Paint your wagon!
Just a quick blog entry here this time.
It’s been glorious weather here today; hot sunshine and a slight breeze, perfect I thought for testing out a theory and to do this, I had to watch paint dry. No, really! It was fun. You may recall me mentioning the new TARDIS colour and in particular its finish a few days ago where I postulated that instead of it being stained blue, it was actually sprayed with automotive paint. Well today was where I put that theory to the test.
Have a look at this image. To the left is my test, to the right is the original prop.
Looks good, doesn’t it? My first attempt was to use a gloss blue (K9 blue actually) and almost immediately I knew that it wasn’t right, something in the gloss reacted with the oils in the wood and caused the paint to bubble in a few places. However, once dry, it was painfully obvious that the finish was completely wrong, so I tried again on another scrap of wood.
This time I used a satin finish, but all I had was black. For a test, that would be fine anyway. So, if you compare the two in the image above, you should be able to see how on both, the paint has reacted to the two types of cellulose in the timber fibre and it’s this that accentuates the grain detail. I’m 100% certain that this is how it was done on the original prop, a satin automotive paint sprayed directly onto the bare timber stock. All I have to do is find out what colour it was – that should be rather simple. I feel a phone call coming on, but not just yet.
How many TARDISes do I have planned to build in the fullness of time? Oh yeah, all of them! Now I have one more to add to that list. Aaaarrrggghhhh. But shhh, don’t tell the wife.
Oh dear. I’ve just realised – I’ve written a blog about watching paint dry! How tediously dull is that? Whatever next, an entry on how to do a mono-tonal nasal hum for two hours, how to fold socks or even worse, a spotters guide to the ins and outs of life on Albert Square? I shudder at the thought.
Coincidentally, people over at the TARDIS Builders were trying to figure out what paint/stain was used. Then I mentioned your post and it’s current follow up. So expect some avid followers pretty quick.
Bill Rudloff
Oh right, well they’re welcome to have a read up if they want and thank you to you Bill for “spreading the word” as they say. I’m just going through a phase of R&D at the minute with this prop and it’s shaping up quite nicely.
If the weather stays nice, I get the time and have the funds, I’d like to get back to TARDISing, though we’ll see about that.
Well… I have visited your site many times but this is the first time I have visited the blog
I am seriously thinking that once I get sorted and have the funds again I may switch to this model after the horrible demise of my previous build (partial) at the hands of mother nature
The first time you’ve visited the blog, you say? Well, it’s not actually contected to my main site (which needs updating big time) but I will do it eventually, so that may explain why you’ve not seen this before.
This has only been going since late last year, so it’s quite new really, but I hope you find it interesting. It’s not all TARDIS and Doctor Who stuff in the blog, it’s all kinds of things really, depending on what I’m doing at any given moment.
Thanks for popping by.
interesting must of been a expensive time consuming way to do it and the fumes must of been fun, I read with interest
I honestly didnt think i could find a blog about paint drying so interesting!
… seriously mate an interesting insight into how this is done 
Well I went out today to have a look around town to see what I could find here in Texas in the way of satin car paint…
and the answer: NOTHING
I’m assuming that regular car paint is what you used the first time around that didn’t turn out right.
But my other problem was finding the color, my choices were…. Royal Blue, Dark Blue, Superior Blue (who knows) or Blue.
Do you have any suggestions on the color? I’m assming that no one makes an Oxford Blue car paint, now I must dive into the internet and try to find a source for satin car paint over here before I make a final decision on what the hell I am doing
Hello, no – both types of car spray that I used were regular paint, it’s just that the blue I happened to have was a metallic gloss blue – so even before spraying that particular test, I knew the colour and finish would be incorrect.
I then remembered that I had a can of satin spray, but only in black and that’s why I used that colour in the final test, it was really the finished effect that I was after and not the colour.
Apologies for this, but I don’t have any suggestions on the actual colour yet as I haven’t gone off to find out what it was for myself, but I’m sure I’ll get around to that eventually.
Good luck on your own build, I’m sure you’ll work out what you’re doing once you think it all through.