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Mad Ax

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About Mad Ax

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  • Location
    Lurking among the gothic shadows of Bath
  • Interests
    Streetfighters, motorbikes, fiction writing

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  1. It's semi-permanent, so it can be broken. Best to have a good set of drivers to avoid damage, though. Don't use automotive 'red' threadlock as this is way too strong for Tamiya screws. In my experience the Tamiya red and blue threadlocks are similar in strength and don't prevent you getting the screws out.
  2. My main RC workbench has always been a standing bench, I'll be on my feet from around 9am to 5 or 6pm on a Sunday when I'm working on my projects, and my back is better after a day of that than a day of sitting at my computer for work. Since I'm in the workshop, I'll be wearing sturdy walking boots all day - standing in slip-on office shoes sucks. That said, I've had loads of lower back pain too and it's been debilitating for me also, so I definitely feel your pain. Going for a standing or sit/stand desk may well be a good option. Last week I called in at a shop dedicated to workspace options for people with back pain. I was recommended a Capisco 8106 chair - look it up online. They aren't cheap but I had a trial on one and it seems like a game changer. It can be a regular sit-down chair but ergonomically designed, and the perfect height for stretching out my back (I got some nice cracks while testing it out). Also it can lift up as a "perch" for sit-standing, you sort of straddle it (hence the odd shape seat), it takes the weight off your feet but still lets your back be straight. Finally, the real deal for me, is you can it on it backwards and rest your belly against the rest. I spend a lot of time typing, so my feet are forwards, my back is reclining, but my shoulders are forwards to reach the keys, so I'm in a C-shape, like pretty much every other desk jockey. The deal with the new position is my entire body is straight, my feet are behind me, my hips are straight, my back is straight, and I'm canted towards the desk, so I can get close to the screen and keyboard without having to hunch. I figure if you're hunching over to get the vision detail, some kind of reverse sitting arrangement might help. I'm going back to the shop today for an extended trail, maybe 2 hours, to make sure it's going to be right for me, as it's a lot of money to blow if I don't get on with it. But since I'm changing jobs next month it seems like the perfect time to refit my office and try this sit-stand thing that everyone is raving about.
  3. A point to note is that threadlock is damaging to Tamiya plastics, so try not to get any on the plastic and wipe it off if it gets on there. There have been photos on here of plastics degrading over time where small amounts of threadlock got in around the screws.
  4. hmm, not sure that was me - but it's a neat idea! I did extend a rollbar with styrene tubing, though. Given how well styrene takes glue, it would be neat to use tubing to cover the unused section of body post inside the body and glue some diagonals to look like a roll cage...
  5. Definitely this. Especially if you race at different circuits - some outdoor tracks (and some older carpets) can get bumpy enough to snag a body, and a bit more body height can help maintain traction. What used to work perfectly for lower ride heights and stiffer springs suddenly doesn't work when you raise the ride height and soften the springs - the extra body roll can ruin your day if you can't get the skirts off the tarmac. I had this the first time I raced my Xray T4F on carpet - I'd bought and painted a new body before the race meet but the posts had already been cut just one hole too short by the previous owner. It looked great on the workbench but on track, the body roll at the rear caused it to ride the carpet and take weight off the rear wheels. No rear traction in a very competitive one-heat class (above my ability level, if I'm honest) made for a somewhat frustrating day.
  6. They may not be a direct fit for Tamiya chassis, but you can buy generic body posts from places like eBay. I appreciate that's no good if you want to replace a broken post on a TT02 without having to redrill your body, but it's great for custom builds. Also when I've finished building a kit, I go through all the unused parts and keep things like body posts and servo horns in parts tubs. I've got a huge stash of body posts from various Tamiya models, generally I can mix and match posts from different models to make something fit somehow, if I have to. If you are constantly breaking posts in the same place then maybe look at either reinforcing the post with something, or securing the shell in another place so it doesn't put so much force on the post in a crash.
  7. It's Friday again, people! Does anyone have anything fun planned for this weekend? Should be a quiet one for me, even quieter than usual. Friday - not been given any work to do for a while, so work today will involve sorting some paperwork, tidying the house, and trying to finish some major updates the Arduino-based scaler controller. That'll probably take most of the day. Then I'm picking my daughter up from school and driving her to the grandparents in Bristol so she can spend the night with her cousins. I'll probably hit traffic in each direction so might not be back until early evening, but I'll probably end the night with some writing. Saturday - off to the hospital first thing for a scan, then home to tidy the workshop and maybe do some other DIY before my daughter comes back. Help her finish the Lego kit she started last week and maybe play some Xbox together, then cook a low-calorie meat loaf from one of our slimming books. Ford vs Ferrari is on Netflix, so I'll probably watch that in the evening, and offset the low-cal meatloaf by having a few beers. Sunday - Workshop Sunday! It's been a while, as I was away last weekend, but there's officially only 3 Workshop Sundays left before the 1st round of the Iconic Cup, and I still need to finish the trailer, sort a remote-operated ramp, make the tow hitch, and maybe even check over the M03 before then. M03 needs a new control motor, repacked diff and a good service. Evening - reheat the loaf and chill out in the studio before I go back to... Well... Not work, on Monday. Anybody got anything exciting to do?
