Ktaku's Dalek

[ktaku13]

Hello all, since this isn't the PDF, i'll keep posts to show finished sections unless popular demand for more in-between steps comes up. That said, as I said I was going to do about a year ago, I'm actually getting some progress done on a Dalek!
I've gone with a classic style Dalek as they are kinda way more simple than the new series ones.
So far, i've nearly completed the skirt. The bulk of the work is done, and now all there is to do is secure some of the hemi's that are a bit loose and actually but some sort of cushion on the seat!



I have the shoulders and neck started, so updates soon!

[fivefingeredstyre]

Cant speak for everyone else, but I'd love to see the in-between shots!

[superrichi1a]

Me too! Show us mooooooore

Looks fantastic

[russellsuthern]

I agree with Steve & Rich,

Not everyone here looks at PDF, & Daleks are a prop, so I personally would love to see a full build diary, but then Iv'e never been able to get enough Dalekky stuff!!

Can't wait to see more!!

Regards,

Russ

[ktaku13]

Hey all, well it looks like a full build diary it is!  Unfortunately, I got ahead of my self and failed to take pictures of the skirt frame before I put the panels on, but here's where I caught myself. (the board underneath is the kinda 'base' where the casters and fenders/bumpers are gonna be, it's not fixed at this point, obviously)
On the insides of the seams I put tape on some of them just to keep them stable for setting up the filler, then on some of them I've already removed the tape and started to put carpenters glue in.




Then, my dad had a (gauze-like kinda?) tape that would help with holding the glue without it running and pooling at the bottom.


Once the wood filler had set up, I sanded and primed it,


For the hemi's, I bought a whole bunch of fillable Christmas baubles from Michael's and I just snipped off the tabs for hanging them and painted the insides blue so there would be, A:a shiny quality to them, and B:the paint would have a harder time chipping off.


Then a tiny bit more sanding later, I painted it with an aluminium colour spray paint and started fixing the hemi's with silicone, most of them i just made a shallow grove that the hemi would sit in, but on more than I had hoped I ended up making a hole right through..


For the base, i just painted the protruding part black and covered it with a foam pipe covering, glued it down and put screws in it to make it look "armoured", and drilled holes for bolts to hold the skirt to the base without moving about. Then I stapled some landscaping cloth underneath just so you couldn't see the wheels and my feet!



Well, that's the skirt almost done, I'll be working on the shoulders today, so updates soon!

[galacticprobe]

The silver looks nicely metallic! Even those odd rough spots fit right in, especially when you consider a Dalek is supposed to be a killing war machine of hate. Some of them are bound to get a bit "dinged" here and there. (And I know this will sound a bit off, but those blue balls look really nice!)

Dino.

[ktaku13]

Hey all, so I've got about 3/4 of the way done the shoulders now!
The support structure is about the same as the skirt, other than the back upright piece is rotated 90 degrees. It's all held together with brad nails. I cut the circular top out with a jigsaw, although I had to do it twice, QUADRUPLE MEASURE BEFORE YOU CUT...


I made the gunbox out of 1/8" MDF and assembled it around the front support, unfortunately the picture for that got deleted.  For the skin, I used the landscape cloth I used to cover the wheels to get the shape of the skin, as you can see, its a good idea as there's lots of places that needed to be pinched to make the shape work. I used the pinched sheet to cut out another sheet in the right curved shape and repeated 2 or 3 times. Then I cut the whole thing in half so there would be joins on the sides behind slats.


Then I cut out the shape in a piece of thin MDF a bit bigger so I could cut off excess instead of having too little material and soaked it in an old sled for 20-30 mins to make it bendy. Then it was just putting staples in to hold it in shape and two clamps to make sure it didn't bow out on the edges.




The front I will do tomorrow, I will also be getting some materials for the gun and arm as well, so full steam ahead!

[russellsuthern]

Looking great.

Good luck with it, bending MDF can be a right pain in the posterior.

Looking forward to seeing more updates!

Regards,

Russell

[superrichi1a]

I think watching the shoulder section constructed is my favourite bit of any Dalek build! I actually quite enjoy the process of bending and shaping the MDF, and I did a heck of a lot of it on the Tennant console ribs!

Looking brilliant and I'm quite enjoying watching a good old fashioned Dalek build again

[russellsuthern]

I have to agree with Rich.. (& I usually do, as he is a very wise man...)
Then I usually say, "There cannot be too many Daleks in the world."

At this point Dino usually steps in & says, "Are you crazy?" despite already knowing the answer, which is most certainly.... yes! 

Keep up the good work!

Russell

[galacticprobe]

I have to agree with Rich.. (& I usually do, as he is a very wise man...)

I'll second that! (I am Richard's console's co-pilot after all.

Then I usually say, "There cannot be too many Daleks in the world."

