"An' here I go again on my own: Goin' down the only road I've ever known: Like a drifter I was born to walk alone"

Whitesnake - lyric from Here I go again

"One man can make a difference, Michael"

From Knight Rider 

Two quotes today to make up for none on the last post!

Anyway, Back again!

So, where was I! Oh yes, the construction.

This was an awful lot of hard work for one man on his own - it really is a two man job, but I'm currently in a gang of one so I had to make do with me, myself, and I.

Essentially, I had to prop the roof section up so that I could attach two of the corner posts to the bottom of it. Once this was done I then had to flip the whole assembly (risking the whole thing splitting and falling apart) to attach the other two. This doesn't sound like much, but believe me it was physically knackering, and I kept hearing various parts of  the assembly creaking as it strained under its own weight - with another strong pair of hands I'd have been able to support the assembly much better when moving it around, but to cut a long story short, I got it done.

Once I'd done this,  the next step was to fit the base to the corner posts. In the original "plans" I had, the builder cut L shaped holes in the base with a jigsaw and slotted the corner posts into the base. However, he'd used a single sheet of ply and I'd used several "floor boards", so I decided to take off some of the boards so I could fit the posts and then I'd cut the boards to fit.

Well, this was an awful lot of hard work for one man on his own 

So, you can see here that I've now got a strange horizontal gazebo!

For the record, here's a bit more detail of the "joins".

Can you see the mistake here? Think before you drill that's all I'll say on this one!

Anyway, having done this, I've been filling the various holes to cover the ends of the screws and coach bolts, but then I had to put the remaining floor boards back on, and to do that, I really needed the TARDIS vertical!

So, today, I took a trip down to Home Depot to try and buy some kind of "dolly" that I could put the TARDIS on so that I could wheel it about. Sadly, they had none in stock, but I did find something better that I'll document in another post. 

Using these items, I got the TARDIS out of the garage and "erected"! 

"Look at my mighty erection!"

Dave Fox, today

As it happens, cutting the floorboards to fit was childs play for an old hand at the table saw like myself. I won't bore you with the details, so I'll cut to the eye candy.

Note for all the nit pickers here!

1. The colour is a base coat - not the final colour

2. The ground here isn't level, so if it looks like the TARDIS is on the piss, it's the ground.... mostly.... I expect!

Some more detailed pics for the record!

Note the little bits of 3/4" square dowel I've used here to level up the floor boards where they were short around the corner posts!

Now that's craftsmanship for you! ;)

Laters....

I was going to find another quote on time, but since I've already used two I thought I'd omit the quote today!

Anyway, it's been a long time since I rapped at ya on the Type 40 Project!

I can give all sorts of reasons as to why nothing much has been happening, and most of them would be true, but to be honest the real reason is fear laced with a little laziness!

Fear, because the next step had to be the assembly of the basic frame from the components I'd already made, and there was every chance this was going to be a disaster. You see, it's really a two man job to get this all assembled, and I'm currently in a gang of one. I was worried that in trying to put it all together on my own I was going to end up stressing some of the wood and ending up with a pile of firewood.

Well, today marks two weeks and a day before we have to return to the UK (boo hoo! sniff!). I could no longer afford to procrastinate, so I took a trip out to Lowes to buy the carriage bolts I needed to put the thing together.

Now, the problem here is it's been about 3 weeks since I last did any work of note on the TARDIS, so I've already fallen into bad habits. Today, I just guessed at the length of the both I'd need, and when looking at them at Lowes I decided that a 5" bolt (3/8" diameter) would do.

Well, when I got it all back, I found that I was really about 1.5" too long, but having just forked out over $15 I wasn't going to let that deter me. So, I started assembling it with my overlong bolts with the view that I'd chop off the excess amount if necessary.

Second bad habit came up, shortly after I'd started. You see most of my power tools are 18V cordless. Now, I've two batteries, but since last working on the TARDIS I'd neglected to put either of them on charge. It didn't take much drilling and bolt cutting to end up with two depleted batteries and not a lot of work done. It also occurred to be that I'd bought too few carriage bolts since I bought a bag of 15, figuring I'd need 8+, but it turned out that I'd need at least double that just to bolt the corner posts to the roof so I was already 1 bolt down.

So, a trip back to Lowes was needed to spend 76 cents on just one carriage bolt.

Anyway, I'm running out of time here now as I have to go out for dinner, so I'll continue this story with the next post!

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things"

Edgar Degas, French Artist, 1834-1917

Well Mr Degas, you may well be greatly respected, but I can most definitely assure you that you are talking out of your arse here!

I started off not knowing what I was doing, so therefore I should've immediately proceeded to great things, but that didn't happen!

I've been priming my construction to date with some oil-based primer that I'd had tinted blue. I bought a spray gun specifically to assist with the painting, since I thought it would provide better results and be much faster.

Well, I was wrong on both counts!

You see, I need decent thick coats of primer on my woodwork to, so that it helps weather proof the TARDIS by providing a strong base and filling in any cracks in the construction that I'd missed with filler so aid in waterproofing the thing.

Unfortunately, my spray gun is better suited to light, delicate, coats which is not at all what I wanted.

So, whilst I've "primed" the wood now, I can see that I need to go over it again, and I'm pretty certain if I use the spray gun, even more layers will be required.

So, it looks like I'm going to resort to a trusty paint brush because that will allow me to layer on more paint in less coats.

"Be Prepared..."

Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouts, 1857-1941


Again, I've not been here for a while! It seems that I've got a little too hung up on preparation, and not hung up enough on progress!

Allow me to explain.

Since last week. I've been out and bought the following

• Sandpaper
• Spray Gun
• Oil-based primer, tinted blue
• Face mask (don't want to be poisoned by my wood preserver)

amongst other things anyway.

In the meantime, I've been doing little things with the TARDIS itself. Filling, sanding, filling, sanding again.

I also took some time to try and seal some of the gaps using this expanding foam stuff that is so truly horrible to use, I've vowed never to use it again! This stuff is so damn sticky, if you get some on your hands it takes quite literally hours to remove it - and that's despite using any solvent I could lay my hands on (and generally they stuck to it too!).

Anyway, after what seemed like the upteenth time of filling and sanding, I had an epiphany!

