Un-com-fort-a-ble

[81-er]

My foray outside of my comfort zone is going to be a Sevans Dalek:

 

 

Do not be fooled by that Beatties (how I miss them) price tag, I had to pay A LOT more than that on Evilbay for it, but not as much as some are asking for them. Even so, it’s still the most expensive kit I’ve ever bought. And it’s vacform!

 

Inside the box are a selection of recognisably Dalek bits:

 

 

Full disclosure, I have built one of these before. That one was a movie variant built when I was around 13 or 14 with an awful lot of help from my dad. Now at 42, I’m brave enough to tackle it on my own! The original was foolishly left in my ex-wife’s loft (I really should have double checked I’d got everything) and I’ve missed it greatly. A couple of years ago I got the itch to really make another, and stumbled on this place (specifically Nigel’s Heath’s amazing build) while looking into them. My rather enthusiastic re-entry to the hobby (and membership here) really is down to a desire to own a large Dalek again!

 

While I will be using Nigel’s build for some tips, his build was the earliest version of the model and this one is (I think) the last version, with some substantial differences between the design of the kit. My previous one was different to both as well!

 

The exact look/spec I’m going for is still being decided but the current thinking is:

 

• Late 70’s/early 80’s look
• NOT a TV or film used colour
• Possibly scratch building a movie-style claw
• Lighting the eye stalk & ears (I’ve also never added lighting to a model before)
• Scratch building a base showing off the anti-gravity spheres (though maybe that will be an addition at a later date)

 

James

[AdrianMF]

Fantastic! Looking forward to it.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Wings unlevel]

Cool back story, James, and even cooler project! I’m not brave enough for this GB, but I’ll keep a keen eye on your progress, I’m sure you’ll triumph in the time wars!

[CliffB]

Quite a challenge.  Enjoy! 

[81-er]

Thank you gents  I'm hoping this one gets me into the swing of vacforms as I've got a Cyberman and Cybercontroller kit half-done since before I started shaving to finish off, plus that auction site has furnished me with one and two-thirds Daleks (the movie one is missing s few bits) and a Davros in need of refurbishment:

 

 

I may need an extension if I do get them all finished, which will be an interesting project living in a 2nd floor flat 🤣

 

James

[Mr T]

This should be fun, a vacform Dalek would definitely be out of my comfort zone. Have you worked out an easy way to sand down the large number of half spheres? 

[Galligraphics]

57 minutes ago, Mr T said:

Have you worked out an easy way to sand down the large number of half spheres? 

Luckily they are moulded as part of the side skirts so no need to deal with them separately 👍🏻

[galgos]

Well that’s very different, it’ll be fascinating watching this develop! 🙂  I never knew such kits (not the best term I know) even existed.

Max 

[Mr T]

1 hour ago, Galligraphics said:

Luckily they are moulded as part of the side skirts so no need to deal with them separately 👍🏻

Well, that's going to make things la bit easier. This looks as if it is going to be a good build. I was tempted by the kit way back, but life etc got in the way. 

[AdrianMF]

7 hours ago, 81-er said:

I may need an extension if I do get them all finished, which will be an interesting project living in a 2nd floor flat 🤣

The history of the baby cage - sorted!

 

Glad to help,

Adrian

 

[81-er]

Thank you, everyone. I'm looking forward to it, and the challenge. @AdrianMF, I like your thinking

 

James

[The Spadgent]

Aaah didn’t notice folk were posting their builds. Looking forward to this James. You know I love a Dalek. 🤩

I better pull my socks up and get my build ready.

 

Johnny. 

[81-er]

Definitely! I'm looking forward to seeing your build  

 

James

[PeterB]

Hi James,

 

Most days I drive past a full sized replica Dalek parked outside my local garage - obviously yet another Dr Who fan runs it. I think his is mostly wood but it always brings a smile to my face. This one looks difficult interesting - those body panels should be fun!

 

Pete

[81-er]

I wonder if he got the plans from Project Dalek? I have, and I'll be refering to them for some help on this as well, particularly if I do go for the movie claw.

 

James

[Fritag]

Dalek! Great choice James.  

 

To be true to my childhood reaction to the Daleks - I’ll be peeking out from behind the sofa  

[81-er]

Thanks Steve  I'm sure you can 3D print yourself a very nice Chesterfield with reinforced anti-raygun bars behind it  

 

James

[PattheCat]

On 4/2/2023 at 6:40 PM, AdrianMF said:

The history of the baby cage - sorted!

 

Glad to help,

Adrian

 

 

Hi James @81-er.

With Adrian showing us a baby in a chicken coop I just thought "man, another build by one WHO's definitely no chicken!"

 

I hope you'll enjoy it.

Pat.

[Ray S]

This looks very interesting. I used to really like the old, original Dr Who programmes, and the Daleks were cool and so cruel.

 

As a matter of interest, How big will it be when done? I know it is 1/5th Scale but cannot work that out.

 

Cheers, and I am looking forward to seeing the progress.

 

Ray

[81-er]

Thanks gents  Ray, it should be about 12in / 30cm when it's done. It is NOT a small model, and significantly bigger than I have a space for in my current display unit. So that justifies buying a bigger one, right? 🤣

 

James

[TonyW]

Over sixty years of familiarity with the Dalek thing and they still seem a bit scary to me. As a kid I kind off looked forward to a weekly traumatisation from behind the front room sofa.

