Doctor Who Handles Foam Pep Disaster

Absolutely had to get the bathroom window finished today.


Ooops.

Gah. Technology.

So, I have Handles lighting up nicely, running some LEDs off a battery pack that will fit easily inside his noggin. Part 2 of the Great and Audacious Plan was to implant a small Bluetooth speaker in his cranium as well. Then I could link y phone to it and play snatches of genuine Handles dialogue for the amusement of passers by.

After a general appeal to my family at birthday-time, I got this device:

It's a bluetooth speaker about three inches across and one inch deep. It charges, rather than taking batteries, and it's intended for use in the shower, so it's pretty robust. There's just one problem. It won't connect with my phone.

Now, I have a Windows phone, so I'm used to stuff not working, but even so, I'm annoyed. When I try to pair the device with the phone, I get the fantastically brief message "Can't connect". Why? Why can't it connect? Is it sunspots? Aliens? Is there too much lead int he housepaint? Is this a temporary problem, as in "Can't connect NOW, but will be able to in a week when Mercury is in retrograde and the Bears are through to round two of the sweepstakes?"*

It's tempting to send the thing back to Mexico (Yes, Mexico. My Dad ordered it from Amazon.ca, and it got sent from Mexico) but that's not going to fix anything if the problem is me having a Windows phone. Look, many of you guys have built great and wondrous things that make noises. What's the best way for a noob like me to rig a brief selection of soundbites to play? Remember, I'm the guy who has glued himself to more than one of his own helmets, AND I nearly burned the house down when I left my glue gun plugged in overnight. Tech chops I have not got....



*I don't know who the Bears are, or what sweepstakes they might be. You can see how complicated this becomes.

Of course, it began working almost immediately after I had posted this rant.

Video of the results to follow today.

Dtrasler said:

.

Video of the results to follow today.

Click to expand...

...or there will be when I figure out how to video my phone when I use my phone to video stuff.

Almost at the finishing post and real life intervenes again. I had fitted the LEDs inside the head, but they fell out (this stuff happens to me quite a bit. Read back through my other threads) and I haven't figured the best way to temporarily mount the speaker securely. I WILL finish up and make Handles worth looking at, but I think there'll be a rush on Halloween costumes any day now - Tiny Weasel wants to be a Redcoat, and Middle Weasel and her best friend want to be characters from a computer game I've never seen, at least one of which will require serious build work.*

Anyway, if you've stuck with this thread for this long, thank you, and you can relax now. There'll be one more posting of pictures and maybe a video, but it'll be a while yet.


*They won't GET serious build work. They'll get my work.

I hadn't realised that I never rounded off this thread the way I promised to. Ah well. At least I'm consistent.
I've come back to visit because my eldest wants to make a life-size Dalek, and I have downloaded blueprints from The Project Dalek Forum, so it looks like it's happening. There's not much point in starting a whole new thread for it, but it won't go on the Star Wars Helmet thread either....

I wanted my first post to be a good picture of the first piece already cut and ready to go, but the piece of wood I put to one side for it is just a bit too small. So, I can't start until I've been wood shopping, despite the workshop being stuffed with waste wood from where I took the old bed apart. Maybe there'll be places to use that stuff later. Anyway, this post is mostly me announcing that the dalek build is a thing that's happening, and apologising in advance for the horrific bodging that will take place.

Allons y! Or Gallifrey Stands!

<like>

If you've been following any of my threads, you'll know I'm not the cautious type. I have been known to herd bulls into china shops, that kind of thing. Where angels fear to tread, there I am on my pogo stick.
Well, not today, Zurg! This is a joint project with my eldest daughter, and she has standards (which goes to prove you can't pick your family...)

We picked up a detailed set of blueprints from the Project Dalek Forum (paying our five pounds for live membership immediately) and choosing the 2009 model, I think. The one with the optional grabbing claw. Now, bear in mind, these are blueprints, not a construction guide. No one is telling us what order to do things in, or anything like that. It's just accurate pictures and measurements. I was pretty sure the measurements were in CM, but I decided to be cautious for a change. I would construct the first part of the dalek from cardboard. This has two advantages: One, I didn't have to get the power tools out to cut everything to size. Two, right now I didn't have a big enough piece of wood for the base.