This is a TARDIS. It is supposed to look like an aging police box. Aging police boxes don't have nice smooth surfaces - they will be dented, bashed, smashed in places, dirty etc, etc,etc.

All this time, I've been striving for a perfection that I not only find impossible to achieve, it is wholly inappropriate for it to be that "perfect" anyway. More fool me!

Anyway, today I stopped with the filling and sanding of the roof, and sprayed it liberally with wood preserver. I still need to do the corner posts too, but I'd already filled them a bit more today, so that will have to wait for another day - and another sanding!

The roof is drying as we speak, but sods law it's not as warm today as it has been for the past few days so it isn't being helped along much at the moment by the Florida weather.

Once it is dry, and the corner posts have received the same treatment, it will be time to apply the primer. This will hopefully provide a long lasting weather proof coating, but only time will tell! I guess that I need at least a couple of decent coats, so this is going to take me through to the middle/end of next week I expect before I can get any more real construction work done. That's the trouble with the oil-based paints - they take that much longer to dry, but I think they're more durable.

EDIT: Wtf? Do I know anything about paint? No I don't! So how do I know that an oil-based one is more durable??? It's all just speculation!

So little to do, so little time!

"Time goes by so slowly"

Madonna, from the song "Hung up"

I've one word to say to you Madge - sloblock! (Hint - it's an anagram!)

Today I had occasion to visit that temple to the DIY gods that is Lowes of Highway 19 in Spring Hill. All I needed was a single 8 ft length of 4x1, but today the gods were definitely against me since every single piece they had was flawed! Frankly I'm amazed that I managed to get 7 decent pieces out 8 the last time I visited, as they'd clearly restocked but most of it was in pretty poor shape!

Still, not to be outdone, I purchased the least offensive piece and then had to pop to Walmart with the missus to pick up just a couple of items.

Well, the Walmart time dilation effect occurred, and before I knew it we'd be gone from home for over an hour and a half. When we did eventually get back, I set to work straight away (foregoing a beer I had previously promised myself) finishing off the last of my corner posts.

"Its hard to love a man whose legs are bent and paralysed"

Kenny Rogers, from the song Ruby

I wouldn't know about that Kenny, but I can tell you it's very hard to love a piece of lumber that was as bent and twisted as the one I wrestled with today!

What should have been the work of about 15 minutes actually ended up taking over an hour (mortal wound not withstanding!) because the piece of lumber I'd bought from Lowes just refused to behave when I was trying to attach it to the corner post. Given that this piece was far less bent and twisted than the one I bought it to replace, I can only thank the Great Maker that I had enough sense not to even try with the earlier piece!

Anyway, eventually I had the corner post pretty much assembled and looking not too shabby considering the warped evilness that part of it was fashioned from. Personally, I consider this a plot by dark forces to prevent me from completing my work, but I am not so easily deterred!

It was during this struggle that I received my first real injury of this project. Surely now that I've suffered for my art, I shall be admitted to the ranks of all the Great Masters, but I'm sure they'd have let me in anyway even if I hadn't suffered greviously!

Anyway, back my injury! With the plethora of power tools at my disposal it is easy to imagine how I might have removed a limb or severed an artery, but despite the danger posed by these tools I fell victim to a humble hammer. Basically, I hit the end of my thumb with the hammer whist tacking a quadrant to my corner post. It hurt, and a blood blister formed, so I'm surprised I'm here to tell the tale, but i was not going to let a life threatening injury put me off my work, so a few colourful expletives later I was once again at the chalkface of my endeavour!

Just as I was about to lay the corner post up with the others, I realized that I still had to make some little "blocks" to fill in the gaps at the top on *all* of the posts that I'd made. Fortunately, this was swift work and during the process I had occasion to thank my lucky stars for the table saw again!

Naturally, I measuring up the space before cutting my blocks, but some of them was just a tad too big to fit in the gaps and even a mighty hammer blow from Mjöllnir, the Hammer of the Norse God Thor, would not be able to knock them into place. However, it is frankly amazing how small a sliver of wood I could use the table saw to cut off when cutting these blocks to fit - we are talking half a millimetre or less - all that it requires is a steady hand and a good eye, of which I had both at my disposal thanks largely to the fact that I'd already foregone the beer I'd promised myself.

Anyway, about 30 minutes later, all the blocks were in, and I'd even managed to pin punch the tacks on the quadrants ready for filling tomorrow.

Just as I decided to call it quits for the day, a Fedex truck turned up bearing my wood preserver that I ordered last week. Hurrah! Well, mostly hurrah - turns out I didn't order quite as much as I'd envisaged - I hope it's enough!

Anyway, to cut a long story long, I didn't seem to achieve much today before time ran out, but as Roy Walker would say "I'm back in play" - ok, he'd say "You're back in play" but you get the drift!

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an
occasional animal, and the common cold

Ogden Nash, 1902 - 1971

In my last post I made a comment about it seem like an age since I last wrote this post, but that I had not been idle!

Well - this time, it is an age and yes, I have been idle!

I am still waiting on my wood preserver to turn up, this is true, and I have been filling and sanding my roof assembly some more so now it is "ready" for action.

However, my final corner post still remains incomplete, so really I'm not a whole lot further ahead than I was last Friday, but 4 days have passed - including a weekend which is shameful!

In my defence, I've been suffering from a cold for the past few days, and at the weekend spent most of the day doing "family" things, such as visiting Tampa Zoo on Saturday and Pine Island Beach on Sunday.

Today though, the work begins again in earnest! Today, even if my wood preserver doesn't turn up I shall reignite the engines of progress for the sake of humanity! Who knows if that sky diving llama isn't lurking above, waiting to drop? I cannot put off the Great Work any longer.

One thing I did achieve is to purchase a replica "phone" from Ebay which will hopefully fit in the little phone cupboard on the TARDIS. Obviously it hasn't arrived yet, and I hope it will be small enough to fit on the door to the cupboard (as it should), though I'm prepared to mount it internally if necessary. Apparently it is fully operational, which gives me pause for thought as to some interesting possibilities......

Hey Mr Sandman..... bring me a dream....

"Eternity is really long, especially near the end of it."