 

Just for nostalgias sake, and to be on the safe side, I'll follow this build in the same fashion.

 

Tony.

[81-er]

That's ok Tony, I'm going to be building it from behind the sofa as well

 

James

[81-er]

The time has come to make a start on this if I’ve got any hope of finishing on time! There’s quite a bit of terminology that’s developed over the years to refer to the various bits of a Dalek (especially among full-sized Dalek builders), hopefully it will make sense with the pictures, but feel free to ask if it doesn’t.

 

The kit instructions are on a rather unwieldly sheet of paper that’s slightly over A2 in size, so one of my bits of prep before now was to photocopy it in sections, cut out each section, and then put them together to make a more user-friendly A4 set of instructions:

 

 

Now seems an appropriate time to cough that I have a bit of a collection of Sevans kits:

 

 

The Cyberman and Cybercontroller are part built from when I was a teenager, but the rest have been acquired over the last year or so. The bottom left Dalek is this kit, the middle one is sealed and staying that way (well, for now). The movie Dalek is unstarted, but missing a few bits. Which was advertised, it’s just missing a bit more than mentioned, so about 2/3rds of a kit. The Davros is in need of restoration, but was an absolute steal of a BIN that’s about 1/5th of what’s being asked for an unstarted kit now.

 

Coming back to the build, construction starts with the skirt. In particular cutting out the top and bottom formers, the latter of which also includes the fender:

 

 

The fender has a feature of a recessed trough/track around the edge, which will need filling in after the skirt panels are installed. The outside face of the fender is also pretty rough and will need considerable sanding and filling to look the part. I’m also currently undecided about what style of fender I’m going to go for, being torn between the later TV fender with the recessed lower layer (that I’ll need to add if I go that route) and the larger movie-style unit (which is thankfully the only one of the movie-specific parts still in the movie Dalek kit!). As the movie base is retrofitted after main skirt assembly and requires the removal of the TV-style fender, that would solve the issue of filling the trough. So I figured I’d compare the skirt top/bottom formers:

 

 

The biggest difference visible there is that the formers are on the same moulding, not spread over two. Viewed from the side, the base of the movie kit will produce a skirt with the original TV-style short/slim fender, quite noticeably shorter than the later kit:

 

 

For now, I’m going to press on with this kit’s fender and make a decision later on.

 

The skirt panels themselves have obviously been formed over a negative mould to get a nice sharp edge to the hemispheres, but it’s left them all with a tiny “nipple” where the vacuum hole was. That’s now been sanded down on all 56 hemispheres, but there are a few that’ll need some filler later. Note the dust on the panel is how it came:

 

 

I used my scriber to start the cutting out process on all of the parts, with the final removal being made by snapping them from the backing as recommended in the instructions. That left me with a lot of curly shavings:

 

 

And a set of parts needing sanding:

 

 

For anyone else thinking of building one of these, be prepared for a lot of sanding! The skirt panels especially took a lot of time, as their backs have to be sanded flat to remove the bulges caused by the vacforming process at the panel edges. They then need to have the edges of each panel squared up before a bevel has to be sanded onto the rear edge. Though when I do the next one I may skip that part, as I’ve either sanded a hell of a lot more than I should have off the edges, or they aren’t quite sized correctly in the kit as I’m getting some pretty big gaps now it’s assembly time.

 

The instructions say you should start at the back with the rearmost panel, gluing at the bottom first before fixing the top former to it. You then tape/clamp (but not glue) the two largest side panels on as added support before gluing on the two front sections. Construction then moves backwards from the front to try and hide any bad alignment or gaps at the rear. I’ve reversed that and I’ve started at the rear, as it’s going to make the gaps I have easier to deal with. I’ll be gluing reinforcing strips of plasticard behind all of the joints as well.

 

Current state of play of the skirt (which is going to need a lot of filler when done):

 

 

 

I’ve also been planning ahead with some of the alterations I’ll be making, and being a CAD user for work is having it’s advantages. I definitely want a movie-style claw on this one, so I now have 1/5 scale plans for that thanks to the Project Dalek plans and my CAD skills. The brass tube to replace the eyestalk to enable me to light the eye has arrived, the LEDs for the eye and the ears are on the way.

 

As for the ears, the kit gives you the options of clear vacformed “bubbles” which don’t match anything seen on screen (and frankly look a bit Mickey Mouse in every meaning of that term), or a set of clear resin pieces which do nicely replicate the later lights used on the classic series, which were just a set of Mini indicator lenses. Unfortunately those have yellowed badly, and wouldn’t have let me add lighting to them very easily. So I’m going to have a crack at building a set of NSD (New Series Dalek/the gold & bronze ones) dome lights. I’ve drawn up the plans, again with the help of the plans available on Project Dalek, and I’ve ordered some 10mm diameter acrylic rod to form the lens inside those. Hopefully I can pull that off!

 

James

[Black Knight]

For lighting; I recently just bought some miniature 3v SMD LEDs. 5 x 3mm wired for £4.50. Other sizes are available. This chap also does magnetic switches, no need for an exterior flick switch

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334598524011?var=543707609910

[81-er]

Thank you. I think I can get away with standard sized LEDs with the size of this, but the other bits on his store certainly look handy. The filament LEDs might be handy for adding a glow from under the skirt

 

James