Daleks in Manhattan - a look in the box

[John]

Santa delivered this set for the boy, and we've spent quite a bit of time poring over the contents and planning how to build them. General impressions are, once again, a beautifully produced and presented set with, theoretically, everything you need to build the model included in the box.

What you get : Dalek Caan, Dalek Sec opened up with the Kaled creature inside, a suitably 1920s style of base, 3mm acrylic paints, 3 decent brushes and a tube of glue. The parts for Caan are moulded in what can best be described as a "61 Flesh" colour while Sec is black and the base is in grey. There are also a number of clear parts and the Sec Kaled figure is in a rigid vinyl material. The Dalek "heads", with eye stalks, dome and ears, are moulded as one piece with light and sound chip inside. Wires lead down the back of the casing to the battery box in the base. We haven't wired ours up yet, so we don't know what they say!

The parts are very well moulded. Each Dalek has 56 hemispheres that need to be carefully cut from the sprues and glued to the "skirts". We've glued on Sec's but Caan's are on a piece of tape and have been painted gold.

My initial thoughts are that this will be great fun. However, I can't see many people painting Caan satisfactorily with a 3mm pot of Brass acrylic! A suitable gold/brass aerosol will have to be sourced here.

Less good are : the Dalek guns - terrible, and very weak compared to the rest of the detail in the kits. They are simply tubular with no impression of the fins on the actual weapons - Andrew's Dalek toothbrush holder has a better attempt!

The decals - shouldn't be cutting them off the instruction sheet in a £30 set!

Dalek Sec : a bit simplified inside, but I think the addition of the control console from some plastic card will make a big difference.

More to follow.

John

[AnonymousA667]

Pics please John! I started building the Welcome Aboard set over Christmas and I will be looking to pick up the Daleks once the show season gets into gear as I'm sure they will be discounted.

peebeep

[John]

Pics tomorrow, when the camera batteries recharge after the festivities!

John

[John]

OK, some pics as promised.

First of all, the parts that make up Dalek Caan, a bit easier to make out than the black plastic parts of Sec:

The "head", with wiring already attached by us:

The parts to make the rest:

56 hemispheres cut out, taped to a piece of card and painted gold:

The 56 hemispheres for Sec have been cut out and glued to the casing already.

Parts from Sec:

Sec himself:

Part of the interior, given a mist coat of gold over the black plastic - looks good!

The worst part of the model is the gun. here's the real gun:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/medialibrar...urpose=Computer wallpaper&summary=They have stolen the Earth.&info=&tag_file_id=s4_12_wal_04

Here's the one on Andrew's ASDA toothbrush holder:

and here's the Airfix attempt:

Nothing like the original. Not beyond scratchbuilding, of course, but I wouldn't expect to have to and I can assure you it was one of the first things my Dalek mad 9-year-old noticed!

The base is still bagged up, so more photos later.

John

[John]

I've wired them up, and Caan says "The Children of Skaro shall walk again", while Sec says "The final experiment must begin".

I think!

John

[Stuflyer]

Hi John, thanks for the description and pics, looking at them (and I hate nitpicking on any kit, but Daleks are something I have been intimately involved with for 20 years) the main issues seem to be:

1/

Gun. I see what they tried to do,but, er..no. The one on the toothbrush (yes I have one too) is just as bad really, only in a different way. The gun does not have fins, it has rods ruuning the length of the barrell. The ones on the 18 inch voice interactive dalek are the best repro's I have seen outside the full size repro circle. It's an awkward sratch build but not undoable.

2/

The eye discs are the worng shape and size. Theye are concave, and face each other. One again, I see why they did it, and this at least should be a fairly easy fix.

3/

Do the "ears " only fit on in that orientation? they should have the "fins" at 2, 4, 8 and 10 o clock to the vertical.

4/

The ridges around the hemis are moulded into the skirt walls, this will make them hard to paint: They should be very dark matt grey (black on full size but allowing for scale effect) contrasting with the fire bronze of the hemis on Caan and gloss black on Sec.

5/ The angles for the rear 3 panels on the skirt look wrong: lots of sources for toys and models have them as being at 45 degrees, but as the new daleks were based on the Shawcraft design it should be closer to 30 ( I forget exactly what but can look it up if you need me to ) Of course this could be a trick of photography :-)

I'll look more closely when I get the kit, but its worth mentioning that NO KIT so far has got the gun right: Sevans and Comet both got it wrong. On my Movie Sevans model I made a gun from Brass and contrail strip. The main problem is it's only just over a foot long full size so even in a largeish scale, the best medium for it is going to be brass/resin - the new guns are more complex and detailed still.

I'll tell you this, it looks to beat the Comet effort into the ground.

Anyway, not a bad effort from your description, I am looking forward to having a go myself :-)

Edited January 7, 2009 by Stuflyer

[John]

Hi Stu.

I agree about the guns, but I think a "toothbrush" style effort in clear plastic would have been a better compromise than what we have. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do about it because I want to encourage Andrew to build as much of them as possible for himself. However even he objects to the guns as is!

