7th Doctor CO TARDIS Customisation

[lorisarvendu]

While hunting for a suitable console room backdrop for my War TARDIS mod, I came upon some nice renders for various other eras.  One was circa 1985, so I thought I'd try and stick one in the 7th Doctor TARDIS from Character Options.  It should be easier than the War TARDIS mod as I won't be painting the outside.  If anyone else fancies doing this, these pictures should help when taking the TARDIS apart.

As with the 10th Doctor toy, hold it upside down between your knees, with the on/off switch uppermost. The 4 screws circled red will be the ones to remove. The other screw holes are the ones that attach the TARDIS to it's box, so if you got an unboxed one off eBay, you're not missing anything.



These are the components you need to remove, with the exception of the screw holding the door hinge on!  That is under tension so if you remove it you might not get it back together again.  Although keeping it screwed in does make disassembly of the box slightly more tricky later, it's preferable to completely screwing up the door mechanism.  Leave it alone is my recommendation.



OK, loose components removed. At this point I didn't realise the black door switch was loose so I didn't remove it.  You need to.  Now unscrew the 4 screws ringed in red.  Note the sellotape holding the wires and circuitry to the base.  You could remove this and give yourself more play later on when separating the base, but I decided not to.



Here are the loose components save on the base.  You should have 8 screws.  They are identical so you don't need to keep them separate.



Now turn the TARDIS on it's back, doors uppermost, and gently ease the base away and downwards.  Because I left the sellotape on, the cables at the bottom are very tight.  Be careful and just let the base lean back.  This should release the left-hand door completely. The right -hand door will still be attached to the hinge, but that's not a problem.  This is the point when I noticed the door switch had fallen out onto my lap!



The wires running from the base through to the batteries, speakers and lamp.  Take great care here and don't pull or stretch them.



As you can see here, the backdrop from the Flight Control TARDIS fits perfectly, proving that the inside is the same size. The FC TARDIS however has a backplate that hides the battery box, and the backdrop is glued to this.  The 7th Doctor TARDIS has no such backplate so I recommend printing your backdrop onto fairly stiff card to keep it rigid (and also so you don't see the light from the back windows shining through).  Some double-sided sticky pads should help here.



A nice but highly inaccurate touch here.  The left-hand door has an openable phone panel, with a lovely little black bakelite-style phone in it.  This means there you will need to cut a square in your backdrop here to fit it round the back of the phone cubbyhole.  See my War TARDIS thread for a picture of the FC TARDIS backdrop. You can use that as a template.  The size of the backdrop should be 195mm wide by 160mm tall, but you can shave bits off the edges if it won't fit (they'll be behind the doors so no-one will see them).



I'll do the next section as soon as I've got a backdrop printed off.

[Kingpin]

Thanks for posting this dismantle as well, as I plan to modify two 7th Doctor TARDIS toys at some point in the future.

[Rassilons Rod]

Actually for the 7th Doctor that is relatively accurate to have the telephone in there



I say "relatively" because it's not meant to be the TARDIS, but an actual police box - Just like in Logopolis

[lorisarvendu]

New backdrops printed out today - colour laser on 250gsm card.

[lorisarvendu]

OK, here we go for the home straight!  With a mixture of excitement and dread I gather my materials.  Firstly we need to accurately measure the width and length of the internal space where the backdrop is going to go.  This is a piece of stiff card...



...which you can use in this fashion.  Keep on cutting it down until it fits perfectly.  That will be the length of the backdrop inside.



Then cut the height of the photo to size. It comes to 150mm.



Now I don't know if you can see this, but I've cut out a piece of black card to put behind the photo in order to black out any stray light coming through the back windows.



Lay the left-hand door down against the left side of the photo so you can cut out a section to allow space for the back of the phone cubbyhole to go. To be honest you don't need to be accurate about this as  you will probably need to recut it further once you've tried placing it inside the box.  The design of this TARDIS is different to the wider Flight Control ones where the left door opens a lot further. This one doesn't.



Now using the same method as before, measure the distance inside - do it between the two windows as they project in the furthest. The distance is 76mm.



Now to put the folds in the backdrop. I used a blunt knife to gently score this. You have a bit of leeway with these, but I decided to centralise the console.



And it fits pretty snugly.  Don't worry about the bend of the card.  This will be sorted out when you glue it in, and anyway it won't be as noticeable through the doors.



And this is the view from the other side.

[lorisarvendu]

(Split into two updates in case it bombs out while posting).

I used Evo-stick epoxy-resin style glue to stick the black card on the back of the photo. Use something non-water based (not PVA!) or you could ruin your photo.



And here it is glued on.



I'm using double-sided adhesive pads here. Two on the back of the battery box...



And one on either side of the card.



I would strongly recommend holding the edges in like this when you put the backdrop into the box.  As soon as the adhesive pads on the back are glued on, you can then bend the sides out and attach them to the sides of the TARDIS.  This will allow you to do a bit of straightening out before you stick the sides on. Be very precise here, because if you make a mistake once the adhesive pads are glued on there's no alternative other than to rip the whole lot out and get another photo printed.



Then it's just a case of putting the doors back in and the base on.  The easiest way to do this is fit the right-hand door in first, with the base at enough of an angle that you can then wiggle the left-hand door in.



Before you screw everything back in, make sure the doors open and close OK, and that the lights and FX still work.

And it's finished! I don't think this looks too bad you know, and I'm sure this method will work for the other two "classic" electronic TARDISes.  

[superrichi1a]

Getting quite excited now to see how this is turns out! Very clear method and attention to quality is inspiring

[lorisarvendu]

Well if you want to see how it turns out, look at the picture above your comment. It's finished.

[superrichi1a]

Hmm, very strange! Perhaps my phone did not load all the pictures when I was viewing it, or perhaps given the 11 minute leeway between my comment and your update I simply took my time in typing it out, I was on a train after all and may have been between platforms.
Either way it looks fantastic, a mod to truly be proud of

[sunderlandafclad]

Thank you kindly for adding this great run through, i have to admit I thought it was gonna be a little less work involved so thanks kindly for showing your walk through! knowing me id prob end up duffing up my Tardis!

Do you have a link to your internal images you used? they look great and something id prob make a nath attempt at and only just getting into this customising lark ;-)

regards

afg

[lorisarvendu]

Hi sunderlandafclad. If you do a Google image search for "1985 TARDIS" it comes up as the 2nd image.   

[warmcanofcoke]

A nice but highly inaccurate touch here.  The left-hand door has an openable phone panel, with a lovely little black bakelite-style phone in it.  This means there you will need to cut a square in your backdrop here to fit it round the back of the phone cubbyhole.  See my War TARDIS thread for a picture of the FC TARDIS backdrop. You can use that as a template.  The size of the backdrop should be 195mm wide by 160mm tall, but you can shave bits off the edges if it won't fit (they'll be behind the doors so no-one will see them).

I slowly but carefully cut the phone box out on my model with an xacto knife. (I'm never going to sell it.) I like that in the series, both doors are seen to open from time to time.

- Fine work by the way. A nice modification you've made there.