Woody Allen, b.1935

It seems like an age since I last updated this blog, but in that time I've not been idle - oh no, not I!

Well, ok - perhaps a little!

I'm waiting on my wood preserver to turn up, and until it does, there is little I can achieve. 

Yesterday I started sanding down my roof assembly - praise him on high for my cordless sander which is frankly a miracle worker! It took probably less than 30 minutes to complete, but it did highlight some areas that require more wood filler, so I've reapplied some more today and will sand those areas again tomorrow!

Both the lamps I purchased turned up yesterday! The Gardman lamp looks a little large for my liking, and the Home Depot one looks perfect. However, it didn't come quite as unassembled as I'd anticipated so I need to work out how I can convert it for my purpose. I think I will try the conversion, but keep the Gardman in reserve in case I fail! It all hinges on me be able to undo a nut inside the lamp that I can't really get a spanner to! Oh well, these things are sent to try us.

On a totally unrelated note, except that it involved power tools, my new solar shower for the pool area turned up today and it's all installed and working!

Preserving the Great Work for the benefit of mankind!

“Self-love is the instrument of our preservation.”

Voltaire, 1694-1778

It would require an awful lot of self-love to produce enough "preservative" to cover the entire TARDIS, so I'm looking at alternatives to onanism in order to preserve the wood of the TARDIS!

"It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing."

Anon

Now there's an irony, given the previous quote, because I really didn't get much done today. I had high hopes of finishing off that last corner post, but it turns out I will need a new piece of lumber and I didn't get to Lowes today.

However, I did get to Crowders to pick up some more wood glue, and a pin punch to help "sink" the tacks. I also got some more wood filler and set to filling the joins in the wood and screwholes in the roof assembly.

I must admit, I was secretly a little disappointed that the panels on the roof of my TARDIS didn't fit as flush as I'd hoped and give me a nice "edge". However, it seems that the wood filler I've bought has remedied that situation quite nicely. A liberal application and smoothing with a putty knife and I've got the nice points I wanted all along! Woot!

Having spent an hour or so filling the roof, I left it to dry off. I will probably try sanding it down a little tomorrow.

Back to the subject of preservation, I found a product on the web that will help preserve the wood and can be painted on. The only issue is that I've had to order it online so it will take a few days to turn up, and when it's applied it requires at least 48 hours before I can paint on it.

So, it looks like progress will be slower for the next few days. I shall probably start on the light boxes and the wall panels, but I'm concerned that I really should assemble my "gazebo" so I can take accurate measurements for the walls before I really get to work on those!

Magnum Opus

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and
despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck,
boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822),

It occurred to me today that should some ill befall me, like llama falling on me from a great height, or sudden incarceration in Guantanamo Bay, there would be no one to continue on my great work for the benefit of all mankind.

Normally, you would expect a son to continue in his fathers footsteps, but whilst the Mookalon has shown great interest in my work, I fear his technical skills may be a bit lacking at 20 months old, plus he will find it hard to handle 10ft long lengths of lumber!

So, for all our sakes, let us hope that I manage to complete my magnum opus before the aforementioned llama is loosed upon the skies above Spring Hill!

Today, I purchased the rest of the lumber to make the 3 remaining corner posts. This in itself was a major task, since I needed 6 10ft lengths of wood, 6 8 ft lengths, 9 10 ft quadrants, and 7 3ft square wooden dowels. After such exertion, I was tempted to call it a day, but fear of the falling llama spurred me on to continue the work.

Since starting this project, what seems like aeons ago, it is clear to me that my work must be held up there with the great achievements of mankind, like Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the temporary Ice Rink on Haven Green in Ealing last Christmas. Whilst it is true that some of these endeavours were slightly larger in scale than my TARDIS, I'm sure that all of them had significant numbers of professional engineers assisting, whereas I have had naught but my own steel and grit to take it forward.

Indeed, I feel that my contribution to the world of carpentry exceeds that even of Noah, who didn't even have a blog to help Ark builders who followed him - probably why you don't hear of too many people building Arks these days!

Not content with my invention of "Labelling stuff" which is a boon for all mankind, and one that I've decided to freely licence to would be labellers, today I discovered another technique that has been of great help to me and I'm sure to others who have the privilege of reading this blog.

I like to call this technique, "Pre-drilling holes in stuff". In essence, instead of just relying on the wood screw to make its own hole in the wood, I've found that drilling a small "pilot" hole (as I like to call it) makes it much easier to subsequently position the screw and then drive it in. I only wish that my genius had devised this technique some time earlier in the build, but to be honest I couldn't be arsed to keep swapping a drill bit and screw driver bit over on my cordless drill.

Imagine my surprise then, when I finally actually opened up and looked at the 201 piece cordless drill accessory set I bought the other day and found that it contained "snap in" drill bits which can be swapped over for screwdriver bits in mere seconds. If someone else hadn't thought of it before me, I'd have probably thought of it myself by now and be on my way to buying Iceland (that's the country, not the store, because the country is cheaper!).

Anyway, armed with my new patent-pending technique, I was able to completely assemble another 2 corner posts, and complete a significant amount of the last one. I was unfortunately prevented from doing so by two issues:

• One of the 3" width pieces of lumber was very significantly twisted. I don't know why I didn't spot it when I bought it as I was very careful in my selection, so I can only assume that it became warped by the curious temporal energies that have been surrounding my TARDIS project. Anyway, I've clamped it up to leave overnight to see if it ends up any straighter, but to be honest I'm not hopeful about it.
• The second reason was that I ran out of wood glue. And these led me to my 3rd major discovery which is "Buy more stuff than you think you need because you'll probably need more stuff than you think you do". The premise here is quite simple - if you see 3 tubes of wood glue on the shelf, a small one, a medium sized one, and a large one, and you think you can get away with the medium sized one, buy the large one instead because you'll have undoubtedly underestimated how much of it you'll actually need!

Anyway, so tomorrow I'll have to return to Lowes (again!) to get some more wood glue, and probably buy another 8ft long length of 3x1 to replace the one twisted by chronoton radiation.

I should then be able to complete the last corner post, but this then means that I have to start actually preparing the subassemblies I've already built for final assembly. So I'll be filling gaps and holes with wood filler, sanding down everything to the desired level, and then treating it with some kind of sealant to keep out the weather and pests.

