My Daleks

Anatomy of a Dalek

A dalek has five main parts:

Dome

The dome has an eye stalk and rotates to let the dalek see in any direction. The new series dalek dome is detailed with groves, lightcages and a cowl which makes the eye stalk more prominent.

Neck

The neck is at the level of the operator's eyes and is semi opaque to let the operator see out.

Shoulders

The shoulders are the business end of the dalek and are equipped with a plunger arm and gun. The new series dalek is detailed with 16 slats.

Skirt

The skirt has 11 panels decorated with a total of 56 hemispheres.

Fender

The fender bulks up the base of the dalek and hides the wheels on which it rolls.

In addition a working prop such as Salvador has an internal mobile frame with a seat for the operator, a battery to power the lights, etc.

Building a Dalek of Your Own

If you are interested in building a dalek yourself, I strongly advise you to join Project Dalek which is a community of dalek building enthusiasts which supplies invaluable plans, building advice and build logs.

Some of the Materials I used:

Building a fiberglass Dalek

Working with fiberglass is (usually) a three part process:

• Build a model of the thing you want to make using wood, clay or other materials. This is called a plug.
• Make a fiberglass mold from the plug.
• Make parts from the mold.

Most of the build time was spent on the plugs. The shoulders alone took over a hundred hours work. While the plugs are just a means to the end of making the molds I was not going to throw them out after so much effort. After carting Salvador up two flights of stairs to my office and then back down again to take to Arisia, I decided to leave him sulking in a (newly constructed) room in the basement and paint the plugs to make a static prop for my office. He might not say static though, while there is no room inside Llama for an operator, there is plenty of space for motors and gears.

All the parts for Salvador were made in this way except for the fender which is a fairly simple part where I tried to save time by making a mold. While this dis save some time, the wood mold was destroyed during the demolding process and poor llama is left without a fender!

One of the main problems I faced in this build was the lack of a garage. Fiberglass is really nasty stuff to work with and especially so in a confinded space. Safety equipment, mask, goggles, gloves etc. is essential but not a substitute for good ventilation. As a result the fiberglass parts of the build were slowed by the need to work outside and to carry every piece of equipment inside and out every day.

Reading Mike Tucker's history of the BBC special effects department, I found they had the same problem and much of their prop building took place on the roof of Television Center.

Work in Progress

Dalek building never really ends. Salvador would like a new coat of paint for a start. And his gun bosses and light cages are resin parts rather than the machined aluminium it should be. These are currently waiting for me to finish fixing up my CNC mill and lathe.

Another work in progress is building a motorized base for Salvador. Daleks are designed to glide effortlessly over perfectly flat television studio floors. They are foot powered! This is fine if you are on a smooth surface but scootching across the riven marble floors of the Westin Harbordrive gets very tiring, very quickly.

Hire, loans, appearances, etc.

Unless you are with the BBC, my Daleks are NOT for hire or loan.

Copyright in the NSD design belongs to Terry Nation's estate and the BBC. Even if you can get a license it almost certainly isn't worth my time or effort to loan a very valuable prop for a children's party or the like.

If you are with the BBC then I have a TARDIS you can borrow as well.

Putting in an appearance at a Science Fiction convention or other event is a possibility but only likely to happen if the convention is very large or very close to Boston USA and you are willing to provide suitable transport.