Attitude Adjustor the Dalek - Is Now Finished

[Nigel Heath]

Today, 09:40 PM

What a cracking build, can't wait for the next episode. Was reading that the Sevans daleks were used sfx miniatures in the later series of Doctor Who. Must admit it shames me that I've never built the ones I've amassed in the stash.

Have a crack at building them, this is honestly the best modelling fun I have had in a very long time.

[hendie]

I see there's a couple of Cybermen for sale on ebay just now - this one is "buy it now" for £65 which seems reasonable considering what some of these seem to go for (there's also one with bidding starting at £45)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sevans-Doctor-Who-Cyberman-1-5-Scale-Plastic-Model-Assembly-Made-1987-/151106512064?pt=UK_ToysGames_ModelKits_ModelKits_JN&hash=item232ea664c0

(just in case your Dalek wanted company)

Edited September 20, 2013 by hendie

[Nigel Heath]

I am quite happy to be alone with my Dalek.

Incidentally, any idea of how much my kit has sold for? I would be quite interested to know as my searches did not really come up with anything.

[hendie]

the last one I found went for £51, but I have seen them go upwards of £75 and greater

[Bengalensis]

I might even be tempted to search for one...

[Nigel Heath]

I would certainly recommend that.

[Pete in Lincs]

Time for the daily Dalek Diary.

Still looking good, Nigel.

I hope you have a way to mask all those little domes?

And in return, I wondered if this might interest you....

http://www.luckymodel.com/scale.aspx?item_no=MG-QS-001

Found it on Hyperscale.

All the best

Pete

[Nigel Heath]

Thanks Pete,

I do have a cunning plan for the domes, all 56 of them. All will be revealed later.

The Meng Komet looks good but I am set on 1/48 scale to go with my Natter and Airfix Me 109.

[Bengalensis]

I too have thought about all those domes and the painting... looks like an interesting challenge.

The new Meng Komet is a must have BTW.

[Nigel Heath]

Good progress was made today, here is the update. I decided that the problems with the dome needed some filler to sort out:

This is looking a lot better:

After spending most of the morning sanding the seams on the skirt, a second round of filling and sanding was necessary. I have calculated there are over 1.5m of seams to dress here:

My new sanding tool is ideal for the job but it does tend to clog quite quickly. Squadron green filler does not do this with my other sanding tools so there must be something peculiar about the sanding paper, possibly the grit binder that is causing this. Its not a huge problem as you can just slide the paper round to expose some fresh grit:

After a lot of sanding of the plastic and some additional filler the glue distorted area is hopefully corrected:

The last job on the skirt section is to fill the gaps at the bottom of the segments. I think the ideal material for this is some Vallejo acrylic filler that I purchesed some months ago (at the Scottish Nationals). I have been looking for an opportunity to try this and this looks to be a good candidate:

It turns out to be the modelling equivalent of decorators filler, just a bit thinner and with a much finer nozzle:

I smoothed it out with the modelling equivalent of a wet finger, a wet cotton bud:

Rather good I think. My special modelling bin is now full of green dust and at capacity so needs to be emptied:

The Vallejo filler has shrunk on drying so at least one more application will be required. No big deal as it is so easy to apply:

To accomodate the wires I made this hole at the back of the eye slot:

I am now ready to move onto the upper sections. These all need the attention of some wet and dry:

As I now had some 150 grit paper I attached a fresh sheet of that to my baking tray. The double sided tape from before was still good to go:

After they were all done I strarted to get my head round these upper areas. According to the instructions the gun boxes should be clad with further panels:

The underside of the gun boxes have these gaping holes which don't appear to be provided for:

The kit does provide some cloth mesh and a template to cut it out. The instructiuon is to hand paint it with some white paint to stiffen it up. I think my metal mesh will look much better. At least the template should be useful:

I found this rather good CAD rendering of the sort of Dalek my model represents. The detailing it shows is a useful reference:

Note all the fastener heads.

I will make a temporary post here as I need a break.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Nigel Heath]

The instructions recommed the use of a knife to cut out the waste central portions of the upper sections. I think that would be quite hard work so I just used my Olfa scriber free hand:

Three passes along each side followed by the scalpel and the job was done:

After a little tidy up here is the finished result:

The gun box section got the same threatment:

I marked out where the holes for the antenna balls would go:

Again using my compass cutter in scriber mode these were soon created:

These are just roughing out holes, the balls actually run behind these separate pieces. I have decided that all that extra cladding on the gun boxes is unnecessary, so these parts need to be a little smaller that indicated, thus:

Again I used my scriber to separate them using the score and snap method. Note that they are not perfectly rectangular, the inner vertical edge runs inboard, see the CAD drawing above for clarity:

If anything that should be more angled than the model allows. The surplus bits and bobs were consigned to one of my spares boxes:

This is how the antenna look in the roughing holes, I am begining to wonder if I should even use the facing plates:

What do you think?

