Build your own Dalek  Part two
by Quentin Cockburn

The hardest bit in making your life-size plywood and card Dalek are the tricky bits, the upper section.  Now I’m sure you all have a ‘Dalek in your head’, and this will help as I explain the process of construction.  We need a rigid body, but a turning head/dome, with a swiveling laser and probe.  We are thinking rather like tank rings, (all tanks had them) of constructing a sleeve of circular ply within a grooved housing, or a more complex, bearing and housing unit.  Both do-able, but taking our limited expertise to the limit.  This is why we have subcontracted the voice modulator unit, (a steal at Jaycar for $24.00), and the lights, that flash when the Dalek speaks.  This is serious end electrical engineering, beyond our expertise, and like computer programming, CAD operation, and Golf, who cares about that stuff anyway

We have begun this stage with lots of clamps, liberal coatings of PVA, wood screws, and when we just can’t be bothered nails and bolts.  This is finickety, and the angles have to be right.  Look at Daleks on Google and you’ll see what happens when the angles aren’t right.  They’re all wrong, and it’s no longer a Dalek, but a caricature of one.  And that wont do!!

Using cardboard as stencils, we have cut the rings out, and ignored the use of plastics.  This gives our Dalek the necessary home made, ‘real look’, that I previously mentioned.

The really tricky bit, the rotating dome, has caused us considerable head scratching.  We have seen examples of fibre-glass domes, and machined steel domes, but they all seem to be too ‘poofterised’ and over-done.  You see it’s all right doing a Dalek for fun, but you don’t want to be to ‘Pommie’ about it.  I know there’s an inherent contradiction.  There’s an implication that going ‘Pommie’, like obsessive soccer hooliganism is a consequence of dismal lives and the certainty of a grim future.  That’s why Colin Furze is so important, he saves the Poms from being victims of the post Thatcherite, sub- Blair-ian, welfare state, dystopia.  The truth, that anywhere above Cambridge actually is.  We may settle for an upturned tupperware bowl, with some cuts made through with the trusty Stanley knife.  We’d agonised over this, and decided that plastic bowl, (retail price two dollars), would look better than a hubcap, a lamp shade or paper mache balloon form as it would allow us strength and utility.  Also we are conscious of weight.  The weight is rising and the power unit; one Jasper, will be hard pressed to manipulate all the dials and switches whilst maintaining voice control and movement.  There’s one little detail that reminds me of the famous Okha, the Natter, and the Bell X 1 as famously flown by Chuck Yeager.  We’d investigated entry systems and decided that in the interests of structural integrity, the only way to ensure rigidity, was to assemble the Dalek in two pieces.  Once in the driving position, the driver is bolted in.  There is no quick release.  I know, it contravenes all health and safety standards, but that’s just how it is…  Dangerous , deadly, trapped, and fun…  It’s that’s tingle of gratification the kamikaze pilot must have felt as he plunged onto the decks of an escort carrier off Leyte Gulf.  Indescribable.

And as Colin Furze would demonstrate, that’s the fun of it..!!!

We haven’t finished the top, it requires real precision and expertise, but it will be finished.  The test drive is planned for next weekend during the famous Bendigo Easter Parade…  Don’t know if we’ll join the parade or just watch its passing.  A Dalek with a North Melbourne Footy Scarf, should draw attention.  At this stage the natural enemy of a plywood Dalek is not the Doctor, but moisture.  We’re worried about moisture.  It warps the plywood.  But then doesn’t the same thing happen to the Time Lord?  Warp-age.