After that, it gets really scary since I'll need to start assembling everything I've got (the base, th roof and the corner posts) to resemble some kind of strange gazebo because I can't really make the side panels and the doors without being able to accurately measure the available space between the corner posts. So far, all my construction efforts have been on a largely theoretical basis, and bringing everything together is when I'll find out just how well I've really been doing!

Ozymandias - your great works may have ground to dust, but mine will endure for weeks or even months! So ya boo sucks to you!

Progress, progress

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity

Tor Heyerdahl, Builder of Kon-Tiki and Ra II amongst other things

Todays task was simple. Finish off the corner post I'd already made by gluing just the one remaining quadrant to it, and then go buy the materials for the other 3 posts and build them too.
Sadly, progress today was very slow for a plethora of reasons, but mostly keeping the missus happy!

So, in the end all I managed was to finish off the one corner post which took a shade under 5 minutes. In fact, it took longer to take the photos on this post than it did to do the work today. Hopefully tomorrow will prove to be more productive!



Anyway, onto the construction of the corner post.



Essentially, the main part of the corner post is two lengths of 6x1 cut to 99" long, which are

then joined together against one long edge using some 1" square down which is glued and screw to the edge of one of the lengths of lumber, and then glued and screwed to the edge of the other piece so that the two lengths for a right angle, but they only actually "touch" each other at the diagonal - i.e. no surface on the two lengths of lumber actually touches the other except at the very corner.

This was surprisingly easy to achieve by fixing the dowel to the first edge and the supporting the other piece with some equal width offcuts whilst it is also fixed to the dowel.

One this is done, two pieces of 3x1 cut to a shorter length (93.5"), are screwed and glued to the inside of each of the two sides of the corner post so that about an inch protrudes out from behind the corner post. This lumber is shorter than the main lengths of the corner post because these will "stop" at the base of the TARDIS, whereas the longer two will fit through "slots" in the base (which have yet to be cut!) and then bolted to the base itself.

Finally, where the edges of the wood are exposed on the outside of the corner post, quadrants of 0.75 lumber are glued and pinned to "round" of the edges of the corner posts. Hopefully, this will be clear in the pictures!

Here's a shot of the very top of the corner post shown from the "inside". Putting this picture up has made me realised that I haven't actually finished this corner post yet! I still need to fill in the area at the very top of the post with some small pieces of lumber to "seal" the end of the corner post from the elements, errhhh I mean the time eddys in the space time vortex!

You can also see here the two pieces of 3x1 screwed to the outer edges of the 6x1, and the 1" dowel that joins the 6x1s together. You can also see where the cursed 3x1 split slightly as I put in the last screw!

Here's a shot of the very bottom of the corner post from the outside. You can see here how the two wide lengths of wood are joined at the corner and how the quadrant in the middle does not extend all the way down the corner post. The section underneath the pencil line you see here will fit into two slots in the base and will be where the corner post and base are fixed together.

A side view of the corner post, showing the quadrant attached to the "edge" of the corner post. There's an identical one the other side.

Here's the completed (well, almost) corner post stood up outside the garage so you can get an idea of the scale. Bear in mind that the top of lamp at the very top of the TARDIS will be another 12" or so above this, so we're talking a total height of some 9 feet for this beast!

Standing on the shoulders of giants

“I'm too tall to be a girl. I'm between a chick and a broad.”

Julia Roberts, Actress

In the Doctor Who story, The Destiny of the Daleks, the TARDIS appears without its roof as the prop was too tall to fit under the rocky outcrop where it materialises as part of the story.

Today, I was presented with a similar issue.

Having bought the lumber for a single corner post, I found the time to work on it, and for the most part the work proceeding along swiftly and without issue, except right at the end where a piece of lumber split ever so slightly as I was putting the last screw in. I decided to just glue it back together and clamp it, but it meant that I had one corner edging still to apply before the corner post could truly be said to be complete.

Anyway, no doubt I shall be able to set to work on the other 3 corner posts and I'll give full details of their construction later on in the blog.

Anyway, the reason I mentioned "The Destiny of the Daleks" prop at the start of this post, is that whilst cutting the lumber for my corner post I realized that my TARDIS is going to be too tall to fit in my garage when it is complete! This became evident when I'd cut the two longest pieces and lay them to rest against the rear wall of the garage. At the point it was pretty clear that they were not far off the ceiling of the garage, and that the extra elevation of the roof is going to make it impossible for the TARDIS to stand up in the garage.

I shall have to ponder on this logistical problem for a time, because I'd always assumed the TARDIS wasn't that big, but at this point in time I'm looking at something in the region of 9 feet tall, yet my garage is only about 8'5" from floor to ceiling!

Looks like the old girls is a broad! ;)

A treatise on lamps!

"I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness
because it shows me the stars.”

Og Mandino - American essayist and psychologist. 1923 - 1996

Well, given that my roof is near completion, my thoughts today have turned to the subject of that vital ingredient for any TARDIS - the lamp at the very top!

My initial thoughts were to go for a marine lamp with a fresnel lens, but I've found these to be pretty expensive at in excess of $150 for a suitably size lamp.



Therefore, I've been looking at garden lamps and lanterns, and so far I've found two potential candidates.



The first is a candle lantern produced by a company called Gardman in the UK. I've found a site i n the US which sells them and placed an order since it is quite cheap ($25).



The advantage of this lamp is that there is some evidence that the BBC used one of these for the lamps on the TARDIS props for the new series - however, it will require some considerable rework to get it right, since the top of this lamp has two tiers, and there is no "hole" in the bottom for an electric light fitting. It could also ideally do with some pillars running from top to bottom and obviously it has to be painted blue.

The second is something a little more expensive (about twice the money) from Home Depots website.

This has the advantage that it probably comes unassembled, and the "stake" and vertical bar can just be left off, leaving the lantern section with a small hole at the top which can easily be filled. The lamp part would be mounted from the bottom instead of the top where it currently sits but this shouldn't prove to be a problem.

So, whilst option 1 is probably more authentic and is cheaper, it will require more work than option 2 which looks pretty good (you can see it at Home Depot but it's only available to order) as is and would just require painting for the most part.