I reinforced the corners of the gunboxes with some Milliput as the plastic was very thin and one collapsed a bit on me:

I used black as that tends to get used least and it shows up better for you. Here is the collapsed corner after a little remediation work:

It will still need some filler. Here are the gunboxes with their facias:

And without:

The latter look a bit too big, I am not sure what to do. I made the filler pieces for those gaping holes. The corner is quite a long way off a right angle:

The top piece fits, the botton is still a right angle. Here they are both installed:

This time I am reinforcing the joints with superglue, I have had enough of the tube glue shenanigans:

I took the opportunity to perform some necessary filler operations:

I cut out the final waist section top:

Looking at how the antennas are held in place the instructions recommend a piece of plastic strip held in place by some angle extrusions:

My thinking is that the waist and these sections can all be joined together and painted before the antenna are installed, access is still possible:

Instead of plastic I would rather use metal to eliminate creep relaxation effects, I have this sheet brass that would fit the job admirably:

There were further filler applicatons required:

I spotted a further defect on the dome requireing some filler. Note compacting finger print:

Doing a fit check on the dome under plate I found that I had over filled with resin so got out the motor tool ready to perform some removal surgery:

This operation generates quite a lot of resin debris and I'm sure that if Jorgen was with me he would be itching to squirrel it away in a little drawer. This first pass was insufficient and more had to be removed:

I bet Jorgen is very excited by now, here is the finished result and the last picture of the day:

Phew.

I bet you're glad that's over.

Jorgen, I have saved the resin dust and if you PM me with your address I will post it to you.

Bye for now, lots more to follow tomorrow no doubt,

Nigel

Edited October 10, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Pete in Lincs]

Nigel,

Still watching with interest.

It's 01:45 here. Can we spell insomnia?

I think it looks better with those fascia plates. On the screen at least.

On the CAD picture the pivots don't seem to protrude as much

out of the gunbox as they do on your picture of them fitted without the fascias.

Just my two decimal coins (denomination of your choice) worth.

Pete

[Nigel Heath]

Hi Pete,

Yes I am thinking the facias look better. It will involve more work but that's not a problem realy.

[Nigel Heath]

And for my dinner I cooked cod gougons (OK chunky fish fingers) with buttery mashed potato, peas and tartar sauce:

[hendie]

an extended session there Nigel. Everything is looking good. I like your idea using the brass sheet, and I may steal that idea when I get around to that section on mine. (spent today working on the basement work bench again).

looking forward to tomorrows installment

[hendie]

reading over your post again, I agree with Pete, the fascia's look better, for 2 reasons:

1. I think the small diameter hole looks better, and
2. Adding the fascias allows you to have square (i.e. sharp) edges around the gun box etc whereas the Sevans gun box, as designed, is are a little too rounded for my taste

[Bengalensis]

Ah, grinding and sanding resin, now there's really interesting work going on. And black resin, even more exotic...

I agree that the fascia plates are needed.

[Nigel Heath]

I agree now about the fascias for the reasons hendie has given and also the wall thickness of the vacformed shell varied surprisingly from bottom (thick) to top (thin). The fascias are now installed, filled and awaiting sanding. I really must tear myself away and build my display cabinet today.

Do you not want my resin dust Jorgen?

Edited September 25, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[hendie]

I really must tear myself away and build my display cabinet today.

C'mon Nigel, there are people waiting here to see what wondrous developments there shall be today - you must get your priorities right !

you wouldn't catch me veering off on a tangent during a project now would you ???

[Nigel Heath]

I agree now about the fascias for the reasons hendie has given and also the wall thickness of the vacformed shell varied surprisingly from bottom (think) to top (thin). The fascias are now installed, filled and awaiting sanding. I really must tear myself away and build my display cabinet today.

I know, what was I thinking of? Anyway during that temporary aberration the cabinet was built and I even mowed the lawn.

I am feeling much better now and will crack on with more Dalek construction.

[Bengalensis]

Thanks, but I found a black resin scrap piece, Italian, that I can make black dust from. I let you start your own little box, now that you know the secret.

Looking forward to tonight's progress report.

[Greased Lightning]

Nigel,

I'm thoroughly enjoying following your Dalek post but I must object to you posting photos of your food. It looks delicious and now I'm bl**dy starving!

Edited September 22, 2013 by Greased Lightning

[Nigel Heath]

Soz about that.

[Nigel Heath]

For completeness here is my new display cabinet:

[Pete in Lincs]

Now you need a cattle prod to persuade the Dalek to take up residence.

Pete