To Exterminate — or to Make? 3D Print Your Own Dalek

Update – 12/25/2014

We were just notified by Edward Felix that he is the original designer of the Dalek.  Such designs may be found here and here, which Instructables user, snufikino, looks to have based this project off of.

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While they may be all about exterminating, the Dalek certainly live on eternally in pop culture, where the bug-eyed cyborgs have reigned with their very own catch phrase (“Exterminate! Exterminate!”), since being written into a Doctor Who script in 1963. The enthusiasm of the ‘Whovians’ will never be wiped out, it seems, and I can attest to that, as parent to some dedicated teen followers who are the proud owners of some quite expensive Doctor Who memorabilia scattered around their bedrooms.

In case you need to brush up on your Doctor Who facts, it is the longest running science-fiction TV show in history, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2013, and has featured a long series of different actors playing the famed role of the Doctor. The Dalek were written into the show in the early ’60s as an extraterrestrial race created by an oppositional scientist. They have only one emotion — hate — and seek to control the universe by exterminating all others. The Dalek became a prime antagonist in the TV show, which began in 1963 and is still going, after a reboot in 2005.

While the novelty items are fun to collect, it should be much more fun to choose and 3D print your own more affordably with this latest 3D design by Instructables member snifikino. This is not only an awesome and creative design for 3D printing, but it also involves some time around the arts and crafts table with assembly and gluing.

With this design, you can customize and decorate your Dalek however you see fit, while snifikino does recommend that you use BronzeFill for the cyborg’s body, especially as that touch not only deals with color but also adding mass to the design. The main color scheme recommended in general — if you are going for a traditional Dalek — is bronze, gray, dark silver, gold, and black. The base, which is to be printed first, is recommended to be gray if you are going for the traditional appearance.

The Dalek’s body is complex in that it has 56 holes on its skirt, requiring 56 hemispheres (traditionally bronze and gold) and 56 hemi bases (traditionally black and gray). Once those files are printed, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and glue the hemispheres, hemibases, and skirts together.

Print the shoulder file and the box decals and slats which go around the arms and weapon, and shoulder, respectively, and glue all of the pieces together. There can be some complications with this step, so see here for further details.

Once the shoulder is attached to the base, it is time to move onto the neck, which consists of multiple parts as well, with four meshes to be glued into a circle, and rings, and vertical struts. First, start by gluing the four neck meshes together into a circle, then insert the eight struts into the rings and glue them together — with the mesh inserted inside this part of the assembly — which all ultimately is glued to the shoulder.

For the head, once the cowl file is 3D printed, it goes over the eyeslit. The two lights, which are recommended to be transparent, need to printed and finished with silver in the raised areas. Once the cowl is in place and glued, along with the lights, you can accessorize your Dalek with its eye stalk, and plunger/laser arms. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to go with traditional, more conservative neutral colors for your extraterrestrial villain — or whether you want to it deck him out in a more colorful manner.

Have you created any 3D printed figures inspired by Doctor Who? Is this something you or someone you know would enjoy? Tell us your thoughts in the 3D Printed, Customizable Dalek forum over at 3DPB.com.

There are 56 hemispheres.