The Tin Dog. K-9 construction project.

I don't remember when the idea first came to me, but shortly before Christmas 2013 decided to build a replica K-9 from Doctor Who.



I had actually seen a K-9 someone built some time ago and while I thought it was neat I had no plans of building my own. But then I came across some plans by Dave Everett and it got me thinking.
My area has lots of anime/comic/sci-fi conventions so it would be neat to have a remote controlled K-9 to drive around (R/C models is my other hobby). Hmm...maybe I could also have him wiggle his ears and tail or even talk with pre-selected audio! The more I thought about it, the more things I could think of him to do!

Since I also have a background in electronics, micro-controllers and servo motors danced in my head. Oh K-9, you would be my best creation ever.

The real kicker is that Mr. Everett's plans uses mostly styrene sheet for construction. So basically it is a big plastic model! I have a long history building plastic models. It will be a piece of pie, yes.

After some amazon-fu and a thinner credit card, I received four sheets of 0.125 x 24 x 48 inch sheets of styrene (thin but rather heavy box), liquid glue, Olfa scriber, and thanks to Kinko's, some full size plans (at least I though they were).

Templates stuck on styrene with spray adhesive.

Excited and perhaps a small amount of trepidation, I was eager to start the build. The basic body seemed simple enough. So, with the car parked outside, I started cutting out the pieces on the garage floor. It was my first time using a Olfa plastic scorer, however it works very well and is easy to use.


A couple hours later I had this to show for myself:

Nice. But can you spot the problem?

Not bad and something tangible to play with. I was really happy with myself - until I decided to double check the plans. They say to measure twice and cut once. Well you should also copy once and measure twice. The person at Kinko's had set the scaling incorrectly and printed the plans slightly too small! All that work wasted but at least I found out very early on.

Kinko's made it right, however. They re-printed the plans for no cost and let me keep the old plans for my fireplace or something. So no hard feelings. So as not to waste anything, I used the wrong sized parts for making other, smaller bits of K-9's body.