belt sander. always wear gloves kids! -_- I'll be ok, cut my left index finger, it's not pretty but could have been far worse. I cut all the outer-over frames for the windows, chipped one up a bit but was able to patch it, had very little left over, just barely enough for a couple of fixes like that, fortunately there was only the one boo boo there.
  spray painted them all gold, some will need a 2nd pass as there were a few weak spots. used cherry wood filler where needed on the frames, sanded and applied poly to the unfinished parts on those, later belt sanded them (with the bench belt disc sander) to size so they all now fit in the windows, no 2 are exactly the same probably, but I labeled them, and the parts of the now gold frames so I know what goes where later.
  also ripped a 2x4 in half to support the front "columns" and that's where the hinges will attach for the doors, attached the front casing, rosettes and finally all the plinth blocks and corners. that was satisfying. posts are done and looking like posts now. lastly I cut all the lauan into 10x13.25" pieces for my interior window frames, but when I tried to cut the holes out for the first one, it cracked under the jig saw. too tricky to cut those out, and I won't get a very professional result so I have to find another solution to that, I'm sure something will come to me. I looked at the ironwood, but it's too fat actually, and I really don't want to use it, or paint it white. I am leaning towards ripping, or buying, some pine, so I can glue it together, don't want to overlap like I did with the cherry frames, too much work. glue will work for these, and then white paint. I don't want to see the edges of the glass on the inside, whatever sort of glass I end up using. I want a nice finished interior, I think I'll paint it white, like my control room. tho black is tempting, and traditional in a way. I'm an old school Whovian, the current door interiors seem odd to me, sort of neat I guess, but I liked the old ones.

and now it's picture time!

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solution




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