  8. Wow, that's great work! I love how you've remade the entire chassis but kept all the design cues. What material is it made from? This is the sort of modern update I love and just the sort of attention the ORV chassis needs.
  9. I've not got a BT-01, but I've done this with an old M01/02 hybrid with twin motors. You have a weight penalty over a regular 4wd car but the acceleration is incredible and there's something very robust about driving it. Since there's no centre diff, it seems to do something weird to the handling - the Clod and the Wild Dagger are the same, although less noticeable because they don't handle so well out of the box. I remember seeing a few twin-engined cars at a drag strip back in the day - an old Mini with heavily modified A-series engines front and rear, and also a Vauxhall Nova with a 2 litre red top at either end, which left the tree like a bullet from a gun, and building my Twini was more about replicating those crazy specials than it was about making a serious race car. If you're serious about a 4wd car then buying a dedicated 4wd car will almost certainly be better, but it's this sort of crazy special that really gets my interest. I've been meaning to do it with a TA02/FF01 for a while, but I haven't got around to it, and I haven't checked the FDRs to see if I'll have mismatched wheel speeds. I've not seen the BT-01 manual, but I would have thought Tamiya designed it so you could run modern timed motors in both configurations - so you may not have to run one motor backwards.
  10. I've never used an RC4WD winch as they are very expensive, but I understand spares are available if they break. I've used several 3Racing winches, both 1:8 and 1:10 versions, and they work well and I've never had one break. Sometimes the lines get jammed in the spool, necessitating a mid-course teardown, which is annoying, but the risk can be reduced by running a well-placed fairlead. If you want to run off your radio, you will need a separate winch controller - this is a piece of hardware that goes between the radio, battery, and winch. Generally the winch needs more amps than the radio can provide, so the winch controller usually needs to be hooked directly into the battery, which can make for some interesting re-wiring. There's always cheap winch controllers on Aliexpress, they work well enough but in my experience they are not waterproof. Another option is a servo winch. I used to always buy from Overland RC for around £20 per winch, sadly I think they stopped trading a year ago so I'm on the lookout for a new supplier. Reefs servo winches are very strong but also expensive, so I haven't tried them. The benefit of a servo winch is it hooks right into your radio, runs just like a normal servo, and doesn't need any additional controller to wire in. The downside is they look like servos, so you have to find space under your body and run a fairlead to the outside world.
  11. I don't enjoy applying decals, but I to tend to put them on. Sometimes I'll omit one or two really awkward ones if I don't think they add anything. More and more bodies come with light buckets, which is nice because I don't have to decal the lights. Not adding the light decals where necessary looks terrible, but they're the part that tends to lift off most often, which I hate. I sometimes wonder if waterslide decals would be better for lights and other fine details. Sometimes the details are better painted. My Yaris GR body came with instructions to paint the roof black, which I did by adding matt black to the outside of the body. But then there were loads of really fine and fiddly black decals that went around the tailgate, and they all started peeling after one race. I don't know why I didn't just paint all the tailgate section black - it would have been so much easier. On the other hand, Proline bodies often don't come with any window surround decals at all, so I have to paint them in, and I don't really enjoy masking. Sometimes I'll do an external masking job to paint the window surrounds, but often I'll just choose a colour scheme where it doesn't show. Or, in the case of some of my monster trucks, I just don't bother with the window surrounds. 1:1 MT bodies aren't built like regular 1:1 trucks anyway, although I probably should at least do some fine line marking around them to add a bit of definition.
  12. Yes, and the exact reason for this is surprising: Tamiya are obliged to release just as many models that go left as ones that go right. This is so that the combined effect of all the models in circulation will not alter the rotation speed of the Earth.
  13. It looked awesome on the track yesterday. There is a knack to driving these type of truck, but it's so rewarding when you can drive them just like the real thing. I've never raced another truck before, they looked absolutely fab running around beside each other. I've always said we need a grid full of these for a full race!
  14. Now you need a black Pajero Lowrider to decal up as the team truck, and a trailer to tow the race cars with it
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