Fuijo

I think probably everyone thinks their method is the "best method". If you already have some PS-1 and some X20A thinner, then for me it's PS-1 and a cocktail stick. I decant the paint by spraying it through a bendy straw into a small jar, which I then leave to stand until it's at room temp and the bubbles have gone. I then drip the paint from the cocktail stick and flood each letter. Surface-tension keeps the paint inside the borders of the letter (within reason). I sometimes move the cocktail stick around a bit to encourage the paint to flood a bit further. If I mess one up I just wipe it away with a cotton bud dipped in the thinner and do it again. A can of PS-1 will do a lot of tyres. Really, a lot.

A very nice colour scheme. Love it!

If you've ever had the misfortune to paint 787B wheels, then you have my heartfelt sympathies. Hateful, hateful things they are. I'm now going outside to shake my fist and shout obscenities at some clouds.

That looks rather nice. It's a late model vintage Sand Scorcher or Rough Rider as the others have said. The only differences are the wheels, front body mounting post and the body. Your wheels are Rough Rider, but the rest is Sand Scorcher. Kits 58015 and 58016. So unless you have the box, instruction manual, or a Rough Rider body knocking around, it isn't really possible to tell for sure which it was. For anyone wanting to restore a vintage Scorcher, this would be a great place to start. The body looks almost entirely intact and most of the detail parts are still present. Although it looks like the driver's door mirror is somewhat smaller than it once was. Pretty much every single part is different from the re-release 2010 version. There are still plenty of people out there for whom only the vintage model will do. And while it isn't going to be worth what it once was, as Juggular points out, it is still quite valuable. I would speculate that it is worth rather more than a new re-release kit, but an ebay auction is probably the only way to find out how much more. As IXLR8 says, the vintage body is better looking than the re-release body. The fenders are more rounded and the finished car has a more cute look, for want of a better word. The re-release body has smaller cut-down fenders, and is actually the body for a later vintage model, the Monster Beetle kit 58060. For a kit that was most likely built during the '80s, it looks to have survived far better than most. Thanks for showing us!

There has to be some method to the madness, or is that madness to the method, of putting the kit with the most parts in the smallest box. The Nissan is my favourite too. Detailed multi-part wheels with painting instructions and stickers, cockpit with driver figure, mirrors, and a shell that is actually the correct width for the chassis (yes, I'm looking at you Mazda 787b). Why didn't the others get all this? That's rhetorical btw. I do have a spare painted R91CP re-re body I might part with. Apologies, but only for forum members or main-site members who have been around for a while, because it will need to be paypal F&F probably after I've already sent it. Particularly to the US, which is a bit of a pain at the moment with PostNL. So some trust will be needed both ways. It would be rude I guess not to give the OP first shout as it's his thread. Anyway, PM if interested.

I assume you mean brush-painting the X/XF colours. Yes you can. I do it for window rubbers and the like. I do always use the Tamiya tape for curves, or other vinyl tape. I make the paint a little thicker than for normal free-hand brushing, and use the brush in such a way that the bristles are unlikely to push under the tape. This would be on top of the base-colour and several coats of clear. If I mess up I simply polish it off and try again. When I do it freehand, I concentrate on not lifting the brush from the painted edge ever, but sweep it away a little before lifting off. A slight wavey line always looks better than a stop/start line. If that makes sense.

I'll just leave this here. Silly? Slightly. But awesome fun, like real life Mario Kart. Ridiculous? If you like. I don't think so.

I shortened the wheelbase by about 1.5mm by removing material from the leading edge of the inboard end of the lower rear arms. The upper arms needed spacing out to match. I rotated the mounts for the rear body-posts by 90 degrees to allow the body to sit a bit lower. Then fitted the body to lower holes on the body-posts. I also had to shave a few mm from the top edge of the rear bumper. Fitting shocks with threaded cylinders allowed for some fine adjustment. You are not wrong.

You can remove the chrome and paint the wheels a less blingy colour if that helps. But if the problem is the wheels are too big and the sidewalls too small, then unfortunately I have no solution for that.

I'm sorry that you have to go. Thanks for showing us stuff that we've never seen before, and so enriching our lives.

There are still parts around, at least for 56018, but it depends what you need. I have quite a few parts, like a complete set of wheels, the standard tracks and quite a few of the plastic detail parts. Tamico.de have some parts, and modellbau-seidel.de have some too if you can persuade someone in Germany to ship them to you. Just put Königstiger in the search field. Is anything actually broken or does it just look scruffy? Turret rotation and gun elevation can be a bit dodgy from new, but there are work-arounds for that.

Have you fitted the motor mount the correct way around? One of the posts is a little bit longer than the other. If you get it wrong, the spur and pinion will mesh at a slight angle and be prone to skipping teeth. It's certainly easy to do with the Tamiya metal mount, the difference between the posts is quite small. I don't have experience of the Yeah Racing one.

I think part of the attraction of these, was that they lent themselves to being modified in the same way as static military vehicles that many people started their modelling hobby with. You know, painting in plain green, or almost endless different camo schemes, bullet holes and battle scars made by heating up a pin in a candle, that kind of thing. Also turning them into mobile dioramas with extra soldier figures, camo nets, fuel drums etc. Modelling textures like caked-on mud, sand, snow etc. Generally, rather more modelling possibilities than you get with other RC cars. But I didn't have too much in the way of those kind of skills, so I just modified the chassis instead to make it a much better runner, with the help of RC Channel parts. See thread here. -

Another nobody here. Modified XR311s are up there with SRBs for me.

I had to include a pic of my commander in the tank, and the reason I wanted him installed despite his summer uniform, is for the sheer sense of scale. Such a huge and imposing tank. Unfortunately I had to give the figure a coat of flat clear for durability. It's a shame Tamiya's flat clear isn't particularly flat. However, it is quite tough and protects the paint well.