StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Entendres aside; I thought some of you might like a peek at something I'm making as a wedding gift for some friends of mine:

Original Plans:

Basically, a solid wood box carved to be a scale model of the Tardis with a middle section that slides out to reveal a pair of custom etched wine glasses and glencairn scotch glasses (I'll be etching their names in English and Circle Gallifreyen, design to be worked out later)

Outer shell:


Inner shell: (will be held at the bottom by half blind dovetails)

I measured something wrong and after several iterations (and unnecessary cuts) found I can't fit both the wine glasses AND the scotch glasses side by side.
So I'll be replacing the drawer at the top with some fitted pockets in which to lay the scotch glasses horizontally


I decided to do decals instead of hand painting everything; so I got some waterslide decal paper and will get these printed out to apply after the blue paint:

well this looks like fun !

Finished the inner section's construction and glassware rests. Now starting to relief-carve the sides

What a thoughtful gift. That looks really nice. Have you ever heard of the Wood Whisperer podcast? It may interest you.

I've heard of it; I think I've watched one of their videos. I typically don't do podcasts because audio's harder to skim through than text or video.



Holy shit! That took a long time; had to bust out the router just so the one side didn't take a whole week. First door carving is done; three more to go:


Doesn't slide freely yet; I'll have to do some final fitting and some tear outs will need to be filled; I'll probably also touch up the windows before painting. The half blind dovetails were too deep and have become full dovetails

Oh well, I doubt they'll still be visible once primed and painted.

After a few weeks I finally found time enough to finish the bas relief carving... it's starting to look right



Now I just have to get the roof together and carve a lantern for the top.

Let me know if you need help with the Circle Gallifreyan - while there are some adequate translation apps out there I find using the app for a sketch then going and redrawing it for greater aesthetic appearance generally gives better results. Or do it all yourself.

Love the carving work. Would be a bit better if you inlaid some darker woods into the windows, then stainded. Or you could try staining everyhting but the windows with a laghter stain shade, but depending on the porousness of the wood that could be problematic. I'd honestly go with staining the entire piece, then use some precut/prestained darker woods for the windows of the box itself.

Ok, just to clarify, what I mean is take something like 1/8th Walnut, stain it, and pre-cut it for the windows of the Tardis. If 1/8th is to thick, correct with a belt sander or whatever untill you get the desired thickness. Use Elmer's wood glue for final fixing of the piece (anything else is for assholes).

woah, I was thinking the sides looked a little heavy, but that carving takes away all of that. lovely work

Mr. Coffee wrote:Ok, just to clarify, what I mean is take something like 1/8th Walnut, stain it, and pre-cut it for the windows of the Tardis. If 1/8th is to thick, correct with a belt sander or whatever untill you get the desired thickness. Use Elmer's wood glue for final fixing of the piece (anything else is for assholes).

Windows will be filled with a thinned, colored epoxy (self leveling)

Spent a day on the lathe and finished the lantern:



Now doing final assembly and painting.

First layer of blue. It's looking good

After a lengthy period of swatch hunting and trying to match it to the official "Pantone 2955C" (To my surprise, you can't just walk into a paint shop and request a pantone color code) I finally decided on Behr S-G-580 "Running Water" (Heh... River)



Edit: Fuck me; I got a water/latex based paint. I'm going to have to top coat it to get it to stop being sticky and have better abrasion resistance.

It is finished:

Front

Ended up just painting the windows and then pouring on a thick polyurethane layer.

Detail

For the lock I turned a counter-sunk washer/sleeve on my lathe and attached it with a flat head screw; the slotted head then becomes the key slot. The handles were made by folding over some thin metal flashing into the desired shape; they were then pinned to the body using paperclips and a peening hammer.

Inside


Glass detail


EDIT: Changed image host

I can't see your images inline, but I can if I cut/paste the URLs. Is this just me?

Anyways, it looks great.

Switched image host. Better?

I can see the images now, so yes.

That is a work of art.