The Key to Time

[Jason Thompson]

As of this moment there is no such thing as free will in the entire Universe. There is only MY will, because I POSSESS THE KEY TO TIME!



This is not the replica linked to in the Season 16 thread, but it did lead me to this one. It seems a couple of people tried their hands at casting their own replicas from resin. One was successful and put his up for sale online. One was not, but contacted a company that made things from lucite. The result was a set of hand-carved segments that are completely clear, and a cube that is overall somewhat cheaper than the resin one.

Here's the segments:













Of course the Key isn't complete without the tracer to form the core, so here's that too. This wasn't part of the set supplied, so I had to build this myself using acrylic tube, styrene square tube, and a few buttons (the same type used on the original prop, by the way). I also put a very small torch inside it to light it up.



And the final result is me with total power over every particle of matter in the Universe....

[Rob McCow]

Absolutely gorgeous!

And nice job on fixing up your own tracer.

How hard is it to assemble the segments?

[Jason Thompson]

How hard is it to assemble the segments?

Difficult to say. It came already assembled into the cube, so all I did was unpack the segments then put them back together as they were provided....

[Dirk Gently]

That looks really excellent, Jason. Nice work.

How hard is it to assemble the segments?

Well first you need to get yourself a tracer to find them...

[SiHart]

I hope you're keeping it in old fridge.

[Stuart Wallis]

And if you are, don't mistake it for the margerine!

[Jason Thompson]

The real bugger is actually keeping the pieces together (one of many reasons, no doubt, that the BBC decided to make a rather cheap looking hollow perspex version of the key for The Armageddon Factor). You may notice it is sitting on packing paper. This is to give a little bit of cushioning and friction because every orientation of the complete cube has at least one segment resting on a narrow edge rather or point rather than a flat surface. Stopping this one from sliding out of place is next to impossible without a frame around the bottom. One was provided by the hand-carved nature of the parts mean that they are not perfectly square and straight, and either the parts don't go in the frame in any but one orientation or the tracer no longer fits through the centre. Assembling it as the almost complete key with the sixth segment missing from the top is also risky as it rests the fourth segment on a point and has too much potential for damage. It's a minor niggle though. It still looks damn good!

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Wow! That's fantastic!
Excellent job on the tracer too!

[Rob McCow]

Assembling it as the almost complete key with the sixth segment missing from the top is also risky as it rests the fourth segment on a point and has too much potential for damage.

Assembling the segments sounds almost as difficult as finding them! You really need a Romana and a K-9 on hand to help you out...