Father-Daughter 1/24 TARDIS Scratchbuild, Part 2

Last time, all that was complete was the floor/base. Next came the corner posts, also built out of popsicle sticks. Here is Sylvia cutting the popsicle sticks to width using a razor saw.

"Hey, Sylvia, don't look at me when you're sawing!"

"Hey, Daddy, don't take my picture when I'm sawing!"




We found it was too much trouble to cut all the way through with the razor saw, so here she's carefully cutting along the kerf from the razor saw using a #11 xacto blade. She's not cutting all the way through, just far enough so it'll split cleanly.

Now she's cutting the stick to length. She carefully measured the drawing with an engineer's scale and transferred the measurement to the stick.

Each corner post is formed of two popsicle sticks meeting at a right angle along their length. Here she's whittling a miter cut along one edge. When two popsicle sticks are fitted together, the mitered edges should come together like the corner of a picture frame. As it turns out, they didn't fit too neatly at first. I knew to expect this since I've been doing this sort of thing since about 1967.  For Sylvia, it was experience with how you have to remove a little material, test fit the parts, and keep repeating until they fit, being careful not to remove too much material.

Finally, a finished cornerpost. It also has bits of scrap on the inside angle to help hold it all together. Sylvia stretched tape around the ends while I held the pieced together. This was to clamp the pieces together while the Elmer's glue was drying. The tape didn't always work as a clamp, and we used clothes pins as well.

Here's an end view of the cornerpost.

We switched to balsa to do the doors and walls. Here I am holding up two of the doors. We simply cut out the drawing to use as a template and transferred the measurements directly to the balsa by tracing the outline of the template.

It's great experience for kids to work with measurement. If you've watched some of those TV programs like New Yankee Workshop where they build furniture, etc., you may have noticed they don't give much airtime to measurement. Why? Because people think it's boring and trivial and that anyone can do it. UNTRUE! It's a skill you build up through experience coupled with theoretical understanding, and you find out it's not easy all. Nor is it boring, partly due to the difficulty of making measurements, figuring out what precision you need, and transferring those measurements.


Here are some pictures of Sylvia transferring the outline of the door and windows to the balsa.

Now she's cutting out the windows.

After this, we cut a bunch of strips to width and length to make the framework of the paneled walls and doors. Then we glued these in place with Elmer's and clamped them as needed with clothes pins.

And here is Sylvia holding up a completed wall. We'll add windows later, after it's painted. Sylvia knows darn well why we don't add the windows first. Why borrow trouble?

Next time: Sylvia and her friend Makenna painting Tardis parts.