markbt73

Honestly, not much any more. Packing up all my stuff for the move got me excited about what I already have again, actually picking up every car and removing the wheels and bodies to fit them in containers made me remember what I like about each of them, and I'm really looking forward to unpacking it all at the other end. Right now there are only two models that interest me: an Avante or Egress re-re, and the BBX. Eventually. For now, I'm happy.

I would be shocked. 1/12 scale is kind of a dying format anyway, and these early chassis are not much more than a way to make the body move. The modern 1/10 scale F1 cars are so much better to drive, I can't see Tamiya bothering with the old 1/12 kits. And personally, I kind of like having some things stay vintage-only. Yeah, it means they stay expensive, but it also means they stay special.

The trouble with this servo-saver design, and it applies to Tamiya's kit-supplied units as well, is that if there is any gap at all between the ends of the C-shaped spring amd the two nubs on the top and bottom halves, there will be play in it, and there isn't a thing you can do about it. It's just a lousy design. My advice is to get rid of it, and spend far less on a Kimbrough (name brand only!) servo saver. They're made of nylon and essentially unbreakable (I have some going on 30 years old), and are completely slop-free. They use an internal coil spring instead of that external c-shape, so the spring always holds the two halves together tightly to take up the gap.

Funny thing about the Sabula Tech bodies - they're all old Bolink molds, so the tooling already existed. And Bolink used to sell them as Ford, Pontiac, etc, so I imagine Sabula is just playing it safe with the made-up names.

That's really cool! I've seen those trucks before, I think they were sold by Radio Shack or Sears here in the US, but I had no idea they were so sophisticated. It doesn't look like it would be too hard to connect a servo to that long shift lever. And with modern batteries and whatnot, why worry about switching off the front motor in 2WD mode? Just let it run when it's not in use.

This is kind of why I've been on a scruffy vintage runner kick recently. It's about the cheapest way to get something I'll actually enjoy. As long as you don't go hog-wild trying to actually restore them, or try to throw too much power at them, old beat-up runner-quality vintage cars are actually pretty affordable. Kit prices have definitely gotten eye-watering in the last few years. A Lunchbox was a superb value at $89, but at $150? Not so much. And I love the looks of that new Squash Van, but I don't see $200 worth of value there. By contrast, the BBX at $255 seems fair, with full bearings and aluminum shocks and all. But that's a lot to spend on any kit. What stops me dead in my tracks are the prices of bodies, wheels, and tires, especially when it comes to the scaler/crawler scene. There are some really incredible options available these days, but man are they expensive. $109 for a set of wheels? $180 for a hard body kit? $60 for a lexan body? Nope.

Yeah, my favorite is still the Grasshopper/Hornet/Lunchbox etc gearbox. Cheap, simple, indestructible, throw as much power as you like at it and it just says "ok." Only needs six bearings for a complete driveline, motor to wheels. Gearing options are limited to 10t or 18t pinions, and it's a live axle, so not much you can do with the suspension, but it will spin smoothly until the heat death of the universe. And if you expand your definition of "track" to include a dragstrip, it can do that too. Second place: Clod, for basically the same reasons. What can I say? I like things simple.

Huh, I knew there was a reason I didn't buy a Black Special last winter. Maybe I'll see if I can make this this year's Xmas gift...

There are some Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars in there filling in gaps, but no, that's 50 RC models, including a Clod, a Bruiser, and several other monsters. Nearly all have the wheels/tires removed, and most of the cars with big bodies have the bodies removed and nested/stacked together. It's going to be a bit of a mess sorting everything all back out, but that's all right. It'll be fun.