Anyway, I ordered this one too! Both should arrive by the end of the week, so I can compare the two properly "in-situ" and make a decision between the two. Of course, this means I've wasted between $25 and $50 depending on my eventual choice, but I can always use the lamp I'm not going to put on the TARDIS decoratively around the house.

Of course, whichever one I choose, I need to work out some way of fitting it such that:

• I can get external power to it (probably through a small hole in the flat section of the roof)
• It will be watertight
• It can withstand high winds and not fly off
• I can easily open it up to change the bulb

Other news - well we didn't go to the Zoo today as the missus isn't feeling too great, but I don't think can get away with spending any more time that I've already spent today on the project. However, I did manage to pick up the lumber I required to make one corner post.

Now, I'm sure some will be thinking, why only enough for one when 4 are required? Well, I'm a little concerned that if I buy everything in one go I'll be tempted to take a "production" line approach to the construction and therefore if I mess it up, I'll have to redo them all. So, I'm starting with just one, to make sure my construction goes to plan and assuming it does will approach the other 3 in one go.

Time And Relative Dimensions In Space

In the Worlds before Monkey,

Primal chaos reigned, Heaven sought order.

But the Phoenix can fly only when its feathers are
grown.

The four worlds formed again and yet again,

As endless aeons wheeled and passed.

Time and the pure essences of Heaven,

The moistures of the Earth,

And the powers of the Sun and the Moon

All worked upon a certain rock - old as Creation,

And it magically became fertile.

That first egg was named Thought,

Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha,

Said, 'With our thoughts we make the world.'

Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch,

from it then came a stone Monkey.

The nature of Monkey was irrepressible!
From the TV series, Monkey!

It occurs to me that less than a week has passed since I started this project (and this blog) and to be honest I'm amazed with how far I've come in such a short period of time. At most, I've spent 3 to 4 hours a day on this and already I'm well advanced of where I actually expected to be by this point. I'd pat myself on the back, but all this physical exertion is giving me shoulder pains, so I'll tap myself on the knee whilst I sit here and tell myself "Well done!".

I doubt that tomorrow will see any real progress (if any at all) since we're taking The Mookalon off to the zoo for the day, and then we've Julias "un-party" late afternoon tomorrow, so this is probably a wrap for the week, but if next week is even half as productive as this has been I'll be well happy!

It's a new dawn,It's a new day.....

'There are always possibilities', Spock said. And if Genesis is
indeed life from death, I must return to this place again

James T. Kirk, Stardate 8141.6

So, after the "death" of my first roof (well, the sloping section at least), this morning I had had to return once again to the task at hand and start all over again.

I knew I needed more wood, as the birch ply I'd previously bought was no longer with us, and I also needed to buy the boards for the cross members that would support the roof. The diagonals of the roof were a shade over 5ft each (well, 60" 1/4 for one and 60" 3/4 for the other), so I figured two 6ft lengths about 8" wide (7.5" in real money) would serve.

So, I headed down to Lowes in Brooksville, rather than Spring Hill as somehow I felt it had more of a selection.

Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did it not have a greater selection, in conversation with one of the stout yeoman's that worked there I was told the Spring Hill was far better stocked for lumber! I left with just the 1x8x6 boards for the cross members, but all was not lost since they had a Firestorm 18v hand saw going for $11 (down from $44) - it didn't come with a battery since it is presumed that you'd already have one, and fortunately I got two with the 6 tool Firestorm set I bought earlier!

Anyway, off home I went, and set to making my cross members. Carefully measuring the length of each diagonal, I cut the boards to length and then had to start marking up for the cuts that would form the "interlock", and the angled cut for the roof pitch (I just remembered that when talking about roof angles, you normally say the pitch of the roof!).

I measured to the centre of the board and then from each side 3.25", and marked up the boards. Then from the same centre point, I measured 6 inches on either side of the centre so that I'd make up my 12" square on the top of the roof (more on this later!). I knew that I wanted the "height" of this roof section to be around 6", and I'd already glued and screwed some small wooden blocks into the inside of my roof assembly at the right height so that when my cross member boards slotted in they would rise about 5.5" above the roof assembly.

So, I marked up all the lines for the pitch, and then took the lumber to my table saw.

At this point I'd just to to stop for a moment and consider my purchase of a table saw for this project.

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When I started, I bought a set of Firestorm tools than included a circular saw, and I was of the opinion that with a workmate type affair and some clamps, the circular saw would be all that I needed.

However, I'd seen how cheaply I could pick up a table saw, and some kind of bizarre power-tool induced frenzy came over me and before I knew it, I was research table saws (see earlier posts) and eventually picked one up for about $85. Even as I took it home, I thought that I was probably just wasting money, and that I was almost certain to injure myself hideously with the device. When I got home and assembled it all, I couldn't wait to try it out like some kind of crazed junkie! I should say though that I did also buy eye protectors, gloves and a face mask and thus far I've been rigorous in wearing it all when using the table saw.

Now, I used the saw throughout the construction of the base, and my roof assembly, but none of the cuts were particular long and could've easily been done with a circular saw, if a little less conveniently.

The cross members though were a whole different kettle of fish! For starters, I needed to create two "slots" about .75" in size and then some angled cuts about 2ft long down my cross members to form the pitch.

For the slots, I thought I'd just cut down the "sides" and then use a power drill to drill out the remaining section at the bottom. However, with the table saw, I found I could just cut a good 1/8 of an inch off at a time a bit like a bacon slicer - however, the bacon was my lumber and the "slices" just ended up as sawdust!

So, the table saw made the slots really easy to make, and having cut them I tested out that both pieces slotted together nicely; which they did!

I then had to cut the pitch which is what I was really worried about. I figured any mistakes here would end up with a ruined board and I'd only bought the 2 I needed. So, I approached these cuts with some trepidation, but once again the table saw came to my rescue! As long as you've marked up your boards well, it's easy to keep the lumber on line and get a good cut - a word of advice though - since the saw itself "consumes" about 1/8" of wood, if you mark up exactly on line, always cut "to" the line on the side that is being cut "off" rather than "on" the line itself!

