Making the Dalek Dome, or Head and Lights
Here I'm covering the Dalek dome in two sections: the Dome; and the Dome Lights.
Dome / "Head"
I plan to Vacuum Form the dome and lights as I have some plastic lying around. I'd have preferred to try making a Fibre Glass dome for the experience, but the low budget dictates.
For vacuum-forming the dome, I need to make the mould a touch smaller than the finished size of the Dalek dome. The plastic I have knocking around is 2mm thick... it's a total guess what thickness it'll end up when it's pulled round the mould, so I'm designing the mould 1m smaller than the dome's finished size, hoping it's about right.
I'll be following the traditional method of using a scraper to form some plaster to a round shape, as shown here. The above sketch shows the shape of the scraper in green, and central rod in lighter green - click and drag it around.
The scraper is designed around a rod of 13mm diameter, and will have a flat machined iinto it to the centre which will allow me to mount the scraper with two screws.
I may make two scrapers, one to spread the wet plaster, the second a touch smaller to smooth it off after it's set.
Dome Lights / "Ears"
The Remebrance Renegade Daleks dome lights were from automotive trailers, similar to the older Land Rover lights used in the Genesis era. But I couldn't use off-the-shelf parts since it's 50% scale, so I have to to make something instead...
Images from projectdalek.co.uk.
Vacuum forming seemed the easy way to go for the lights, as I had some clear plastic sheets, and had already made a fixture for making hemispheres, which can easily be adapted for making the lights by changing the platen and mould.
As with the dome and hemi's a mould is needed to pull the plastic around, luckily, I know someone with a 3D printer, so am pulling in a favour to get the mould printed!