Matt's Replica Crich-Style Police Box

[matt sanders]

Another Moment Of Truth - would the Column Casting come of of the mould without the mould getting completely trashed in the process...?  Has the release wax worked ok, or is a complete disaster...?

First, the easy bit:



A bit more...



And a whole wall...



Yes!  The wax has worked, and the mould's walls easily release from the casting...

[matt sanders]

I decide to try the Column on the Base, with the other three plastic pipes...



The Column will need trimming at the bottom, to accurately sit on the Base...



Here's a recess, for a Bolt, to lock the Column to the Base...



I'm in two minds about whether the concrete texture is too OTT - maybe some paint will help, to see the final result...



The thick paint softens the texture, but the glossy Royal Blue shows up all the lumps, bumps & crevices.  I'm aiming for an aged concrete with remnants of flaked-off paint layers, as per the TVM prop, but maybe this is a bit much...  I'll see how I feel tomorrow...

[superrichi1a]

Staggered by all this progress in such a short space of time, very interesting and very educational I really love how you strengthen the post with the tube and fill the gaps with expanding foam - genius!
As for the concrete texture ultimately I think it comes down to whether you're happy with it or not yourself. It's a bit more extreme than I was expecting I have to say, it does look very like the TVM prop however, it's just that your gloss paint shows it up in great detail whereas the TVM, if anything I think was more extremely textured, it was just hidden behind a more matt paint. I think it's worth asking yourself what you originally envisioned your box to look like and sticking harshly to that, you've been so stringent with everything else that at this point it wouldn't be worth wavering because you're unsure. Try the coin toss trick - toss a coin to decide which you'll do and then depending on your reaction to the result of the coin toss, disappointment or relief, you'll know what you really feel about the texture without overthinking it

[Mark]

I'd forgotten ypu had made the base!

As far as the texturing goes (and photos don't really serve as a good source) I do agree a lot has to do with personal taste.

The Crich box has a mismatch of texturing, some really textured and other parts which look almost pristene.

Matt, by the way, road trip to London with the box - count me in!

[galacticprobe]

Matt, that looks absolutely brilliant! I'm eager to see how you tackle the moulds for the sides and roof.

Dino.

[fivefingeredstyre]

Matt,

Once again that looks fantastic. The work and planning you've obviously put into this seems to really be paying off!

[matt sanders]

I've concluded that the Column's concrete texture is too extreme, so I'll go back and deal with that later.  But in the meantime, some more wood has arrived...



As I don't have access to a table-saw, I'm getting the wood supplier to cut the plywood to the main rectangles.  Can you guess what this lot is for...?



Yes - it's a Lintel-Sign.  I'm making one mould, then I'll cast four copies in the fibreglass and expanding foam.

Whilst most people seem to keep their Lintel-Signs separate, I'm going to glue mine together, to make a square Ring-Beam, because:

1)  That's what the real Crich Box obviously has, and it makes sense, because:
2)  It will keep the box nice and square, and prevent racking,
3)  The Ring Beam will be bolted down to the tops of the Columns, so will (hopefully) also prevent racking and wobbling in the walls, and:
4)  Fewer vertical joins between components should make the box more resistant to rainwater ingress.

Anyway, I got all the carpentry done today...



Hopefully tomorrow I can apply the texture...

[matt sanders]

As far as the texturing goes (and photos don't really serve as a good source) I do agree a lot has to do with personal taste.

The Crich box has a mismatch of texturing, some really textured and other parts which look almost pristene.

Matt, by the way, road trip to London with the box - count me in!

Hi Mark  -  Yes, some parts of the Crich Box are quite smooth (including columns), though I suspect that's partly a result of the renovation that was done ten years ago.  Your photos from 2005 show some dramatic flaked and overpainted paint, and crumbled areas, that were subsequently repaired.  It seems in that renovation most of the box's paint was stripped off, down to the bare concrete, so it lost the interesting flake-off areas, that were simulated on the TVM box. 

As for personal taste - I'm aiming to reproduce a box as it would have appeared in the 1960s - i.e. thirty years of weathering and overpainting.

As for London - have you had any luck investigating the clues that the Crich curator gave, regarding the box's original location...?

[hb88banzai]

Don't forget that according to those Crich documents there was quite a bit of renovation done by the Met as well before delivery, so some of those texture differences may date from 1982.

As to location - I've done a lot of research on the data in the documents and on the electrical board, and assuming the info given by the Met to the representative from Crich at the time was accurate (and accurately reported), then it narrows it down to only one possible area - Finchley, inclusive of East and North Finchley (and not relying on the recollections of the man you both met on your visits at all, I might add). Further, with a fairly reasonable reading of some circumstantial evidence it's actually possible to get down to a single likely Box - Y14!

Note that Y14 was originally a wooden Mark 1, and though the Met List doesn't indicate it, per the OS Maps there was actually a Resite done to the other side of the North Circular around the same time that Mark 4's were being made, with evidence that other Mark 1's were replaced during similar moves - and this isn't even the circumstantial evidence I was referring to, so many bits and pieces seem to drop into place for this particular Box. I'll try to get all the data together and post a more detailed analysis with the reasons for these conclusions in the http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=3801.0 topic some time later this week (with a direct link to it in this thread).