Anyway, barely an hour after I'd come back from Lowes, I had these:

Which, when fitted together, look like this:

Now, I was well aware that the "ends" of my cross members were flat and needed to angled to 45 degrees so that they would fit in corners of the roof assembly. My $11 hand saw I'd just bought from Lowes seemed like just the ticket!



Here's a shot of the little blocks I'd already mounted the roof assembly for the cross members to sit on.


And here are the cross members mounted in the roof assembly:

And a close up of one of the corners where the cross members sit:

Not a bad job, even if I do say so myself!

So, the next step was the sloping roof sections themselves.

This time, I'd thrown away the algebra and resorted to placing a plywood board over the cross members and marking as accurately as possible where the sloping section of the cross member met the flat part, and then using a straight rule to join the dots to produce the lines for the cuts.

Having done this, it was off to the table saw again and a few minutes later I had my first sloping section settled in position on the roof assembly!

At this point a young Timelord, barely out of the Loom, decided to pay me a visit and try out the TARDIS for size!

It looks like The Mookalon can't wait to start travelling through time and space in the TARDIS, but for the time being he'll just have to cope with travelling through the spaces within the TARDIS itself!

Anyway, having ushered The Mookalon back of to the academy, I set to making the other 3 roof sections. It is very important here to mark which section fits which part of the roof as they are custom cut, so once again my "labelling" technique (patent pending) came in useful!

At this point, I measured across the top of my roof section expected to find it was around 12", as I had planned. Imagine my surprise when it came out to 8.5". Now, it turns out that I was a little too keen to throw out Pythagoras earlier on as I needed to use him today but didn't make the call! When I was cutting my cross members, I measured 6" either side of the centre for my central flat section, but this would give me a square 12" across the diagonal! Applying Pythagoras to this, and this gives the length of the sides of my central flat section at 8.5" instead of 12".

However, in actual fact, this has rather done me a favour, since if I'd made them 12", the pitch of my roof would've been higher and even as it is it's probably a tad on the high side!

Anyway, a short while later I had all 4 roof sections, and to my surprise they fitted together quite well! I had to trip the tops of a couple of them a little, but nothing major.

As I was now quite certain this was all going to work, I used some brackets I'd purchased earlier at Lowes (forgot to mention that earlier) to secure the two cross members together.

All that was left then, was to sand down the edges of my cross members to give me a decent surface to glue my roof sections on, and then apply the glue, position the roof sections, and pin them down.



Voila! One roof, almost complete! All that's left now is to fit a small square (ok, squarish as it happens in the end) of ply to the top and apart from fittings like the light boxes and the top lamp, it's done! Oh, and painting etc, etc.

Here's some more tedious pictures of the roof close up. Some may wonder why I'm including so much detail here, and the reason young Padawan is because I hope to learn from this experience and therefore need to document it as fully as possible. Plus, others may try to follow in my footsteps (as I am following in anothers), and I want to share my experiences as fully as possible - though I doubt that The Mookalon would pay them a visit during the construction of their own time capsules!

And there we have it, gentle readers - the roof! Risen from the ashes of despair, like a rising ashy thing that's not despairing anymore!

The Land of the Free?

I almost forgot to mention that I eventually got a response from Hernando County Buildings Dept on the permit situation. Here's a paraphrased snippet!

Your need two copies of sealed engineered drawings as well as two site
plans. On your site plan you will make note of where the shed will be placed and
how far from your property line it will be. On your plans , the engineer
needs to state that the plans comply with the building code of 2004 with
the supplements of 2005 and 2006.

Now let us remember that I'm currently in the US - the Land of the Free, and I need to submit all this just to put up what is effectively a shed??? To add insult to injury, I also have to pay $100 and wait two weeks for the permit. Is the bureaucracy gone mad? I thought things like this would be easy in the US, but this would be an order of magnitude simpler in the UK.

Of course, I've a couple of major problems here. Firstly, I don't have any plans, let alone sealed engineered drawings (what does that mean anyway), and I've no idea what the building code for 2004 contains let alone the supplements of 2005 and 2006 - I guess 2007 was an off year for building codes! Now I know that Florida has some "inclement" weather from time to time, but I've seen boats and trailers sitting out on peoples front yard which are more likely to blow away in the wind than my TARDIS is, so quite why all of this is required for something that's around 5ft square I've no idea!

Where does this leave the project? Well, I'm continuing on unfazed at present. If necessary, I'll just keep the TARDIS in garage though I may be able to assemble it in the pool screen room without needing a permit (though somehow I doubt it!).

Hubris!

So, this morning I posted about cutting the flat sections for the sloping roof. I also started the post with the thoughts that I'd probably make a hash of it and have to start again.

However, by the end of the session, I was once again flushed with success - so far, my trials and tribulations have been more tribulation than trial!

That is, until now!

Having cut my roof sections, I set about working out precisely how I was going to mount these onto the roof assembly. My first task was to screw some batons around the inner edge of the roof for the root boards to rest on - I could always remove them later if they weren't required.

Having done this, I once again took my roof sections and put them together on the top of the roof assembly, but this time in more or less their final positions.

This time, they didn't fit!

Now, it turns out that my roof assembly isn't quite as square as it should be. Oh, length and width are both fine, but obvious it slightly more diamond shaped than it is square, but not by much - across one diagonal it is around 60.2" and across the other it is more like 60.75", but if it were perfectly square, it should be 60.64" across both diagonals.

Now, when I was building the roof assembly I was very careful with my measurements, and I also measured the angle at each corner as I assembled it to make sure it was at right angles, but somewhere along the line it's drifted out just a little.

I know that this isn't an exact science - it's almost impossible to be absolutely 100% precise with your cuts on the table saw, and each time you cut you're losing about a quarter of an inch of material. When I made my roof panels I tried to take all this into consideration, but I failed to consider that my roof assembly wasn't precisely square, and because it wasn't precisely square all my guff about Pythagoras theorems and whatever can be thrown right out the window!

The original instructions called for the construction of a set of interlocking cross beams, and I'd decided that this was going to be too hard to get right. Well, it turns out that it's probably too hard to get the roof panels properly aligned without it!

