Another Phone Booth

I made another phone booth today, because I wanted to try some different materials and because I wanted to try making one with an open door. This time, I remembered to get many more WIP pictures.

I started by cutting some lengths of wood for some internal support structure. I happen to have a lot of small lengths of hardwood that I get from my husband as off-cuts from his woodworking projects. These happen to be walnut. Hardwood is not needed for this, though - it's just what I have on hand. 

I cut one to the length I wanted, then used it to set a length for the rest of my cuts on this chopping tool. I love this thing. There's a razor blade in the middle bit that actually does the cutting. It works on small pieces of wood, plasticard, and chipboard. It has gages that you can use to set a fixed length for cutting stuff, and others with defined angles for making those kinds of cuts.

Next I cut some chipboard to use as the exterior surface. I used a scribe too to cut a strip of the width that I wanted, and then used the same chopping tool I used on the wood pieces to cut the long strips into a bunch of pieces of the same length.

I found that the chipboard is a little easier to cut, but that it doesn't cut as cleanly as the plasticard. You have to cut all or almost all the way through the chipboard, where with the plasticard you can get away with scoring it well and then snapping it. 

Here's how the interior frame pieces start going on to the cardboard. I used hot glue here, but I don't think I'd use it again. You have to work pretty quickly with it, and it has volume, so it's harder to get everything lined up just right.

I wanted to make the door by getting a piece of clear plastic and putting it behind the door cut-out. I hope the shiny plastic will give me a glass look. Here, I have cut out the plastic from a blister pack to the right size to fit my door piece.

Then I did the cut-outs in the door. I had to do this twice, as the first time I wasn't paying enough attention and cut right through the middle bar. Doh!

I scuffed up one side of the plastic so it would take paint better, glued it in place, and then painted the back of the plastic black. I want it to look like glass, but I don't want people to actually be able to look in.

Next, I started putting all the pieces together. I've added the support blocks to the front door, then glued a side panel to the front, and a side panel to the back.

Then I glued the two half-booths together.

The booth with the open door I had to do a bit differently. I want to paint the inside of it black so that it's dark and shadowed. That means I have to leave it open so I can paint it before I put the front on. So, I put together the two sides, the back, the top and the bottom. I prepared a piece for the outer frame of the front door, and glued a couple of pieces of cardboard together to be the accordion-folded door. Here are all the pieces.

That is roughly how they will go together, though obviously the front door isn't lined up correctly in that picture. I had switched to tacky glue at this point. So, I need to wait for it to dry, then paint the inside, they I can finish the construction.

Here's the other one completely put together, along side my other two.

I think after these two, I'm done building these. I have some puttying to do on the second plastic one, I need to finish putting together the one with the open door and then coat both the cardboard ones with Mod Podge to seal them.

After all that, it will be time to pull out the airbrush and paint them.