Well, it's time to start packing up the house. The moving truck comes at the end of May, but we'll be making a couple of trips east before then transporting some stuff. And I have to take down all the ramshackle shelves in my office and patch the holes to make it look like a bedroom again, for the realtor to take photos. So all my RC stuff is packed up and ready to go, except for one car that I kept out in case I have some time to mess around between now and then. It took surprisingly less space than I imagined. That's 50 cars, and a whole bunch of spare parts and tools. So what made the cut? This scruffy bitsa Hornet, built from leftovers from that huge lot I bought in January. I stuck the body from my Spiral Jump attepmt on it. Just your basic RS540/TEU101BK/cheap Chinese radio and servo combo, but it actually runs great. I have permission and budget to build a garage/workshop at the new place, which I have slowly been designing in my head. It will be half "big" car stuff and half RC stuff. And there's plenty of room in the new yard to build my own private off-road track... really looking forward to it all.

A stand-up workbench is a good idea. Just make sure you have one of those standing mats, and/or good shoes. I had a standing desk at work for many years, and good shoes made a huge difference in comfort. Dedicated reading glasses for close-up work help a lot; my wife keeps telling me to get bifocals, because I need both reading glasses and distance glasses to drive, but I don't think they'll work for me, because between 3 feet and 20 feet, I do best with no glasses at all. As far as reading glasses go, I just bought a 3-pack of the cheap Costco ones, and they do fine for me. I also have a pair of those silly jeweler's glasses with super-magnification for tiny stuff. And light! Lots and lots of light. Those LED tube lights that look like fluorescents are like $40 from a big box home improvement store, and provide great lighting for a workbench. Get a couple small desk lamps for extra light in certain spots too. I know I always feel more eye strain trying to see things if it's too dark. Getting older sucks, doesn't it?

I actively despise most decals. Even after dozens of attempts, I still haven't gotten the hang of applying Tamiya window frame and wrap-around light decals. I always get one junction between pieces mis-aligned, and no matter how careful I am on prep and cleanliness, they always lift at the edges after a while. Nowadays, when I bother at all, I mask and paint the window trim from the outside. It ends up being just black, but it's better than nothing, and it doesn't make me grumpy when I see it on the shelf. Livery and stripe decals I have better luck with, but I still don't actually enjoy them. Quite often I don't bother, or I mask and paint my own stripes, unless it's a specific livery I'm going for. Which is why my Lancia 037 has a completed chassis and an untouched body; I need to be in the right frame of mind, because I don't want to mess that one up. And the quality of the decals matters a lot as well; Tamiya's decals are worlds better than the Rally Legends bodies I bought, which are wretched quality. Far too thick, printed on cheap material with weak adhesive. But then again, they were half the price of Tamiya bodies...

They are not necessary in a stock TT02. I've been gleefully beating the stuffing out of a stock-except-bearings TT02 for over a year now, including lots of big hits on the front (I tried it with drift tires for a while, it did not go well) and have never had a single part fail or dogbone pop out. It's almost boring in its reliability, sort of like a Toyota Corolla. I don't know, maybe I just haven't hit anything just right (or wrong). Of course, it still has the stock Torque Tuned motor in it as well...

The reason bronze is used for bushings, as I understand it, is that bronze absorbs oil, so if you oil them once, they're good for a good long time. I usually add a drop of 3-in-1 oil on each bushing when I build the kit, and then just leave them alone. However, on used motors, I have solved bushing "chatter" by adding a fresh drop of oil. I have done this with the motor running on a test stand before, and you can actually hear it smooth out and speed up. Over-oiling probably won't hurt anything, but it has the potential to make a mess, and it's wasteful. Think of it this way: these are industrial motors repurposed for RC cars. How often do you think the fan motors in a printing press (which I have seen 380 and 540 motors used for) get oiled? If you guessed never, you'd be right.

A lot of touring car bodies advertised as "200 mm" are actually a little wider than that, so if you can get the wheelbase down, those should fit as well. Same thing for any American bodies from RJ Speed or Sabula Tech or McAllister advertised as "8 inches" wide, that's 203 mm, and they're usually a hair over. And most of those don't have defined rear wheel arches, so you have some wiggle room in the wheelbase.