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1:8 Mk 1 Television Dalek from Comet Minatures


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I've been trying to get one of these for a reasonable price for a while now and finally scored one from eBay last week without it breaking the bank:

 

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It was funny as the box made me immediately think of the Blakes 7 Liberator kit made by Comet Minatures back in the 90s - the style of box and even the size is very similar. My Liberator is sitting on the top of the display cabinet and after all these years is a bit of a state I'm sorry to say. Anyway back to the Dalek, here are the box contents:

 

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The missing hemisphere from the sprue is in the ziplock bag :)  The instruction booklet is very nice, with an interesting essay on the early evolution of the appearance of the Dalek. There is a ziplock bag with some hexagonal mesh for the shoulder pieces plus some pre-cut thin plastic card, again to be used for the shoulder decoration.

 

The plastic is a bit soft and the sprue gates are quick chunky. However its a limited run kit and its quite old so my expectations were not very high in the first place. There is next to no flash but there are some severe sink marks in the skit pieces, which I'll come to later. I decided to build the later version of the Dalek, nowadays called the Mk 3 and introduced in the later Hartnell era, which includes the mesh in the shoulders and was the main Dalek version all the way through to the Pertwee era. I've yet to fully decided on the colour scheme - as this is a TV Dalek not the movie version, we have to go to the Pertwee era before we see them in colour. Pertwee didn't like Daleks - he thought they were adsurd and vey difficult to act with, so it took until his third year in the role before he came up against them in the story The Day of the Daleks. Due to budget, there were only three Daleks on duty for this episode:

 

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In my opinion, neither of these colour schemes are all that interesting, although the gold and black has promise. I must say I am veering toward silver and blue as seen in this more modern pic of an older Pertwee encountering a Dalek

 

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I've got a while before I need to settle on the final colour. So in the meantime I've begun construction with the skirt. This has been designed well with chamfered edges which fit together well. Each joint is give a letter from A to F around either side of the skirt and each piece has the letter of each embossed on the inside on the appropriate edge so to make a mistake you'd really need to try hard!

 

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The edges fit well with just a bit of fettling required as the last piece goes in, and just a bit of sanding required when the glue has set. However as soon as you start sanding the problem with sink marks becomes very visible

 

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The inside of each panel has two ribs which are supposed to give the panel strength and rigidity, however they have induced sink marks in the outer faces of each panel. To solve this I've turned to Mr Surfacer 500 and given each sunken area a good coat

 

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In the meantime I've built up the gun arm and the "sink plunger" arm ready for painting

 

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The eye stalk will be next...

Edited by Kallisti
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4 hours ago, Kallisti said:

Pertwee didn't like Daleks - he thought they were absurd and very difficult to act with,

 

I knew there was a reason I didn't like him!

 

Silver and blue is definitely the classic look, and my favorite which I chose for Periwinkle a few years ago.  For the Comet version I chose a metallic red which I think turned out okay - it was more of a what-if which I was okay with as I decided to build the Comet version OOTB with all it's flaws.

 

Those sink marks were a real pain though

 

 

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How can it be 4 years ago that we watched Nigel building Attitude Adjuster?

 

I won't be taking it to the extremes he did though, life is too short for that :) However to keep up with the spirit of the builds from back then, I think this Dalek will be known as "Significant Gravitas Shortfall"

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Quote

 

How can it be 4 years ago that we watched Nigel building Attitude Adjuster?

 

Corr blimey is it that long ago?

 

AA is still happily purring away in his display case. (Or Emporial Throne Room as he likes to call it).

 

Quote

 

I’m sure @Nigel Heath will be along soon too!

 

I am definitely along for the ride on this build!

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Welcome to the party! I'm still trying to decide if its worth lighting the head lights - the eye stalk is out of the question as it way too small, but I'm also thinking that the head lights are  just too small to be worth the effort. I'm going to be happy with just a straightforward static model.

