Tardis

[m4gnum]

Rankenphile: I've been scratching my head since I started this project on what to do for the sign. Nice idea with the letters, I'll give it a shot when I get to that point.

[m4gnum]

Lock Picking
Goodness me it's hot. Rather than sweat and slave cutting wood and sanding I thought it'd be easier to take apart the padlock to get the key bit with the doo-dah out. There are various studs on the top and bottom of the lock, which I think go through the whole thing and hold it together, so I started to Dremel (actually, it's a Black and Decker RT650KA) the studs off. Once the studs were off, I used a punch to knock them in, and lo, the front fascia fell off. After that the lock just fell out. Easy.

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I tucked that safely into my tool box and got on with the important business of watching England beat Paraquay.

The Riddle of the Pyramid
As explained on the previous page I used some sexy maths to calculate the size of the pyramid. I made a quick test pyramid out of cardboard to check it would work. As the base is 18.3cm2 and the height only 1.25cm it was very difficult to get a satisfactory looking pyramid (see first pic below), so I raised the height a little and that worked (in cardboard at least).
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I made a quick base in a similar fashion to the frame of the first bit of the roof and set to work cutting 4 identical triangles. I then cut across the top of the triangles to make them into trapezoids.This effectively cuts the top off the pyramid, allowing for ventilation. On the actual TARDIS this is where the light sits. I chamfered the edges of the trapezoids so they would sit together neatly. I then knocked up a little jig, and after I had finished dancing I made a bracket thing to hold the bottom end of the triangles against the edge of the base. I inserted 3 of the 4 sides and glued them into place. One dry I had to slightly reduce the size of the 4th side to fit. I had hoped to get a perfect square in the centre of the pyramid but that didn't quite work, so it'll need some filling. (That's glue in the photo, I'm going to wait for it to properly set before I fill).

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And, as from here I hope to provide some "How far I've got with my TARDIS PC case build" photos. Here they are:

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[GT40_GearHead]

love youre wood work

[pietjepuk]

It's sure great to see someone else do this as well...

Since i've worked on exactly the same idea for the past year, maybe there's some ideas/tips to be found in my old worklog... dutch (more pictures) or english

Good luck on the bulding though, i know it's a hell of a job, but it's worth it!

(sneak preview of what the result could look like.. )

[m4gnum]

Wow, that's amazing pietjepuk! I'd searched for ages seeing if anyone else had done similar, I guess I should have used google.nl? The internal mirror is a great idea. How did you make the sign? I see you've got some perspex, but there are no details on how you created the lettering. How wide is your case as you've used a full sized motherboard? It must be quite large.

I see you had some "fun" with the window frames. That's going to be my next step.

GT40_GearHead: Thanks very much, a bit too much wood filler in some places for my liking, but I'm sure it will be fine when I paint it.

[pietjepuk]

The lettering in my case is printed on chalk paper, which is what they used in the old times for blueprints. It has a slight matte and grainy look, and since it's paper-like, easy to work with (though verysensitive for fingerprints).

Essentially the signs are constructed in three layers: There's a backplate of very thin sheet, commonly used for presentations (in the time before digital projectors). On top of that (inside the framing) there a layer of chalk paper with the lettering printed on, and finally there's a layer of perspex to cover it all up, and make it appear nice and shiny...
The same thing goes for the sign in the little door, though due to the height of the buttons there wasn't room for a backplate, and the lettering is glued to a piece of cardboard.

The mainboard isn't full-size actually, it only appears that way, it's small depth mAtx board, which has the normal dimensions of approx 10" in width, but only 8" in depth. This makes the base of the case 37cmx37cm, and the height of the full case about 65cm. It's a bit bigger than yours though...

Good luck on the rest of the building...

[m4gnum]

Window Frames
I had to go out and get some more wood for the windows, but as B&Q didn't have any small enough I had to take a slightly longer trip to a hobby shop to get some. I cut the wood to size and assembled the windows out of them. It's not rocket science, I'm sure you can work out how to cut some wood and make some windows.

Well actually, it was a bit tougher. I'd made 4 of them (out of 6) in one weekend (football and the nice weather got in the way), but I then return a week later and just offer them up to the space in the doors left for them. They didn't look right, some were too small, some were just plain wonkey. So I started again, and this time instead of making the frames seperately, I glued them directly to the door so I'd know they would fit. As there would bit light shining out of the case it was important to fill any small gaps with some filler otherwise it would ruin the illusion.

Once the frame was glued and filled and set I added 2 more vertical posts and then a horizontal frame part. I'm pretty pleased with the final result, which is good as it's take 2 weekends to get right. Although my window frame is slightly more chunky than the real equivilant, I felt using wood any smaller would only result in breakages. I also continued my test work on the opaque windows. Looking at photos of the TARDIS windows they are mainly white, but it isn't a solid colour all the way across (check out the BBC Doctor Who wallpapers if you don't believe me.

I know this entry isn't very interesting but it's taken 2 weekends to get these windows right.

[m4gnum]

I also just realised I haven't shown you the shiny stuff that's going to be inside the case. I know you all love shiny stuff

1ghz motherboard. Surely that's enough to take over the world with?

A sexy little slot loading DVD R/W (the green item is the adaptor so it can accept a normal IDE cable).

Little screen thing. I plan to put this behind the TARDIS door, where the phone would normally be kept. It plugs into a parallel port, and draws power from a USB port. You can put things like what Winamp is playing and other things. Apparently. I've never used one, but it looks cool. There are also no instructions with it.

External power supply. This is great as I don't need a massive power block inside the case. The little green board (second left) has the 20 pin ATX cable plug into it, then the other end of the cable plugs into the motherboard. The black wire (third from left) plugs into the small blue thing and the green board. The power cable then plugs into the blue thing, and lo, science kicks in and it all works. That's the dream.

And some RAM and a hard drive. You've all seen them before, so have a group shot instead.

[Scotty]

"1ghz motherboard. Surely that's enough to take over the world with?" well it should be other wise how are we going to stay safe from all alien creatures :S

looking good, cant wait to see end reesult

[GT40_GearHead]

love it just love it
btw: you are the one that made me change my signature
it was "metal good wood bad" but you made light in my dark soul.... wood is youre friend.....