'ankh' shaped Tardis door key

[Terrasolo]

I've got several yale keys, cut to try and match those seen in the show.

On the 3D print note Shapeways have just cut the prices of cast metals by a fair chunk, stainless steel, polished nickel steel etc. because I'm having my custom key design done again, slightly larger in a new finish, much cheaper than last time. Is your model available on Thingiverse?

Most of my classic and new series keys are cut to my police box replica but some, by nature of being vintage, are cut to various locks.

Interesting, I had not heard that costs had gone down, I should see what that means for my key. But no, it's not available online anywhere so far.

[Cardinal Hordriss]

The price cut was only in the last week in response to customer feedback, not sure it applies to silver.

[Terrasolo]

The issue is that when researching printed pieces in other metals, only silver was actually properly polished. All the other metal types had that printed look. Even my won key, which is the first that I had printed, had the printed metal look in between the face teeth while at least one of the other two keys was proper polished between the teeth. It's a bit of a crap shoot. That said, I like the printed look between my key's teeth because it helps them stand out like the braising on the real Pertwee key.

[Cardinal Hordriss]

I think I see what you mean. If you wanted I could print a plastic copy at work and look into white metal or aluminium casting. As I said before it may be too thin but we could have a go. The biggest problem might be that our 3D printer is not on a par with Shapeways and leaves striations but we might be able to fix that in the finishing of the metal copy. It's up to you of course but I'd obviously agree to keep the design a secret and not use it ourselves for any moneymaking venture. Failing that we could all agree to pester Mooncrest to do a pewter one lol.

[Terrasolo]

Right now, Mooncrest might be the best bet primarily because I don't own the stl file that I used to print from. I can print keys from it but i can't hand out the stl file to others.

[Cardinal Hordriss]

Fair enough, just thought I'd make the offer.

[Terrasolo]

I appreciate that. Honestly I'd love to be able to make more for a better price because one of the guys who helped work on it still doesn't have one and I'd like to make that happen for him.

[Cardinal Hordriss]

That key has been an obsession of mine for a few years but beyond fuzzy screen grabs I've struggled to find any details on it, I did think it was larger but you've clearly had more success studying it than I have. It's great just to finally see a pic of it to be honest.

[Terrasolo]

It does seem like it could be bigger in some screen caps, however since it fit the key slot on the TARDIS door and seeing as how most people couldn't even even tell that the key was different per story in Season 12, Straker and I decided to make in line with the Pertwee key. Our key is taller but we kept it the same width. That isn't to say that we're right, it just made them most sense to us. And I will say that when you hold them close to each other, the Baker 1 does look larger than the Pertweecopy/Baker 2 key.

[Cardinal Hordriss]

I suppose they could have enlarged the lock but I think it's more likely they made the key to fit the existing slot. For me the deceptive shots size wise are Planet of Evil, in the TARDIS it looks bigger against Liz Sladen's delicate hands, and Pyramids of Mars where after floating out of the space time tunnel Scarman holds it with two hands.

[Terrasolo]

Yeah, I considered that they could have enlarged the key hole as well but it seemed more likely that they would have made the key to fit. That said, this was the BBC so they probably did whatever they needed to do at the time without much thought.

The thing that gets me is the Planet of Spiders shot in Sarah's hands make the Pertwee key look pretty big too. So it's really hard to say until we see each key next to something of a known size.

[Terrasolo]

Something I realized watching "Planet of Evil" again. The TARDIS key does look big in Sarah's hands but then so does the Etheric Beam Locator, when compared with Tom's.

[Davros Skaro]

Here are some screen grabs of the key in "Planet of The Spiders" that I got yesterday while getting other grabs of the crystal.





Hope these are useful, only time you get to see it.

Chris.

[Cardinal Hordriss]

My new build diary may be of interest or at least I hope so -

http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=7737.msg97785#msgx97785

[Terrasolo]

I know this is mainly a research thread and I've been toying with the idea of making a compiled research thread on all the information we know about the TARDIS keys from 1963 to now, using my own key collection as a base reference for photos as well as sharing any screencap reference for any key showing specific details, but for now I thought some might find this helpful.

We've talked about the Mooncrest Models TARDIS keys here before, given the reference he had for both details and scale, I'd say his 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th Doctor keys are the best on the market. That said, I personally wanted to get my 3rd and 4th Doctor keys looking a bit more accurate in color. So I decided to use wet sandpaper to remove the pewter black that Gary uses to darken the keys, and to smooth the finish of the keys as well. Then I used a very fine steel wool to make the surface very shiny and smooth, and then finished them up with Cape Cod metal polish. Now I'm even more happy with these keys that I was before! The silver color of them more accurately matches the screen used props, which is ideal for me.

I was also able to get my hands on another 800-Trekker TARDIS key in excellent condition as well, something I've been trying to do since 1996 lol (long story).

I did not remove the pewter black from the 7th Doctor key however, because I feel this one look more accurate to the screen used key as it is since the real key was resin and painted with a dark grey finish. That said, I much prefer to have the key made of metal as the real one - to the Doctor that is, not the actors - would have been metal.

So yeah, I thought I'd share this photo here along with tips on what I did to upgrade the keys in case anyone had a set, or was thinking about buying a set, and wanted to give it a go themselves.