Tardis Miniature (2015)

A friend of mine is a fan of Dr. Who. In this TV series a Time Lord able to travel trough time using a "Tardis", which on the outside looks like a Police Call Box and on the inside hold a lot of rooms and space.

I thought it would be fun to create a miniature version.

My finished TARDIS

The Original Tardis from the TV Series.

With Rhinoceros 3D I made a global building plan, but it changed during the build. The only measurements I had were the inside of the box, which I wanted to be 15x15x25 cm and the width of the main strips of wood for the doors etc.

That is were I started with; a box and a lot of wooden strips.
They were sawn and cut to size and glued against the box.
I noticed the easiest way to get the right size for the strips on the door is measuring them on place, no ruler.

Because these strips are only 4mm thick, they can be cut with a Stanley knife.

The doors were a bit of a struggle. Original I planned them to pivot with standard hinges, but it was impossible to make them swing open without seeing the hings and that didn't look so pretty. I thought of the way tiny doll furniture are sometimes hinged; using a nail in the frame and a hole in the door on which it pivots.

Nail "hinge"

The way I glued to top lid.

Another difficult part is the roof. I'd like to make it hollow, have some extra storage space + a way to hide the wires/ battery used for the lights.
I saw 4 triangle parts (I believe it was with an 8 degree angle) and glued them together. Next the bottom part was sanded straight using a band sander.
It's held in place with 2 tiny hinges at the back and 3 little magnets in the front.

When all the parts were done it was time to paint. I used grey primer because it's easier to cover than white.
After the first layer, the edges of the plywood were smoothed out with filler. This was sanded and another layer of primer was applied.
Last 2 layers of blue were added.

Front unpainted

Perspective unpainted

Front with primer

Perspective with primer

Front painted

Perspective painted.

By now it was time for the details; lights, frame panel, windows.
For the lights I used 9 5mm LED's and 1 10mm LED; that last one becomes the tiny lantern on the roof.
The windows are made from pieces of Popsicle sticks. A piece of plastic sheet was painted and glued to the frame.
An easier way it to print the background on photo paper. This way you don't need several coats of paint. (Except for the door windows as the black parts are transparent)

LED's

Back and frontside of the windows

Top view of the wiring.

 Some more details were added like the "Police Box" frame. This is made from a strip of plywood. The words are done in Word and printed on Photopaper (Black ink only; otherwise it will turn out a very dark green). A piece of plastic sheet covers this with a framing made from Popsicle sticks.
On the front it has another sign which is made in basically the same way.
The handles are made from bent nails.
Also I added 2 tiny magnets to keep the doors shut.

Front view of the finished box with the doors/ rooftop open.

Last but not least, I added mirrors inside to give it a fake feeling of extra space.

Finished Tardis with the lights on.

Finished Tardis in the dark.

Example of the "fake" space inside.

Finished Tardis