Building a Model TARDIS

Part One

Home                   Next

2003

I first started building a model Police Box/TARDIS in August 2003.  I chose 1mm thick card and decided to make life easy for myself by building to the same scale as the box shown in my ancient photocopy of the original Metropolitan Police blueprints.  This meant I could just measure the plans and transfer them direct to card in centimetres.  This would result in a model approximately 45cm high.  NB: I've just checked my plans and they're 1" to a Foot.  Ergo this is a 1/12th scale model.

First stage was to create a plan (or "net" if you're under 20 years old!) of the main "box, with windows and panels.

As you can see at this stage the windows are still blank, but there are now panels.  These are simply another piece of slightly overlapping card glued onto the back of the panel holes.  I've also created window "frames" by laborously cutting oblongs of card into a frame pattern and glueing them behind the window holes.  It's going to be a bugger painting them!

Having got this far I decided it might be cool to have a proper flashing blue LED for a lamp, powered by a couple of AA batteries.  I started investigating electronics shops, and put what I'd already done on the back burner for a few months...

Some Time Later...

Well, having been unsuccessful in finding the right type of LED (flashing 2x a second), I finally returned to my model TARDIS...five years later! 

Yes, it's been sitting on top of a bookcase growing dusty for half a decade.  I have no excuse.  I was just lazy.

Luckily it has coped well, apart from going a bit yellow, so I decide to continue.

Firstly I glued small oblongs of transparent PVC (from a laser-jet printer transparancy) behind each window and then painted them black.  I know it's not the "pebbled" texture of proper box window panes, but at this stage I can't think of a way of doing that, and I don't want to put it to one side for another five years!

Windows in place, I glue the box together carefully.  This is the first indication of what the completed model will look like, and I get that little frisson of anticipation when I see that familiar oblong shape.

Close up the window frames look a bit frayed, but I can shave off any rough bits with my snap-blade knife, and anyway painting them should smooth over the rest - so long as I can avoid slopping paint onto the window panes!

I've cut a small square hole in the top, just in case I do go with my idea for a battery-powered LED.

Now the biggest part of the model has been made, it's time to start adding all the extra chunky bits that make a police box look like a police box.

Fiddly Bits...

I'm going to build up the corner posts by adding layers of card strip.  OK it looks a bit crooked, but by this time I've resigned myself that my TARDIS is going to have a "funky" (i.e. not totally straight-edged) look.  God it looks rough close-up! 

But by making successive layers thinner, I'm starting to get a bevelled look.  Ignore the dried PVA, that'll just add to the "weathered" look when I eventually paint it.  Finally a thin strip down the edge gives it the finishing touch.

Home                  Next

 

 

This Web Page Created with PageBreeze Free HTML Editor