buggy rear wheels.

Finally got the spacers finished, they are plastic, but should be plenty strong enough for this application, and they were nice and easy to cut and drill :-)

This is the complete assembly of one side with the motor and some of the framework to weld into the chassis. Next step is to work out where to weld the framework to centre the wheels in the wheel arches. With a bit of luck it could be on all 4 wheels by the end of the weekend. At which time I'm going to realise i have nowhere to put it! :-)

Dalek video

finished the buggy wheel adapters, they will be tomorrows update, hopefully!

tonight its the Video of the dalek in action.

 

This was the first test run, hence the lack of bumper, i hadn't got as far as putting it on yet.

Really pleased with how it went, we had cars stopping to take photos as they were going past.

More dalek goodness

Been making a pair of wheel adapters for the buggy to fit the rear wheels to the Motor flanges that's going to take me a couple of days so until then here is more dalek.

 Here is a close up of the head, with the Union Jack, and plastic beaker eyes.

 And here he is at the school fair where he went down a storm!

Video to follow...

The next exciting episode of how to build a Dalek.

Did a little more buggy yesterday, but nothing worth taking a picture of. Discovered Ill need some wheel spacers/adaptors machined which may take some time.

So here is the next exciting episode of how to build a Dalek.

Paint! this is the first of three coats, needed to cover the foam. This coat is a little light, I started with a tin of olive green from B&Q and mixed in loads of different poster paints until I was happy.

 

 And here he is together again. I'm working out the drive mechanism at this stage, which is a cut down electric wheelchair with the control box extended to give you a long cable remote.

 

 

 The shoulders still look a little rough but they will be covered by the equipment these daleks carry.

Just snatched a few Min's on the buggy, but its too dark for photos.
So here is more dalekness.

 

 A slightly blurry shot of the skirt and shoulders with the hemispheres attached (80mm Styrofoam balls from ebay, for less than a tenner, 100mm balls were more than twice the price.)(100mm is the correct size but how many people know that!)

The Bumper and neck rings are all made in a dense urethane closed cell foam. this has a reasonable surface and takes paint quite well if primed.

 

Just in process of adding the foam to the shoulders, getting the correct glue was a challenge, but I found expensive hot melt glue sticks £5 for 5 sticks!!! were worth their weight in gold :-)

This was about the first time I actually built the stack, and i was over the moon! :-)

Here is he next exciting Dalek building episode.

The head and shoulders pretty much ready for paint, untill I decided to cover the bottom ring of the shoulders in foam as well...you can also see some of the wiring in the eye, it has leds built in which flash. A bit.

buggy steering

Spent some more time working on the steering for the buggy, it will be a heavy thing, and with the size of the tyres as well it needed a "proper" steering system with some geared advantage. This is based on the seat runner mechanism from a top of the range car.

 

 After cutting down the runner to a block holding the gear and welding on a 1/2 UJ from a socket set the steering is ready to mount.

 

 Here is the front Axel tacked in place on the chassis.

 

 

Close up of the spindle and track rod ends, all from some sort of lawn tractor and via ebay.

The dalek has gone to a new home in Blackpool :-(
He will be sadly missed, the front room is making me feel agoraphobic without his hulking presence taking up half the space.

OK, didn't get time to open the garage tonight, so ill have to go back to dalek posting. Someone is coming to look at him tomorrow so I may be dalek-less by Wednesday!

 

On with the build, I continued to box in around the gun mounts, Its amazing how strong card gets once there are a few pieces folded and glued together.

 

While working on the body I was also making the eye, (a magic 8ball) and the cowl over the eye post, which was a card base coated in body filler and then smoothed out.

The Gun is a combination of Torch parts, chrome tube and alu strip offcuts.

 

Starting to get there now, the shoulders look odd as they don't have the rings yet which bulk them out a lot. I have added glassfiber to the inside of the skirt to strengthen the hardboard.

Mollys Mini Manx

The kids have decided that my next project (More Dalek later) must be finishing the 1/2 scale buggy I have been building for the past 6 years (well not really  building, more contemplating.) So here is the first post on this project!

We got the body from East Coast Manx, and if they are still in business (they are, just checked, http://www.eastcoastbuggies.co.uk/) then they do a lovely half sized buggy!

The idea was to make it ready for Molly once she was old enough. Unfortunately I had also intended to finish my Trekker (More later) and do an MA. Kids do tend to mess up timescales. :-) 

So I managed to get a motorised golf bag which I thought would be perfect as the power source, however the more i thought about the more I doubted its ability to move our increasingly large offspring! 

I built a chassis for the buggy and got a set of wheels and tyres and everything was going slowly but well.

 The chassis is made from the square section steel legs of some old furniture we were throwing away at work (The Metal skip is a favourite dinnertime destination :-) ) Its a simple perimeter frame with points to attache the front and rear assemblies.

This is the lawn tractor front axle, its a monster!

Here is the modified version. Not sure yet if this is staying...  

This is the back end I put together using the golf caddy, this is definitely not staying I have now got a much more capable drive pack from an electric wheelchair. Ill be having a look tonight to see if its going to be feasible to keep the suspension but if not ill solid mount everything.

Back tyres/wheels are brand new and came from ebay, fronts are very second hand from a lawn tractor, they will be fine for now but I will probably need to sort out some more tyres eventually. 

More Dalek building!

This is the little chap I'm going for, he is an Ironside from an alternate reality second world war story. There were two reasons I chose this particular dalek, the paint (as he is not shiny the surface wont have to be as perfect) and the bags/webbing around his shoulders which also cover some of the details making the build easier. 

padded out the shoulders in card, using lots of vertical strips to get the shape. Also built new gun boxes. 

There are a couple of layers, this is the first. 

Close up of the gun boxes. The ball part of the socket is a Tupperware bowl and the plunger leg is from the BBQ. 

Lets build a Dalek

As I have called this blog dalekhandjob I guess posting about the dalek build is the best place to start.
This build took a month of evenings and weekends from April to may this year, the construction is mostly hardboard card and foam with one or two found objects where suitable.

 

This was the start, built using the fantastic plans on the project dalek website.

To give the build a good solid foundation i used a piece of  1/2 inch ply i had kicking around for the base and made a double thickness hardboard top by gluing up two standard sheets. At this stage the supporting bars are just guesstimated and loosely screwed into place.

 

After cutting all of the panels out of hardboard with a Stanley knife i started laying them against the base and using small screws top and bottom, held them in place. The top section is a quick mock up to give me an idea of size.

 

An ebay bargain formed the head. While the real dalek heads are quite a complex shape with a dome and a flat section around the base, this is very close size wise and looked the part. It was originally the bottom of a large kettle barbecue which also provided the chrome tubes for the gun and plunger and the eye stalk.

 

I've moved him back in the house now so i can work later into the night! here I'm trying a couple of boxes as gum placements, but they were not quite big enough. And i have started to thicken up the shoulders.

so this is a maker blog

Sunday 18/8/2013

In this blog I hope to keep a record of the crap I make which at the time of writing ranges from a full sized dalek to a 1/2 scale beach buggy. Ill probably jump around a little, posting about the several projects currently underway as well as a smattering of posts on some of the other bits and pieces I have built over the years.
Hopefully by keeping a blog it will help keep me away from the TV and doing something creative instead. :-)