rich_f

If it's for a hard body then I'd say yes you can thin as much as you need to, it just means you'll need to do light coats or you'll get runs in the paint. Also you'll need several coats, and be sure to use primer. Just look at Alclad II metallic paints for static plastic models in the glass jars - when you let them settle, they are about 95% or more thinner and the rest is paint. And you need to do several very light coats but the finish is always good. For polycarbonate, I'd say probably not. Car paint almost certainly isn't flexible enough, and getting it to stick when it is so thin might be a problem.

I think you (like a lot of people) are confusing CVDs with universal joints. A CVD - by definition - spins it's output at the same speed as the differential outdrive (it's input). CVD literally means 'constand velocity drive'. What you are describing is a universal joint, and your link to the wiki page for 'universal joint' says as much. A universal joint, which is the standard upgrade to dogbones, is not a CVD. A double cardan joint however is a constant velocity drive, but only when the angles are kept equal between the intermediate shaft and out shafts.

As the previous poster mentions, opening up a 'dead' pack often reveals that only one or 2 cells are actually bad and you can use the rest to make up a good pack with other cells. I recently brought a cordless drill battery back to life by swapping some of its (Nicad) cells with some from a 'dead' rc car stick pack, which uses the same size cells. Regarding reviving old packs in general, I was out of the hobby for over 10 years and I've only ever had success reviving packs with low nominal capacity. All of my 3000+mAh packs had dead cells and even when I repaired them with good cells from other packs, they soon died again. My Nicads 1500s and 1700s are good as new, despite being over 20 years old. I imagine that the short life expectancy of high capacity packs is due to the manufacturers cramming more stuff into the same size cell, meaning that they are less resilient to the ravages of being used, i.e., they far more easily develop internal shorts.

I always considered 'ballrace' to be a noun, that is, the part of a ball bearing that the balls roll on. Using ballrace as a verb, e.g., to ballrace or ballracing, just sounds wrong to me. Yes bushings are just a type of bearing, i.e., a device for bearing a load - plain bearings as opposed to ball, or any other kind.

Yes you are missing something - even if the gearboxes are not connected (I don't own any dual motor chassis so don't know if they are or not), the car will only be going at one speed. With the same ratios in each gearbox, that means the motors will also be going at the same speed. You might be thinking 'The wheels on the gearbox with the faster motor will be spinning faster!' but this will just produce more forward force on the car, which in turn pushes the wheels on the other gearbox, which in turn makes the slower motor spin faster, until eventually they spin at the same speed. This process happens very quickly and if you try it (especially on a moderately grippy surface like tarmac) you probably won't get any wheels spinning as the difference is very small between to two ends of the chassis.

Does having an imbalance actually matter? You might get slightly more wear out of one compared to the other, but I'd wager you'd get less wear in either of them compared to if a single motor were used on its own, since when you use two together, it is sharing the load with another motor, so each does less work.

Not brake cleaner, brake fluid. As in the hydraulic fluid used to transfer the force from the pedal to the brakes. It has a very particular feel when it gets on your hands and De solv it graffiti remover feels the same. (Brake cleaner is entirely different and based solely on volatile solvents so I'm not surprised it ruins clear plastics.) It obviously isn't exactly the same composition as brake fluid, but I would hazard a guess than the main paint removing ingredient is the same, given than brake fluid does such a good job of removing paint from other things.

This is a shame. I was actually thinking of buying some the other day as I had this exact thought -that it might not be available forever... Missed that opportunity. There's probably thousands of cans of this being destroyed somewhere after being recalled for whatever reason. For what it's worth, I noticed that this stuff feels a lot like brake fluid when it gets on your fingers, so maybe it is just the same chemicals (glycols) but with a thickener so that it sticks rather than being runny like brake fluid. I always used to use brake fluid to remove paint from plastic models (polystyrene) with no ill effects but never tried it on polycarbonate.

Wow what a resource. (this is my first tank so I really don't know about sites like that. Thanks!

Hi all. I'm wondering if anyone has come up with any ideas on how to replace the rubber on tank road wheels. I've just acquired a leopard 1A4 which is in need of restoration and it has a few of its rubber tyres missing. I was thinking, since finding originals is probably extremely difficult, thatI could just use some other source of rubber to wrap the wheels in. Has anyone done this successfully? Has anyone got any tips or suggestions on how I can do this effectively? Or even if there is an aftermarket source for parts for these old tanks (it's missing a few body details too). Cheers

Thanks - yes I saw this but wondered if anyone had a link. No worries - I'll sign up to tamiya Base Cheers!

Hi all, I just purchased an original leopard 1A4 tank 56002 on ebay and am looking to restore it but it has no manual and I can't find one online. The manuals page on here only has a couple of pages. Has anyone got one they can link me to? It's my first tank so I don't have the experience to do it without the manual. Thanks Richard

Can anyone tell me if the sticker sheets in this re-release are identical to the originals, or if there are any differences (no matter how small).

I got these in a job lot of tamiya parts but not sure what they are from. Free to collector (Wiltshire area) or I will send for price of postage/packaging.

Yes these are the same wheels but in chrome. The offset will be the same too (note you have a choice of 2 offsets depending on which way around you have the rim). If you want a much more extreme offset you'll need the other type of 2-piece rim, the one without holes. They are the ones on the ta01 celica and skyline.

Those are 2-piece wheels? Tamiya makes 2 kinds of 2-piece wheel rim. (4 if you count wide separately). The amount of offset you get depends on which side of the rim you attach the wheel centres to, so with the 2 types of wheel, you get 4 choices of offset. If I remember correctly, one kind gives you very wide offset or none (the ones with a solid rim with a circle going through all the screw holes), while the other gives you 2 medium-sized offsets (the kind with the 5 round holes). So maybe you can get more width with the other kind of 2-piece wheel rim, depending on what you've got at the moment.

Large supermarkets in use UK often have plastic bag recycling receptacles. Tamiya does this already.

any reason why you didnt paint the black sections in the light buckets? it looks so much more real with this little detail. it seems quite a few people have left it all chrome for some reason the colour is very nice though

3 words: Walker Texas Ranger!

does anyone have any information about the other cars in that photo? calsonic primera and datsun?

Kure nismo is 4wd ta03 not ff01 i guess that chassis list needs updating. Edit: so is the 58209 vectra for that matter

as above please for 1:10 (58207 and 58220) cheers

HI, im after an unpainted Honda nsx bodyshell - preferably in the uk cheers

Does anybody have the honda nsx #58207 Avex Dome mugen nsx? i need a scan or close up photo of the decals. cheers.