 

The more I look at Dalek colour schemes the more I'm coming back to the silver and blue classic scheme, but as a Mk 3 version with the mesh shoulders and the oval disk between the arm pods. I've spent this evening sanding down the Mr Surfacer to fill in the sink marks and its had its first coat of primer which is now drying overnight before I fully inspect it to check how well the filling has worked. More tomorrow...

Edited by Kallisti
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This early part of this evening was spent sanding back the primer and filling a couple of gaps that had become noticeable so that the end result was this

 

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I've given it another coat of primer and once that has cured tomorrow, will give it another polish up with micro mesh.

 

Next was removing all the skirt hemispheres from the sprues - there are a LOT Of them and each sprue gate needed individual attention to smooth it back while preserving the shape. They were then stuck onto blue-tac sausages ready for painting

 

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and a couple of hours later...

 

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You may now realise that I have settled upon a colour scheme :)

 

More to come...

 

 

 

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Bit more work got done last night, including attaching the oval panel to the front of the "shoulders" between the arms, this is a particular distinguishing feature of the Mk 3 that wasn't present on the earlier versions.

 

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The arms themselves have been painted with Tamiya X-10 gunmetal which give a much better metallic look than the lighter Tamiya metallic paints but isn't as fragile as Alclad or Mr Color.

 

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The "sink punger" and the components for the eye stalk ahve also been painted

 

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The base of the skirt has been painted matt black. I usually avoid using straight black as a colour, preferring XF-69 NATO black (which is a very dark green) but this time I'm using XF-1 Matt black for the effect.

 

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The dome has been give a coat of primer as has the back half of the shoulders - the front and back have been kept separate for now as the arms will need to be fitted before they can be assembled, so I'm goign to have to paint the shoulder box halves separately and join them after and then repair the joint later.

 

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Finally in this update, the skirt's primer coat has cured and its looking pretty good! Next is to decide which metallic paint I'm going to use to get the silver... Alclad, Mr Color, AK Interactive or Tamiya Gunmetal... choices, choices...

 

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Edited by Kallisti
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Been a bit of a hiatus due to personal issues - ie being involved in a car crash that was unfortunately my fault, but thankfully nobody was hurt, just my car and the van that hit me being written off :(

 

Today I finally got round to some modelling again with the Dalek. First off were the shoulders. The arms have been inserted and the backing plate that secures them has been glued in using plastic cement and araldite

 

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You can also see the spacers that have been added that will support the shoulder bands and mesh later. Speaking of the shoulder bands, here they are having been painted with Mr Color Chrome SIlver

 

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Very nice they look too! I wish I could say the same for the dome, which has been painted with Mr Color Aluminium

 

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Its a dust attractor and there is an even more serious problem that is more noticeable in the next photo where I turn the flash off

 

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If you look at the very top centre then you'll see the dimple caused by the sink mark for the support inside the dome. This is my third round of painting, sanding, filling and painting again on this bloody thing and the dimple is still there!!! grrr 

 

The next is looking much better, with the main central piece being painted matt black and the neck rings having been assembled and painted with Tamiya X10 gun metal

 

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Finally we come to the worst part, the skirt. This has been given a second spray of Mr Color Aluminium after the first showed up a huge number of surface faults.  After a day spent sanding the skirt I painted it again and this is the result

 

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The surface irregularities are even more noticeable in the next shot

 

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There are cracks, sink marks and surface texture differences that really show up with this shiny paint. I think I'm going to need to re-prime, polish and paint again... That will be a nob for tomorrow however as I've had enough of it for today!

 

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I feel your pain.

 

And therein lies the reason I avoid natural metal finishes like the plague.

 

Hours prepping/priming, think you've done a great job and got it all sorted. Spray down the metal finish and it's almost like it laughs at you whilst shouting "look at everything you thought you did well on, nope".

 

I can only offer two possible ideas for solutions, several liberal coats of Mr. Surfacer 500 or reface each panel with 0.25mm styrene. The later option is going to be a lot more work, but I think will yield the best surface finish for a natural metal finish.

 

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Yup just requires patience, elbow work, patience and a bit more patience :) That said, this morning was all about another round of sanding and polishing after the filler was left to dry overnight. The results looked promising...

