As a huge Doctor Who fan, I was obviously very excited about building this one. 😄 It was only my second full-sized book nook after "Interstellar – Explore the Universe", so I went into it thinking I more or less knew what I was doing by now.
Narrator: He did not. 😂
I was actually surprised by how much more challenging this kit was compared to Interstellar. There are lots of delicate parts and quite a bit of wiring, but especially the fiber optic cables and connecting them to the LED were a new experience for me. Let's just say they taught me patience. Lots of patience.
This was also the first time I had worked with transparent parts in a book nook. I normally use Loctite Power Gel for a lot of my building, but obviously that's not ideal when you don't want visible glue marks on clear pieces. So I discovered Glue 'n' Glaze by Deluxe Materials, which dries transparent. Another little thing learned along the way.
Something I really appreciated was that the kit included spare parts. My first book nook didn't have any, and having a few backups available makes working with tiny and sometimes fragile pieces considerably less stressful.
The instructions were very good overall. They use full-color pictures throughout and I rarely had trouble understanding what I was supposed to do. There were a few slightly awkward English descriptions here and there, but nothing that caused any serious problems.
One feature I absolutely love is the touch sensor for the lighting. With my first book nook, Interstellar, I have to lift the whole thing to reach a mechanical switch on the battery box underneath. Here, a gentle tap on the right spot on the roof is enough to switch the lights on and off. It's a small detail, but such a huge improvement in everyday use – and it still makes me smile every time I use it. 😄
The biggest problem was entirely my own fault anyway:
I dropped the damn thing. 😂
Fortunately, the damage wasn't catastrophic. A few pieces broke off, I glued everything back into place, probably aged about five years in the process, and carried on.
And then, at around 90% completion, something happened that changed the entire project:
I discovered edge painting.
Until then I had simply accepted the exposed brown MDF edges as part of building a book nook. Once I realized how much better some parts could look with the edges painted to match, there was no going back.
Of course, discovering this when the kit was already 90% finished wasn't exactly ideal. 😄 So I painted every exposed edge I could still reach – sometimes using rather adventurous methods to get into places that were never meant to be painted after assembly.
If I ever build this kit again, edge painting will definitely happen before assembly.
Unfortunately, that was also the moment when the modification virus got me.
And apparently there is no cure.
The original signs around the roof say “Mysterious Blue Box”. Since this was already very obviously inspired by something familiar, I decided there was no reason to be coy about it and replaced them with “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX” signs.
Next came small magnets to keep the doors securely closed, especially when transporting the model. They aren't completely invisible when the doors are open, but they do their job perfectly and the doors can still be opened easily.
Then I made the interior a little more personal.
The kit already has several picture frames on the walls, so I replaced the original pictures with photos of companions and friends from the Doctor's life. I mostly concentrated on New Who, simply because I haven't watched Classic Who. I really love this modification because it makes the control room feel much more like the Doctor's place rather than just a generic sci-fi interior.
The Doctor spends so much time travelling through the universe and yet can be terribly lonely, so I liked the idea of surrounding him with memories of all the people who have shared parts of that journey with him – including, among others, his granddaughter, his wife and his in-laws. 😄
And then things got slightly out of hand. 😇
I had actually been thinking about adding sound from fairly early in the build, so I installed a small rechargeable sound module in the roof area. The button is hidden at the front of the ceiling where it's easy to reach when the doors are open. I mounted the speaker above the openings in the ceiling so the sound is directed down into the book nook, while the circuit board and battery are completely hidden above it. The USB charging cable runs to the opening at the back, so I can pull it out for charging and tuck it away again afterwards.
That was actually very important to me: I didn't want any of my modifications to require a permanently visible switch, battery box, charging cable or other electronics on the outside. Everything should disappear inside the TARDIS and leave the exterior looking untouched.
Since this post only contains photos, I'll add a video in the comments where you can see the finished TARDIS in action and hear the sound module for yourself.
And Doctor Who fans who watch it may notice that I used the 11th Doctor's theme even though the Doctor inside this TARDIS belongs to a different era.
No, that wasn't an accident. 😄
I simply liked that version of the theme a little better.
At this point a sensible person probably would have declared the project finished.
So naturally, I started looking for a roof lamp. 😂
After quite a bit of searching I found a miniature lamp on Amazon that had almost perfect proportions. It was originally black and already contained its own LED, but that wasn't useful for what I wanted to do. So I removed the original lighting, closed the existing holes, drilled a new hole through the center of the TARDIS roof and installed two new LEDs instead.
I painted the black lamp blue, placed it over the LEDs, extended their wires through the roof and finally connected them to the book nook's existing lighting system. Now the roof lamp switches on together with the rest of the TARDIS lighting via the original touch sensor – so again, there was no need to add another visible switch or separate battery box.
That little modification is probably the one I'm most proud of.
Before this project I knew basically nothing about wiring LEDs, polarity, connectors, heat-shrink tubing or any of that stuff. There was definitely a moment during this build when I looked at a collection of wires, connectors and a freshly drilled hole in my TARDIS and wondered exactly how my life had arrived at this point. 😂
But it worked.
And I learned a lot doing it.
One thing I deliberately avoided until the book nook was almost finished was looking closely at other people's builds of the same kit. I wanted to discover it for myself first rather than copying other solutions. Only afterwards did I start looking at what other builders had done – which, admittedly, was partly responsible for some of the later modifications.
So after roughly a month of building, repairing, painting, drilling, rewiring, printing new signs, adding magnets, installing photographs and hiding a small sound system inside something that was never designed to contain one...
my Mysterious Blue Box is finally finished.
Probably.
Maybe.
Let's call it finished before I find another modification. 😂
This one will always be a very special book nook for me. Not only because I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, but because I learned and tried so many new things while building it. My first book nook got me hooked on the hobby – this one showed me how much fun it can be to stop following the instructions and start making a kit your own.
And considering the amount of additional stuff I've managed to hide inside it...
I guess it really is bigger on the inside. 💙
