A brief treatise on wall construction!

“People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.”

Anonymous

So, I didn't really go into any detail on how the walls were put together, but it really was very simple.

Take a sheet of 8mm plywood already cut to size (about 83" x 44") by our friends at Home Depot/Lowes (I forget which now!). Layout two 6x1 (about 5.5" wide), one for each side, and a 8x1 (7.25" wide) in the middle. Then, cut ten lengths of 4x1 to fit in between the side and middle sections (like cross bars), which in my case was around 12.875".

I calculated that the "height" of each inset section was going to be 16.5", so I cut two spacers to this length to aid the laying out of the cross bars, and then loosely laid out all the pieces on top of the plywood for fitting. I was then able to "draw" in my rectangular inset sections onto the plywood and remove all the pieces, having first labelled where they originally went first, since they couldn't all be cut precisely to size.

This left me with a sheet of ply with 8 rectangles drawn onto it, 4 per side. The top rectangle needed to be cut out, since this is where the windows go, so using a jigsaw it was simple task to cut these out. Then, the cut wood was then glued down in position onto the ply and weighted down until the glue had set.

After the glue had set, I turned the ply over and using some 7/8" stainless nails, nailed all the pieces to the ply since I didn't really trust the glue on its own. On my first wall panel, I actually used screws, but once I completed it I decided this was massive overkill and that the nails would suffice.

Having completed the wall sections, they then needed treating with my wood preserver, and priming with my oil based primer before they could be fitted into the TARDIS shell.

“The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.”

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Spanish writer, author of the masterwork 'El quijote', 1547-1616)

It's been a long time since I rapped at you last. Well, I was back in the UK for a about 3 months, so naturally nothing happened on the TARDIS, but now I'm back and like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, so the work on the TARDIS continues!

So, I need to takes some pictures soon, but essentially, since I've been back I've managed to:

1. Construct the last side panel
2. Weather proof and prime two of the side panels
3. Install the two painted side panels into the TARDIS itself.

Pictures to follow, but it really is taking shape now! This weekend, I expect to complete the installation of the third side panel, and then start on the doors. With a little bit of luck, I'll have the doors ready for weather proofing and priming over the weekend, so I should be able to install them early next week.

It's getting there!

Back in the USSR.... ok, UK I mean!

I probably should've posted this earlier, but progress has come to a screaming halt because I'm now back in the UK until mid-March.

Before I left though, I did manage to complete two of the side walls for the TARDIS, leaving me just the following:

• Last side wall

• Doors

• Frames for windows on side walls and doors

• Light boxes

• Lamp fitting

• Signage

• Final prep and painting

Really there isn't that much left to do now as the vast bulk of the construction is now complete - if I'd been a little more proactive in Nov/Dec, it would be complete by now!

C'est la vie!

"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!