It turned out I didn't have enough cardboard either, but unlike wood, you can duct-tape cardboard together.

This thread makes me happy.

There're ways of making things well. Good measurements are key. What you don't want to do is be walking through your basement, see the wood leaning up against the cupboard and try to mark up the shape WHILE THE WOOD IS STILL UPRIGHT. I marked off half the shape and then handed it over to my daughter. She did the rest of it, then checked my measurements. She redrew those, and then I checked her measurements. We came to a compromise and then mangled THAT compromise when we cut it out.

Next I fitted the wheels (found second-hand at the ReStore) while my kid drew out the panels. We're short of thin wood for the panels, so I might have to buy more - I've spent $80 on wood and wheels so far, which is a lot for a project. Sure, we get a desk top out of the wood also, but still....
Anyway, fitting the panels is a bit of a mystery process, so I've appealed for help on the Dalek building Forum. I suspect someone is going to suggest doing proper woodwork. Like THAT'S gonna happen...

The responses from the Dalek Forum were helpful. Firstly, they suggested that we build the whole skirt unit separate from the base with the wheels on, so it could be detached for going through doorways. I got sent a link to a video of a guy and his kids building one of these things in a day. I had to go and have a lie down just from watching it.
Anyway, how hard can it be? Come, sit upon the carpet, and I'll tel you.
First, I used my last large sheet of wood to draw out the top deck - the top of the skirt unit.

It wasn't that hard, so I cut it out. Most of the cuts were pretty close to the lines this time.

The plans say the skirt unit is 68.6cm tall, so I cut a support that was 68.6cm tall and screwed it to the top deck. Do you see my mistake, folks? Don't worry, I catch it later. Meanwhile, I do not have a sheet of wood large enough to make another base unit. I used the only one to make the first base unit, that this base unit is going to sit on. I can't ask Mrs Dim for more money to build another one of the things I just made, because she might give me one of those looks, and right now I feel I am lacking the moral high ground. The obvious answer is to construct the base out of several planks of wood that I do have. Best if they were all the same thickness, but that's not how the Universe works. So, collect planks and try to glue/screw them together into a useful configuration:

Look, this is actually quite good for me. I've cleaned up the workshop, and I'm using actual wood clamps and brackets made for screwing into wood. And wood glue too. And I'm still following the plans... Mostly. There's a lot of .5 and .6 stuff that gets...mushy in the real world, because my pencil isn't sharp, or the ruler slips. Maybe when I get the fourth plank on, it'll look better.

Oh yeah. We're in the big league now. It's at this point, when I go to cut out the two other supports for the top deck, that I notice the mistake I made earlier. I didn't take the width of the top deck into account when I cut the first support, so it's too high. Luckily, I still have time to cut down the first one and make the other two the right height first time around. Let's put it all together!

OK! Now, I just need to cut out the section of the bottom base to allow feet through, Fred Flintstone style, and cut a hole in the top deck so someone sitting in the dalek has somewhere to put their torso.

Alright. Not bad for a day's work. I know how I'll build the seat, and Eldest Weasel has been cutting out panels, so fitting them is really the next stage. They're going to look rough as old boots for the longest time, because we'll have to reinforce the joins on the inside, then bondo the outside joins and make good. I have no illusions about the blood, sweat and tears this will require. But tomorrow is not a building day, and I'll only have time for a little on Monday, then who knows when I'll get back to it? Ah well...

I'm impressed Damien, this looks like its going well so far, LOL!:lol

Roughneckone:cool

Finally got some time to measure the panels out of foamcore. It's good stuff for this, flexible enough for the slight twist on the two front panels, strong enough to hold straight, but light enough to be easy to cut. It didn't take long to have most of the panels cut and fitted, except for the ten minute dash to the shops for more foamcore.