You see, if I create the interclocking cross beams and mount them in the roof assembly, I can then lay a board over each side and mark it up from the underside to show where the cuts should be. It shouldn't really matter then that my roof isn't 100% square, since each panel will be custom sized for the side it is due to fit on. So it apart from the creation of the cross beams themselves (the construction of which I need to ponder some more before I start on them), it should actually be easier to get the roof panels right than my fancy mathematical methods. Curse you Pythagorus!

So, this leaves me somewhat wiser that this morning, but the project has actually suffered its first real setback as I'm in a worse position now than I was this morning. Why is worse now? Well, this morning I had 4 birch ply boards to make the roof panels with - now I just have some firewood, and I've got to go buy some more ply!

That'll teach me to try and deviate from the instructions I have. If this doesn't work though

Oh, I should probably add that I spent about an hour and a half trying to trim the boards I'd already cut to make them work, but I'd get 3 fitted pretty much perfectly, and then end up taking too much of the 4th and having to start again. After about three attempts, I noticed my roof sections getting flatter and flatter and in a moment of frustration tried to make a cut on the table saw without first having marked out the line - which was pure folly was the resulting cut was nowhere near where I expect it to be! C'est la guerre!

Just a reminder that the title of this post is "Hubris" which means overbearing pride or arrogance, and summed up nicely by "pride comes before a fall" which I think is rather apt at present!

The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides

There you go!

Some basic Pythagorus theory for you, and something I've not given a moments notice since I left school in 1988! It wasn't particularly helpful during my university years, since it had little application in my Computer Science degree!

Anyway, having built the basic structure of my roof the next step was to build and install the sloped sections for the roof.

The main issue I had here is that the instructions I have didn't give any clues as to what angle the roof should slope at. Therefore I had to guess at what was right and I was fully expecting to be wrong on the first go, and end up having to start again.

I took the view that with the sides of the roof sections measuring 43", I didn't want it sloping too much. I knew that I wanted a 12" square platform right in the middle of the roof for the lantern to go on, so working backwards, 43-12 = 31 which divided by 2 gives me the distance from the middle of the sides of the roof structure to the edge of my 12" square in the centre across the horizontal (i.e. when it was completely flat). So, given I wanted to raise this 12" square by an "amount" (as yet undefined), I measured out 15.5" inches and decided, purely visually, that I wanted the "height" to be around 6".

Taking my trusty formula, (A*A)+(B*B)=(C*C) and plugging in A=15.5 and B=6, I came up with a value of 16.62" as the value for C - the length of the hypotenuse. Now, knowing as I do how difficult it is to measure and cut anything with any accuracy, I took the view that 16.62" was going to be too hard to get to, and that at 16.5" I stood half a chance. So, plugged my numbers back into my formula, this time using A=15.5 and C=16.5, which gave me a value of B of 5.65 - close enough to 6" anyway methinks! ;)

So, I set to work on some birch plywood I'd picked up for the roof and within a short order I had this

Not bad for a first effort, but I needed 3 more! So, a little more work and I'd got all 4 roof sections cut. Now, when I laid them all together, one on top of the other, I noticed that one of them was a good quarter of an inch taller than the others, but I managed to trim that back with the table saw by holding all 4 pieces together and nicking off one edge.

Here's all 4 laid out on the floor.

Now, I know what you're probably thinking and that is that they don't fit together properly, right? Well, they won't when they are laying flat on the floor - the should only fit together when the middle section is raised up (by approximately 5.65"! :) ).

Now, the next step is to build some sort of frame for these panels to fit onto, but I really couldn't resist seeing how it might look, so I got hold of some tape and taped the panels together to get this:

Not bad at all even if I say so myself. But wait..... it doesn't end there!

Having put them together on the floor like this, I then decided that I wanted to see what they would look like on my roof assembly, so using some offcuts to support it at the corners, I placed it on my roof assembly.

It's really beginning to take shape now! Of course, it isn't perfect - when I kneel down to look at it I can see that one corner is a little higher than the others, but I'm sure I can make this a little better and anyway once it is all put together this is going to be somewhere around 7 feet up in the air, so it can afford to be a little off since no one will likely see it!

Another day done!

I really thought that today was going to end up disheartening.

Ok, so I was flushed with success having completed the base, but I knew that the roof was an order of magnitude more complicated, and I fully expected to run into difficultly - a lot of difficultly.

It turns out that changing material was the best decision I've made so far on this project. It was *so* much easier to work with than the pressure treated stuff in almost every way - easier to handle, easier to cut, easier to position (because it holds its dimensions better) and easier to screw together.

So, today was really a case of measuring out boards of wood, cutting them to size, and screwing them together (this time I used glue too for good measure).

I also had an absolutely brilliant idea that I think I should patent. When cutting out my pieces I wrote a little indicator on each one to serve as a "label" so that I could easily identify which piece was which when putting it all together. I chose to use letters for my labels, A,B,C etc - you may like to choose something else, like famous composers - Beethoven, Mozart, Bach...

Such brilliance......... ;)

Anyway, in a little under 3 hours, I've managed to go from some uncut boards, to this!

Of course, it isn't complete yet, but this is the main structural assembly. Next is the frame that fits on top of this and then the sloping flat panels that sit on top of that. Then I need to fill some of the gaps with some wood filler and sand down the elevations - I'm thinking that I should really make them slope ever so slightly downwards so they won't collect water.

Look at the craftsman ship of my elevations!

Ok, I know they're not perfect, but this wood working malarky isn't all about precision you know! In fact, it's almost impossible to get everything to fit absolutely precisely, so close enough is close enough.

Having constructed most of the roof, here's a shot of it sitting on top of the base. All you need do now is imagine the roof finished off, the whole of the middle, and it being painted and finished and you can see the TARDIS there right now!

One other lesson I've learned whilst undertaking this project is the importance of keeping your work area clean and tidy - I've been making sure that I'm not spreading a mess all over the garage as I need to get the car into it at the end of the day. Consequently I've been keeping my work area as tidy as I can throughout my work and I feel that it's made me more productive and less frustrated since I'm not having to hunt round all the time to find things hidden under scraps of wood, paper, body parts, etc!

So, today was not what I expected at all. Far from being disheartened, I'm growing in confidence that I'll actually be able to do this!

Decisions, decisions!

So, this afternoon I popped down to Lowes to pick up the lumber for the roof subassembly.