At this point Dino usually steps in & says, "Are you crazy?" despite already knowing the answer, which is most certainly.... yes!  

Ah... Russell. We have gotten to know each other so well, haven't we? (And yes: Are you crazy?! )

Keep up the good work!

And again I'll second that!

Dino.

[ktaku13]

Hey, its been a while, I keep forgetting to update this, so this may be a lengthy update.. that being said, lets get to it!

Once I got both sides on and sealed the seam with some wood filler, I spray painted the shoulders "winter grey" which was kind of a blue-ish gray colour. (the picture is making it look a lot rougher than what it is IRL)


Once I got the shoulders done, I went on to the appendages.
For the plunger arm, I got a sink plunger from the dollar store, not the most accurate, but it does the job. then I got a long piece of 3/4 inch dowel and filed one end down so it would fit into the plunger head and put a washer and the plunger onto the dowel and secured it with a screw.

Then I put all the pieces together and wrapped some tape around the dowel and middle pipe to make it a relatively snug fit so they wouldn't clatter around and extend themselves without me pushing the plunger out. Then I sprayed it all silver and put it all together with a rubber handle thing I found on the end of the dowel.



I decided to tie in some blue from the hemi's to the appendages, so I painted the washers on the arm and part of the gun (we'll get to that) with the same blue as the hemi's.


Then fur the gun, I took a pipe and since it had some markings on it, I tried to sand it a bit but what I got was a really rough look that I kind of liked, so I did it fur the rest of it. Then I had my friend 3D print the collars and sanded them a bit to make them fit my pipe. I used a bunch of old wire clothes hangers and bent them to be the whisk-y cage on the gun. (I don't have any pictures of that right now, I'll include them in a future update)
To make the gun functional, I got a pesticide sprayer from Canadian Tire that can shoot out water. I found it to be a bit short so I completely disregarded the instructions (I don't recommend, I only hope it'll work and I wasn't going to buy a longer one) and cut and added a bit of extra tube to it. I sealed it with a professional method of good tape and plentiful amounts of hot glue.

Then I wrapped a bunch of tape around the end to make it centered in the gun. I can adjust it so I can either shoot a jet of water or a wider, misty spray.

I got two stainless steel gazing globes off of amazon for the appendages. There was some trouble with excessive heat when I had holes drilled into them and they became slightly discoloured (rainbow-ish like oil) but otherwise they will do very nicely.


Next I did the eye.
I used a jigsaw to cut out a circle with a flat side and sanded it down to a nice, smooth piece.

Then I drilled a hole in the flat side to insert the eyestalk and painted it silver.


I had a my friend 3D print the eyeball as well, the back is a bit rough but I can't complain fur all the work it saved me to make it from scratch. The eye stalk has a core of a threaded lamp rod. I used a hole saw to cut the disks out and sprayed them a lighter blue. I used the same pipe as the gun and cut it into sections. Then I used tape to make them fit on the rod snugly and put them alternating with the disks which half threaded on and half just pushed on.



The eyeball face was made of a plastic milk carton. I thought that just being flat would be a bit boring, so I did 3 layers with hexagons cut in them, giving it a bit of depth. I just cut a circle from craft foam and glued it on the back to make the iris. All together I am very happy with how it turned out.



To wire it, I took the thing that a 9 volt battery plugs into from a old toy car that I've lost the remote for, so it was going out anyways. I attached a switch to turn it on and off and ran the wires through to inside the eyeball (I painted it white to increase the amount of light that showed through the eye cuz it was black inside originally) where there are 3 super bright blue LED's. I found that less just killed the LED's and more didn't have enough power. This was all put together with more highly professional hot gluing and random wired I could find. The resulting light is slightly indigo from the white-ish carton and I quite like the colour.




Finally, the neck.
I cut the rings out of MDF with a jigsaw. The struts were made by gluing three 1/4 inch dowels together and cutting a 45 degree angle on the tops. I then drilled holes fur the struts, which proved to be a bit challenging and time consuming as each ring needed 8 holes that were actually 3 smaller holes clustered together. Then I used blocks cut from some 2x4 pieces to space out the rings with the struts and used a nail gun to secure the rings in place.


Then I filled in the extra space at the struts with some silicone.

As I write this, I'm realizing that I'm missing a bunch of the pictures that I took, so I'll retake them and post them in a future update.

Well that's all I have for now, I'll get those missing photos up soon!

[russellsuthern]

Looking great!

I like Daleks...


Russell

[elkad]

I would love to build a Dalek, but I don't have any place to work or store him. But When I Do,.. When I Do, Watch Out World.

[ktaku13]

I don't have any place to work or store him.

Yeah, thats a problem I've run into actually. It was only once I had bought and cut a bunch of stuff that I realized just how big it was, so its just taking up most of the space in our bike shed for now....