I decided to take a little artistic license with my Dalek's eye. The originals appear to have only a white disc in the middle, except for one, which had a working iris made from a camera lens. I really like the glowing blue eye of the 2005-2010 New Series Daleks, so I decided to give it one of those instead. It's easier to wire than trying to get a camera lens iris to work, and it just looks way cooler. So why not?
I used a 1" diameter length of PVC pipe for the Eye Stalk. Technically, I should have used a wood dowel and trimmed it down to get narrower at the front, but again decided to take a bit of that artistic license here too. I needed the inside to be hollow to run the LED for the eyeball through.
For the hinge bit at the back, I took some MDF disc cut-outs from the skirt panels and sandwiched them together to the right thickness and ran the PVC pipe through it. The back end of the pipe will attach to the eye stalk control mechanism (which I have yet to build.)
Since powder blue Perspex isn't really available anymore, I cut the discs for the eye stalk out of MDF, coated them with wood glue to make them plastic-y, and then painted them the same color blue I used for the hemispheres on the skirt. Somehow I managed to make the center holes in them exactly the right width so I could slide them onto the silver painted PVC, yet still be snug enough in fit that they stay in place. I went with the MK3 Dalek disc pattern and spacing (as well as eye stalk length) again, just because I like it better.
I used another Magic 8 Ball for the eye ball. I started by draining the liquid from it (this time being more careful not to stain my fingers blue). The I sawed it in half to remove the insides, since this one didn't need to remain spherical to act as a ball joint, and I was going to have to trim parts of the front away.
Once all that was done, I used parts of the 8 Ball "guts" to mount the LED in the center. The LED I used is a wired "bolt" style - it's a 10mm LED built into what looks like a large machine screw, with a nut on the back. I think it's meant to be used for automotive purposes - ie, "pimping" one's "ride".
Next I mounted a couple of magnifying lenses above the LED to make the light bigger and distort it a bit. These were from Staples - meant for examining your stamp collection or whatnot. These were attached with MDF discs and bits i cut and glued together to hold everything in place. I painted the inside silver, hoping it would reflect and distort the blue light from the LED a little more, giving it a nice atomic Dalek glow.
I also attached a dimmer knob between the battery pack and the LED, so the operator can change the intensity of the light - just a little thing that might make it look more "alive".