 

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So it was off to brave the snowfalls to visit the shed and give it another coat of Mr COlor Aluminium. Well, what can I say... what a result!

 

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There is a slight crack in the joint of the rear panel at the bottom right and another in the right side panel at the bottom where it joins the forward panel, but these two faults seem to be resistant to filling so I'm giving up on them - the overall surface is lovely and I'm very happy with that, considering the work thats been put into it!

 

Now its time to mess it up with adding the hemispheres :D

 

 

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Thanks Nigel, well looks like I'm rocking and rolling today with rapid progress! It might even be finished for the Farnborough club night tomorrow! First off, we have a skirt with blue hemispheres! I think its looking rather bling!

 

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The other side - the metallic finish finally worked, I'm very pleased with this!

 

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It was amazing how the metallic finish suddenly transformed from being a total mess into something that looks rather cool. I guess its just the way these things happen when you put enough work into them! Next is the dome, which has been assembled and attached to the neck. It was a bit tricky as the handling I've had to do during assembly damages the aluminium finish at the front on either side of the eye stalk, so I had to mask the eyestalk and lamps and re-spray the aluminium. It worked out okay in the end. Fixing the dome to the neck was also tricky and took some careful alignment and careful gluing.

 

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The white ring in the eyepiece is a disk of white decal I chopped ouf of an old decal sheet using my punch an die set :) Here is the back of the head - I don't think the dimple in the top of the dome is very noticable now, there is too much else to attract the eye so you just don't see it so well.

 

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Finally in this update, the shoulders are being worked on, specifically the chrome bands are being attached to the spacers.

 

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This is quite a delicate operation as the bands need to bend a long way - here you see it being secured while the glue dries. The other side will be done the same once this side is dry, and then the upper band will be attached...

 

 

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Final update for tonight and its a big step! Probably the most complex bit of construction of the whole kit... adding the chrome bands, then the mesh and vertical slats over the top!

 

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Just trying to get the chrome bands to fix to the shoulders without springing out at the smallest opportunity was an exercise in extreme patience! The vertical slats have been superglued onto the upper chrome band, fixing the mesh in place at the same time.

 

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It was a tough bit of construction but I'm very pleased its done and without too much frustration! :)

 

Guess what the next steps will be? I'll be doing them tonight but will put up photos tomorrow... such a tease aren't I? :)

 

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I like my scalpels, here is the complete collection of manual cutting tools on my workbench:

 

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...and they all get used at different times! The two in the middle are my original modelling knives from years and years ago. The brass handled one nowadays is used as a putty spreader as the blade is totally jammed and won't budge. The larger one now gets used for chisel work as its much more substantial than any other knife I've got.

 

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... and complete!

 

Bit of a late night last night to get it all done, but it went together well in the end after all the main components were built:

 

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Its odd that these photos don't show the metallic paint finish on the skirt very well, probably because I'm not using the flash in the camera! 

 

I've very pleased with the result - apart from the hassles with the metallic paint, it was a fun build, the main problem I have now is I WANT ANOTHER!!!! Black and Gold nect time :D

 

Significant Gravitas Shortfall is now happily ensconced on the shelf, looking to see who he can try to order about!

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19 hours ago, Kallisti said:

I like my scalpels, here is the complete collection of manual cutting tools on my workbench:

 

DSC_9363.JPG

 

...and they all get used at different times! The two in the middle are my original modelling knives from years and years ago. The brass handled one nowadays is used as a putty spreader as the blade is totally jammed and won't budge. The larger one now gets used for chisel work as its much more substantial than any other knife I've got.

 

so in other words - you're a Surgeon !

 

PS - that Darlek looked brilliant last night - I had a good close up look at it and I can very much understand why you want to get going on a 2nd one now

 

:dalek:

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That brings back memories. I built one for my son about 20 years ago. I've just been across country to see him, and said is there anything you want bringing over. 'Can you bring my Dalek' he said. So it's now in Worcester. Yes it's silver and blue.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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