Whilst there, I took a little time to have a look at the other materials on offer and as a result came to a decision to change my primary building material, and use untreated pine instead of the pressure treated variety.

Now, I didn't undertake this decision lightly, as right near the beginning of this blog I outlined my choices (pressure treated pine, cedar, and a combination of the two) and as you will notice, untreated pine is not amongst them.

Well, things change!

As a result of my experiences making the base, I learned that the pressure treated pine is not as "dimensionally" accurate as I'd hoped it would (ironic that a TARDIS needs to be dimensionally accurate!).

In Lowes today, I looked at the standard pine lumber and could clearly see that each piece was much, much more regular in every way than the pressure treated pine. Also, it has a far better natural finish, which should make my job a lot easier when it comes to sanding and painting etc.

I did look at the cedar too, but Lowes has a very small selection of sizes of cedar boards and those it does have are quite unfinished too.

Therefore, untreated pine it is from this point on.

Now, obviously, one of the reason for choosing the treated stuff in the first place was its resistance to the elements and to things like termites and mildew. I'm losing this in-built protection by shifting to normal pine, so now I'm going to have to worry more about treating the wood against the elements and anything else that would attack it. However, I think I will save an awful lot of time and energy in the construction phase, so this is a small price to pay.

The second thing that happened at Lowes today was that I decided to significantly alter the way my TARDIS roof is constructed. In my original "instructions", it calls for essentially 3 square frames, each slightly smaller than the previous one, to be built up which are then fitted into each other a bit like telescoping car aerial to form 3 elevations. This part of the plan I'm sticking with, but the next stage involves the supports for the sloping roof pieces. In the instructions, it advises making a pair of interlocking cross beams which are then tapered for the roof panels and fitted inside the aforementioned roof frames (the very inner one) across the diagonals.

I've two issues with this approach:

1. It is going to be very heavy
2. It is going to be quite hard for someone with as little experience as myself to create these interlocking beams accurately.

Therefore, I've decided to forego the approach taken in the instructions, and I'm going to create a simple frame to support the roof panels which will fit inside the inner most roof section. I believe this will be easier for me to make, and easier to "adjust" if it turns out that I've not been accurate enough.

Nearly forgot my "Rodney" moment!

So I've already written about the base completion, but I completely forgot to talk about my "Rodney" moment - when I was just being a plonker!

Having cut all my lumber to make the base, I'd laid everything out in the correct place for later construction, and went away for something to eat and drink.

When I came back and started putting it together, I noticed that one of the lengths of board that I was going to use for one of the sides of the base wasn't as good quality as some of my other boards (colour, dampness etc) so I decided to swap it over with one of the floorboards.

I then proceeded to put it all together. The first job was to screw all the sides together, which I duly did, and then moved on to fixing the floor boards on. Imagine my surprise when the lengths of my floor boards were too short for the rest of the base!

Now, the base is supposed to be 55" square (there, or thereabouts anyway) so when I measured it I was nearly 57" in one direction, and 56" in the other. Now two of the sides were cut to 55" and the other two to 53.5" - the idea being that "widths" on the two 55" boards will add to the length of the 53.5" boards to get me to 55". This would've been fine, if I had screwed the 53.5" boards to the "inside" of the 55" board but when I looked at what I'd done I'd made a bit of a hash of it and been totally inconsistent with putting it altogther.

No problem though - I just disassembled it again and screwed it together consistently, and correctly, so now my problem is fixed, and my floor boards will fit perfectly to the base, right?

Wrong! Remember when I said I switched over a side board for a floor boards? Well, as luck (all bad) would have it, the board I switched was a 53.5" board and the floor boards were all 55". Doh!

So, once again, I had to remove that board and put the original board back in place. Once this was done, I had my base at 55" square, and the floor boards all fitted ok!

What else did I learn during this exercise? Well, I'd already mentioned that my boards were not all equal in every dimension as they should have been - in fact, the only dimension they general were equal in was in length and this was the dimension I was responsible for as I cut the boards to length!

So, some of my boards are a little taller (when vertical anyway) than others. Thus my base, although pretty much square, isn't as level as it probably should be due to the slight differences in height of the side boards. As it happens, this shouldn't really be a problem for the base since the ground it will eventually sit on won't be naturally level anyway, and I could always plane the sides a little anyway to get it perfect.

It does however teach me some valuable lessons!

1. Be much more careful when buying lumber. Whilst I tried to avoid bowed boards when I bought the lumber, I didn't check all dimensions. In future, I will cherry pick the boards I buy much more thoroughly to ensure they are as close as possible to each other in all dimensions.
2. Where there is a difference, try to ensure that these boards are used where it won't really matter. For example, the floor of the base would've been a good place to put the dodgiest of my boards.
3. Don't be a plonker and mix up cuts. If a board is cut for a specific position, it's cut for that position. If it isn't right for any reason, just cut another one and if necessary throw the old one out or reuse in a different location.
4. When screwing the whole lot together, think first!

Phase 1 is complete!

So, the first milestone for the Type 40 Project has now been passed - the completion of the TARDIS base. Essentially, the whole project is split into subassemblies, such as:

• The Base


• The Roof


• The Side Panels


• The Doors

Now, some of these subassemblies consist several sub-subassemblies (for example, the light on the top of the Roof), but in general I am measuring progress at the higher level subassemblies.

So, the first subassembly is now complete! Ok, so it's probably most simple in construction terms but a milestone is a milestone! Now, when I say "complete" I mean structurally complete - it will still need some finishing work, such as sanding and planing, but I'm going to leave that (probably) until the other subassemblies are complete as I'd imagine getting all the pieces to fit together properly will probably require some "adjustments" and therefore I'm leaving the finishing until these adjustments have been made.

Whilst it is tempting to move upwards to the side panels and the doors, the next subassembly I will be tackling is the roof. This is technically the most challenging of the subassemblies since it contains the most sub-subassemblies (e.g. roof light, light boxes for signage etc) and it is effectively "terraced" with sloped surfaces - if I can get this done, I'll consider that I'm over the brow of the hill and rushing downwards towards completion!

An initial thought though: The base is heavy - very heavy. If I use the same materials for the roof, it will likely be quite a bit heavier than the base, and somehow I'm going to have to fit this all together eventually!