BTW Matt - just stupendous work you are doing! It's going to be amazing!  

[russellsuthern]

Matt,

I have to agree with all the above comments.
This build is looking more & more fantastic every time I check in.
I'm getting very excited to see how it is going to look when it's finished. You'll have a queue of people going round the block waiting to see it for real!!

Russell

[hb88banzai]

By the way, if Y14 is indeed the Box that was given to the Tramway Museum (the concrete shell and door, anyway - the inside wooden bits look to have come off a Tooting box), then there might be a few difficulties taking the reproduction to its original location, or rather the Resite location it was pulled from.

The original site on the southeast corner of the junction of the North Circular and High Road East Finchley is long gone, first from the straightening of the North Circular that forced the Resite (some time between 1936 and 1945), and more recently when that junction was widened further and made into an underpass/overpass interchange.

The Resite position may also be inaccessible (west end of the old Finchley Common, on the east side of the High Road (Great North Road) about 40 yards north of the North Circular Road, opposite the north side of Glebe Road). On first approximation using Google Earth it looks like it was about where the center of the new overpass roadway is. I'll be pulling the coordinates off of the OS Maps and check against Google Maps to confirm this, but if this is the case then the best you will be able to do is to set the Box up around 13 or so yards to the west, where part of the old High Road remains next to the new.

About here (as close to the wall as you can get it) --



URL: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=High+Road+East+Finchley+(Stop+R),+Finchley,+London,+UK&hl=en&ll=51.601813,-0.174&spn=0.000027,0.020299&sll=51.597827,-0.119325&sspn=0.003805,0.008487&hnear=High+Road+East+Finchley+(Stop+R)&t=m&layer=c&cbll=51.601808,-0.173996&panoid=SRZphrsTyV7JmzOYwxFLSQ&cbp=12,86.28,,0,6.98&z=16

EDIT:

Of course, if the approximation is correct, then this is closer to where it actually was (though on the old ground level, some 8 feet down) --



URL: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=High+Road+East+Finchley+(Stop+R),+Finchley,+London,+UK&hl=en&ll=51.601866,-0.173786&spn=0.000027,0.020299&sll=51.597827,-0.119325&sspn=0.003805,0.008487&hnear=High+Road+East+Finchley+(Stop+R)&t=m&layer=c&cbll=51.601786,-0.173741&panoid=WuCA-QsTDhtBAqdkW46PbQ&cbp=12,22.64,,0,23.75&z=16

There's probably enough room to erect it on the centre divider - now wouldn't that stop traffic!  

[matt sanders]

Yesterday and today I've been texturing the Lintel Sign mould, and adding details, etc...




And not forgetting the Blue PVA Release...



Hopefully tomorrow I can cast the fibreglass...

[hb88banzai]

(snip)

Yes - it's a Lintel-Sign.  I'm making one mould, then I'll cast four copies in the fibreglass and expanding foam.

Whilst most people seem to keep their Lintel-Signs separate, I'm going to glue mine together, to make a square Ring-Beam, because:

1)  That's what the real Crich Box obviously has, and it makes sense, because:
2)  It will keep the box nice and square, and prevent racking,
3)  The Ring Beam will be bolted down to the tops of the Columns, so will (hopefully) also prevent racking and wobbling in the walls, and:
4)  Fewer vertical joins between components should make the box more resistant to rainwater ingress.

(snip)

Matt  - Though you are making a ring-beam, it doesn't appear you have made allowances for the slotting of components like they did on the originals. The wall sections fit up into a groove on the ring-beam and the roof fit down over a ledge at the inside edge of the ring beam, all to promote structural integrity and water tightness.

Actually, come to think of it, there were grooves in the pillars to accept the wall sections as well.

Had you considered doing any of this on your replica and perhaps nixed the idea as too complicated and/or unnecessary for your purposes? Just curious.

[matt sanders]

Hi Alan,

Yes, originally I planned to incorporate grooves in the castings, to assemble in the same manner as the concrete parts.  But I went off the idea, partly because the uneven thickness of texture could cause fouling, and partly because it would require absolute precision to coordinate the positions of grooves in horizontal and vertical moulds, and any unexpected shrinkage or warping in the components would mess it all up.

So instead, to lock each piece to its neighbour in a watertight manner, I am casting semicircular grooves into some surfaces, using the White plastic pipe visible in these last images.  And then, once everything is cast, I'll glue equivalent half-pipes to the neighbouring fibreglass components, confident that they are meeting correctly.

This means that (in theory!) it's all watertight, plus the whole box can be assembled without actually needing any bolts.  (Though I'm incorporating bolting positions, in case the box ever needs to be turned on its side...)

[matt sanders]

Another day of fibreglass...



And expanding foam...



And tomorrow, we'll see if it worked!  Hopefully I'll have the first lintel sign...