The best description of this process is "quick and dirty", with the inevitable hope that I'll have a chance to make good with bondo or something.

The next stage is the shoulders, which look very complicated. Lots of measuring. Oh boy.
Still, in the meantime...

Looking good so far Damien!

Roughneckone:cool

Outstanding!

I was worried about the shoulders, so I decided to double check the plans I have. There was a weird printing glitch on the exact page I needed, so I reprinted it. Same problem again, black lines extending over the measurements on the right hand side of the page. Eventually I took a screenshot of the pdf and exported it into a Word document. None of this made me any more confident about the build, so I decided to play safe and do another cardboard trial run.


It was a good job I did. The measurements for the base of the shoulders are...confusing. The piece I cut was the best I could, but it overhung the edges of the skirt far too much. So I extrapolated from available data and reconfigured the sheet using aproximal point estimation*



Next I measured the whole of the circumference and cut a long strip that was 9cm wide. I taped that into place and then cut down the section on the front that's only 5.6cm wide. Family tea intervened at that point (I was Head Cook, since Mrs Dim is still recovering), but we have plans to build supports around the side and wrap in card. That sounds insane, but I'll post photos when we do that and it'll make more sense. Anyway. the cardboard has done the job because I'm more confident about the whole thing. As with the first attempt, the cardboard is a means to an end, not the end product itself. Unless, you know, it looks really good....



*I looked at it and cut off the bits that looked wrong.

So I was right to worry about the shoulders. They're not front-to-back symmetrical, because the back is vertical and the front slopes. the back end is a rounded rectangle, and the front end is a semi-circle. The front end is also interrupted by the gun boxes. So, i did my best to find the right measurements and make a silhouette for the front and back pieces and stick them into place.

Then the idea was to make the side piece silhouettes. They were trickier, for various reasons*


And then the trouble begins...Because the next part is cutting a circle which is the base of the neck. All the previous pieces should match up to this circle, because that's what the shoulders meet, right? Except, no. The side pieces are too wide.

Luckily, my kid has several model daleks, and I was able to study the thing in 3d and realise the sides should slope too. With a little trimming, the sides will slope up to the neck. I'll tape all the pieces into place, and then we'll clad the shoulders in card and build the gun boxes. Then we'll go over the card with either papier mache or fibre glass resin, or both. I should really go back a couple of steps and cut the pieces out of wood, but that would mean measuring a lot of this stuff again, and I don't think my nerves can take it. The problem really is that my kid and I are not getting the chance to work together on this. Her patience and attention to detail would make this a lot easier.

*Actually, just the usual reason: The measurements were fiddly, I was getting bored and time was running out

Having had a chance to discuss the issue with the guys over at the Project Dalek Forum, I have decided to scrap the cardboard. I was (here's a surprise) making it harder and more complicated than it needed to be. So...

After a whole week of actual work and plumbing (which is not work, but some kind of penance), I finally got some time to push on with the shoulders. First job was to figure out drawing the circle for the top. I measured half the final diameter on a length of wood, then drilled a hole at the beginning and the end.

I banged a nail through one hole, and a marker pen through the other. Voila, une compass! (My French is about as good as my plumbing...)




I cut the circle out, measured the depth of the circle piece and the base piece and subtracted that from the proper height, then cut a couple of supports. Finally, I cut the back support with the appropriate slope.


That leaves one support to make, but I picked up the hardboard from Home Depot this morning when I was buying endless plumbing supplies, so all my dalek costs for this week get filed under "Home renovation".
The next step, after putting in the front support, will be to soak the hardboard, then wrap the shoulders and clamp the damp hardboard in place. Once it's dried, it should hold the shape well enough to glue and nail into place permanently. That'll be the inner skin of the shoulders, and we can build the other sections out from there.
This is fun in a way, but I find myself hankering after the simplicity of wrestling with a helmet. Not huge ungainly sheets of material. I mean, sure, I stuffed up the helmets too, but on a MUCH SMALLER SCALE.

I should drink less beer while updating.