26th October 2008...

Filled, sanded and re-painted the front slat, may not be perfect but at least its not melting anymore...

19th October 2008...

There has been a problem with one of the slats, the large front slat began to melt. I noticed that a large 'drip' had appeared on the underside and that it had become tacky in the recess toward the top. I sanded down the back to find that the resin hadn't fully set inside the slat. I sanded it down to get rid of all the sticky parts and am now left with a sorry looking slat.

Next step is to add some gauze on the rear and fill it with car filler in the recess and down the side, then finally sand it back and re-paint.

What else has been done to Dalek lately...?

30th April 2008...

Quick update, I've glued the wood strips to the back of each slat and test bolted each in place, when dry all they'll need is a quick sand and then to paint...

27th April 2008...

Each slat has now been sanded down, and the plastic strips I moulded into each are now cut and sanded off. In their place will be a strip of wood, shaped to fit the recess and glued to the back - the heat from the resin distorted the plastic and would have resulted in loads of filler.

I've also made the over-sized centre slat for the front by cutting up two short slats and joining then back together with some plastic from a CD case, coated with P38 and sanded down.

The middle row of pictures below show all 18 slats, sanded and prepared for paint, with the wood strips waiting to be glued to the backs. Hoping to get these painted next week...

19th April 2008...

We have 13 long slats and 4 short slats... and a big smile... I'm still working on the central slat by cutting two short slats up and joining them with some plastic from a CD case and some P38 filler...

To place them on the shoulders I made up some paper slats, and positioned them using the CO VC 18" Dalek for reference to get them spaced in the right positions. I placed the casts on the paper and drilled through to the shoulders with a Dremmell - removed them and re-drilled the shoulders with a 6mm bit. The bolts are temporary until I find some smooth headed /chromed coach bolts.

Next weekend I need to sand them along the sides and build up the edge to fill the recess. Looks good though...

18th April 2008...

After a failed attempt using latex rubber, then another failure using Plaster of Paris, I got some advice and made a mould of the two slats using silicon rubber. I screwed the MDF slats to a base so they didn't float, then built a wall of Lego around the edge, sealed this with Plasticine and then let the rubber set overnight.

Once it had set, I tidied it up and then used polyurethane fast cast resin to make up the slats, each with a strip of plastic card down each edge so I can use this to fill in the recess that runs around the middle of the shoulders.

Managed to make up 6 long slats and 4 short slats with 2kg of resin - now got to wait for some more to arrive...!

29th March 2008...

I've started work on the slats... plan is to make up one of each, then create a rubber mould and make them all out of fibreglass... but I've never done this before...!

2nd March 2008...

We're off on holiday in a week, and Mum's staying... thought I best bolt the Dalek together so it doesn't fall apart if she touches it...! Four bolts in the skirt to hold the shoulders in place, and four wood pegs glued into the neck, into four holes on the top edge of the shoulders... all stays together now...

click here to see what else I did today...

18th February 2008...

Here we go again... the shoulders I got were top quality but when sat on the skirt were too big, overhanging each side by at least 4cm, and didn't 'hug' the corners on the back edge so looked all wrong... They would be perfect for a Resurrection type build but not a NSD...

So... I now have a set of screen accurate NSD shoulders to go with the resin gunbox mouldings that have been sat in a box for over a year now...

9th January 2008...

Fairly accurate...! Yes I'm new to all of this and my 'fairly accurate' has turned out to be more of a 'nothing *!%%*!!* like...!'

Anyway, rather than being put off by this - which I have been for the last few months - I have managed to locate another fibreglass shoulder section to replace this. It is not a NSD style shoulder, more of an Resurrection style Dalek with moulded collars, and built-in gun-boxes... The sizes of the part are, height 14 inches (35.56cm) the top is a circle diameter OD 22-1/4 (56.515cm) inches the bottom is 31-1/2 inches (80cm) deep by 27-1/2 inches (69.85) wide.
 

Whilst this won't be 'screen accurate' it will fairly close. I plan to make NSD style slats, which will be moulded around the top collar, keeping the chunky NSD look, but also adding a 'retro' edge...

You can get the idea from the slats I have 'drawn' on the picture below...

March 2007...

I root through eBay fairly regularly looking for bits to help me build my Dalek, I found a seller who happened to have a spare NSD Shoulder section, moulded from fibreglass - so I jumped in the car and handed over my cash in exchange for a fairly accurate shoulder section.