Tardis Headboard

The first thing that I did was to look around on the internet to get a bit more information about Tardises. I had recently watched Steve Ramsey of Wood Working for Mere Mortals in his video on building a Tardis so I was pretty sure that I could build something similar.

So I sketched up a quick plan in Sketchup and made up a material list.

I built this headboard from 1X8 pine boards but if I were to do it again, or take the Tardis back in time to do it over, I would cut the primary carcass out of 3/4" plywood. I think that it would produce a straighter project and no doubt would be cheaper. I didn't want to deal with ripping the plywood down.

The other items that I used were:

A bunch of pocket screws

1 1/4" screws

6 hinges

Some 1/4" luan plywood that I had laying around

Some dry erase board that I found on sale at one of the big box stores

Wood glue

Construction adhesive

2 magnetic door catches

Blue paint

Black paint

"Asphault" antiquing glaze

White vinyl letters

A solar garden light.

I used my router to dado the cabinet sides to accept the two book shelves. These were glued and screwed from the outside to secure them in place. The dados really help to sturdy it up and provide a much better joint.

The cabinet is primarily the two side 1X8s with two cross shelves dadoed into the sides. 1X8 cap on the top with a backer board just under the top that holds it square a little and provides a surface to mount the "POLICE BOX" sign to.

I also attached a trimmed down 2X6 to the top to provide the "look" and hold the light up.

On the back I attached 1/8" hard board to complete the structure.

That's pretty much all there is to the case. All the screws that are exposed were driven below the surface and filled with wood putty.

The door material was ripped down from the 1X8s and assembled using pocket screws. I'm sure there are many ways to accomplish this but I like pocket screws and they are quick and easy and do a pretty fair job of keeping things square.

After assembling the door frames I used a rabbiting bit in my router to mill a recess into the frames to accept the luan in the solid panels and the dry erase board in the "window" panels.

After gluing the panels in place I found that my clamps didn't really reach in far enough to secure the panels while the glue dried so I found some heavy stuff and placed it on the panels to hold it down.

Once I had the door frames assembled with the solid panels installed I test fit them on the cabinet with clamps just to see how it was all coming together.

Now that most of the unit is assembled it is time to paint. For paint color there is an actual Pantone color number for tardises but Lowe's was unable to match that so I just pulled up a couple of color samples on my phone and picked a paint chip that was close.

I painted the entire headboard with the base blue color.

Next I mounted the doors and glued the "windows" in place. After the "windows" had set up sufficiently I glued the muttins and rails for the window dividers.

For the small signs I found files online with the appropriate fonts and logos and printed them on a "old" paper pattern. Then using spray adhesive I attached them to the doors.

Lastly I brushed on the glaze and wiped it back off. I also put glaze on the signs but sparingly.

The inside of the headboard contains a couple of book shelves and enough space to keep the pillows and such hidden during the day.

At night you open the door and sleep in the Tardis.

I know it is a bit of a lame Instructable but if you have any questions please do. I'll try to answer the best that I can.

Thanks for looking at my instructable.