The "ears" are preassembled onto the dome, along with the eye stalk. They do actually light up, and in time to the words.

Painting the ridges round the hemis is going to be difficult, but I'm wondering if a gel pen or something might be a way forward?

Looking at what comes in the box I'm wondering if Sec could be converted into the insane Caan? Looks like a possibility.

John

[CPNGROATS]

EXTERMINATE..!!!!!!!!!! EXTERMINATE>>>>>>>>>>>>!!

Cheers,

ggc

[Bazza]

Pics please John! I started building the Welcome Aboard set over Christmas and I will be looking to pick up the Daleks once the show season gets into gear as I'm sure they will be discounted.

peebeep

Hi Paul,if you are interested,our local Hobby shop,(Dutfield's),has one in stock,at £3 CHEAPER !! £27...

Thought i'd tip you the wink !! Cheers Baz.

[Stuflyer]

Hi Stu.

I agree about the guns, but I think a "toothbrush" style effort in clear plastic would have been a better compromise than what we have. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do about it because I want to encourage Andrew to build as much of them as possible for himself. However even he objects to the guns as is!

The "ears" are preassembled onto the dome, along with the eye stalk. They do actually light up, and in time to the words.

Painting the ridges round the hemis is going to be difficult, but I'm wondering if a gel pen or something might be a way forward?

Looking at what comes in the box I'm wondering if Sec could be converted into the insane Caan? Looks like a possibility.

John

Hi John, Hmm, I have been thinking about the gun, would the following solution work, I wonder? Paint the base section and muzzle silver, then paint a strip of Tamiya tape silver and cut into 1mm strips, and place them where the rods would be? nowhere near as good as a proper gun but doable for a youngster? (whether he'd find it acceptable is another matter, your lad seems to have Standards :-) )

As for the conversion to MAD! Caan? oh yeah, that would be a goer, fix up the skirt and go from there... You'd need some scratch building but it would make a good project.

And the ridges..gel pen certainly, lthough I'd be tempted to mask and spray them - not an ideal solution for a 9 year old :-(

Edited January 8, 2009 by Stuflyer

[John]

We've made a bit more progress with the Daleks. First, here is Sec's base with the mechanism that supports the struts of his open armour in place:

The black is the plastic, I think we'll just give it a coat of Kleer as the mould quality is very good. The gold is from a Plasti-Kote enamel spray.

Next we have Caan doing his thing:

One point to note here is that the soldering on the connectors is very weak, and I ended up with a couple broken off. I stripped back a quarter inch of the exposed wire and wrapped them round the connector screws for a more robust fitting.

John

[AnonymousA667]

Thought i'd tip you the wink !!

Thanks for that. Normally I'd support my LMS, but in this case I'm betting that either Mr Models or Wonderland will have some great deals at the shows during the coming year.

peebeep

[Bazza]

We've made a bit more progress with the Daleks. First, here is Sec's base with the mechanism that supports the struts of his open armour in place:

The black is the plastic, I think we'll just give it a coat of Kleer as the mould quality is very good. The gold is from a Plasti-Kote enamel spray.

Next we have Caan doing his thing:

One point to note here is that the soldering on the connectors is very weak, and I ended up with a couple broken off. I stripped back a quarter inch of the exposed wire and wrapped them round the connector screws for a more robust fitting.

John

Hi John,how's the Daleks getting on??

What do Airfix suggest as the "Gold"colour for Dalek Caan??(better still what was the Gold You used??)

Cheers,Bazza.

[bob the lanc lover]

i am in the middle of building this beastly box of parts and i dont know if i have a rogue kit but not one part fits together properly it is so bad that i have e mailed scarefix about it {even though they have not given methe courtesy of a reply } i am not far from binning it so good luck with yours cheers bob

[Bazza]

i am in the middle of building this beastly box of parts and i dont know if i have a rogue kit but not one part fits together properly it is so bad that i have e mailed scarefix about it {even though they have not given methe courtesy of a reply } i am not far from binning it so good luck with yours cheers bob

THat's a Bummer,considering,how EXPENSIVE,it is.....!!

i wish you all the best,of luck !!

Cheers,Baz.

[Anthony Kesterton]

I've wired them up, and Caan says "The Children of Skaro shall walk again", while Sec says "The final experiment must begin".

I think!

John

We have this kit at home too - I have one of the Daleks half-built on my desk. Finding it very easy to build so far - but strange type of plastic (quite oily and not the normal material used in other regular Airfix kits).

My 9-year old was very disappointed one of them did not say "Exterminate!". Thinking (or not) aloud, I wondered if the electronics are in the base or the "head". I suspect the head as there would be a circuit board to control the lights.

I found the fit on the Caan (?) very good so far. I did try and build them in order from the top down - and was worried about the fit too. I used the previous section and the next section to check the fit, then used plasticweld on the inside to glue the seams. I then removed the part before it stuck to other sections. This seemed to keep the fit.

Wondering about filling the seams at this stage - esp on the ribbed section below the head. (Or maybe I am taking this far too seriously :-)

anthony

Edited April 1, 2010 by Anthony Kesterton