How I Built Fred

Part 4

The Shoulders

 

Next, I cut out the upper shoulder support ring, beveling it slightly also.

 

 Blowing up the drawing from the technical manual, I made a pattern and cut out the lower shoulder frame out of 3/4" plywood. Then, using the sabre saw again, I eyeballed the approximate angle to bevel the edge so that the sheet metal for the "shoulders" would be supported properly (not shown).

Judging from resource pictures and the tech manual drawings, I eyeballed the approximate position of the upper ring over the lower ring. Then, I cut notches for the 1" x 1" supports and nailed them into place.

 

 

The additional notches in the lower ring are guide slots so that the shoulders would eventually align properly along pins attached to the top of the inside of the skirt.

 

 

 

I used a clear piece of plastic to attach to the shoulder frame to cut out an approximate pattern for the sheet aluminum. I trimmed off the excess where necessary, to get the right shape. Then I nailed the metal to the frame. Getting the right curve was tricky.
The Gun and Arm Boxes

Next came having to build some sort of ball and socket assembly for the gun and arm. Admittedly, I was kinda making this up as I went along.

Using 3/4" plywood again, I measured the angles of the arm boxes and scaled up from the tech drawings.

Arm boxes drawn out on board
Using the angles in the tech manual drawings, I tried the best I could to mitre the cuts using a radial arm saw.

View from above of gun boxes  

View of gun boxes from above

Arm box front and side mounted to test fit

Gun boxes with shoulders before cutting and attaching
Front view of front and side of arm box mounted to test fit The next trick was just fitting the boxes at the right angle so there'd be a good match between the surfaces coming in contact with each other. Basically, I eyeballed it and kept cutting and sanding until the matched fairly well. Arm box front and side mounted to test fit

Rear view of arm boxes assembled with holes cut out

Placing screws for arm boxes before cutting holes in shoulders

Gun boxes with holes drilled and holes cut.

View from inside
I carefully attached them with wood screws from the inside. Once I had a good fit, I disassembled them again and cut out the holes. Back in 1984, there weren't any reasonably affordable hole saws for the size I needed to use only a couple of times. So I used a smaller one I had on hand and then used a saber saw (my dad didn't have a jigsaw, which might've made things easier) set at an angle. From there, I filed and sanded until I got about the right smooth angle inside for a hemisphere to seat against.

I'll come back to the ball and socket assembly in a little bit.

The Waistband
To hide the join between the shoulders and the "skirt" of a Dalek, the designers created a "waistband" to go around the bottom of the shoulders.

Using a clear plastic pattern for waist band

 Even with the sheet plastic pattern, I had a devil of a time getting the waistband around the bottom of the shoulders to look right and fit properly in one piece. It was then, after I studied the pictures, that I realized there was a reason why there was a small band of metal centered at the front and the back, each encircling the waistband vertically: The waistband was was actually in two pieces, and those two bands hid the spots where the ends met.

I also observed from photos that there were small spacer blocks that made the waistband stand away from the shoulders and allow the bottom edge drop below the level of where the shoulders and the top of the skirt met.

The pattern laid out on the metal
So, first, I had to nail on the spacers. Then, with lots of "slop factor", I used a plastic pattern to cut out the two halves of the waistband, trimming off the excess once I attached it to the shoulder unit. Once I had the right fit, I cut the pieces out and nailed them into the spacer blocks, taking into account the clearance for the gun boxes. One half of waist band attached

The waistband half assembled

Speaker box hole cut out

 At the time, I had no real experience with electronics and the problems associated with types of microphones and the problems with speaker feedback. I know some Dalek builders got around that and had their speakers mounted in their necks. Since some Daleks had speaker grill, I just thought my Dalek Supreme hybrid would too. By having the speaker down below where my mouth would be, relatively speaking (and enclosing the speaker), I avoided the reverb problem.

I used another piece of sheet plastic to cut out the hole in the shoulders.

With one half of
 the waistband attached
 and the speaker
 hole cut out

 Waist band completely attached
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