bRIBEGuy

That is true, but "wearing out tools" isn't something that typically happens quickly (plus, it can often be mitigated in tool material/coating/design). The challenge with injection mold tooling is that it can be setup/designed for a lifespan of a hundred parts... or for millions of parts. Unless you're the shop doing the tooling or molding... or unless your the guy at AE that pulled the trigger on the mold, it's unlikely any of us would be able to ascertain what level of tooling they went with. The mold is the biggest expense in the process though, so you don't want to do it twice. My guess is they have a setup that'll run 250k-500k cycles easy. I'll stop rambling now...

Nice score! I was actually just looking at a one of those Cup Racers (NIB) the other day, and trying to convince myself I needed another M-Series-Sized car...

The tooling cost aspect of it is actually one of the more interesting parts to me, as it makes more sense to produce as much as possible in most injection molding situations. That being said, there is a chance that they opted to just make cheap "One and done" molds... but I feel like that is unlikely. I do believe we will see a "normal" RC10 release in the next year, and hopefully with that brings back more spare parts. I feel like with the body kits being available separate, and now the steal transmission case, it's a good indicator that they may be looking to bring back support for these cars. Typically injection molding is done in batches, and it is very well possible that a "parts run" is just something that will be in manufacturing cue at some point down the road. Fingers crossed, right?

Tamiya is King when it come to re-using existing parts! Though if you wanna be picky, I think those knuckles are actually from the HotShot II. Ha! I LOVE this statement... so true!!! The Top Force has a very unbalance aesthetic to it... so sleek and beautiful from the side, but oddly squashed and "stepped on" from some other angles.

I feel like a non-limited edition rere is a very realistic possibility if the 40th Edition sells well. AE did get burned pretty bad the last time they churned out a ton of these, so it seems quite logical to do staged releases to test the waters and maximize ROI. I agree with this fully. Would it be nice if it was a $250 kit? Heck ya! But it isn't, and the price really isn't bad if you look at it objectively. I don't think AE particularly cares what people use the cars for, and I doubt it was targeting specifically at "shelf queeners". I think the sad part here (IMO) is that AE has found themselves in a "damned if they do/damned if they don't" situation. The re released the RC10... and it flopped. Then after they were all blown out on clearance, people started wanted them again. For a decade people have been clamouring for another RC10 release... and they finally got it.... as the CC Edition. That sold really well, and yet "fans" still whined that AE was doing it wrong. Now there is a 40th Edition, which again seems to be pre-selling well...and again, "fans" are whining that AE did it wrong. There is no wrong way to enjoy the hobby, IMO. Collecting, building, running... you do you... it's all fine by me. For a manufacture, they also need to "do them", and part of that is making money to keep afloat. If limited edition cars are the way to do that, then I for one am all for it. I'd way rather have AE releasing and selling out of cool vehicles that upset some people, than to have them go out of business and be one more cool manufacture that we wish was still around. Just my 2 cents...

Back to some interior work.... Starting to paint the driver. I like to document as much as I can with my projects, but it's always embarrassingly horrific to see beginnings of painting a face... Back on the driver figure, since the last coat of PS-Silver seemed to work, I've switched back to brush paints and given it some flat white, a tiny bit of (poorly done) weathering, and some blue gloves.

I was the postman this time, but I still came home with a couple cool things I stumbled across... Clear CVA's... And a bit of a classic...

It's funny how things happen sometimes, and how timing is everything or nothing. At one point in my "collecting days", I had big (medium?) ambitions of completing the Tamiya "First 100". The reality of doing this eventually caught up to me, both in the rarity/scarcity/cost of many of the early cars, and that after a long hard look in the mirror I came to the honest realization that I really don't care about many of those first 100 models. Fast forward ten or fifteen years, and I come home with this: The funny thing is, this is still a car I have no intrinsic interest in... but I stumbled onto it locally, and it seemed like a shame to pass on the opportunity to at least bring it home and have a closer look. I haven't gone too far into this yet, but the whole things looks in really good shape for something that first came out in 1978. The rear wing top appears to be missing, other then that it appears to be complete? The driver is unpainted. Manual is mint. Box is in pretty good shape. The rest of the stickers are still in there. I haven't even pulled the chassis out to take a look yet, but I figured I'd post up a couple quick pictures to share. Tamiya's 6th RC car model ever. How cool is that?

Okay, so at least the square is fixed... Tiny victories... And now the actual external masking tape can come off...

This is my 2 cents too. The 3PV is completely "okay"... but isn't NEARLY the radio of the 4PM. If you're going to pay the extra for futaba (and it is worth it long term...imo), then get the 4PM.

Now don't get me wrong... it's not like I was half-cut when i was painting or anything, but when I realized that I missed removing a piece of making tape from the inside... it certainly made me question my "workflow". It's been over 5 months that I have been working on this project... a project that has years of parts gathering behind it. And in order to "save" a few hours, I opted to do some of the all important finishing work in a rush, after the sun was down, after having a few drinks. That's just dumb. The tape square itself isn't the end of the world... it will be a relatively easy fix, and a chunk of it should be covered by the stickers anyway. But the "sloppiness" of it really bugs me, as does the fact that the body also now has quite a few areas of blue "mist" over-spray somehow. If I had been more on the ball, I could have caught the tape when I took a picture of it before painting (scroll up three posts...seriously) and I could have caught the over-spray after the first coat or two of white. Over-spray early on is an easy fix... I could have just spot stripped off the paint, and touched it up/fixed it at the time. But after all the coats of white AND backing it all with silver... those silly sloppy mistakes now become a permanent part of the car (and a frustrating reminder of my own F-up).

Once the silver was dry, it was time to unmask the body and behold the beauty within... First up is removing the big pieces of tape on the outside of the body covering the big hole by the rear wing, and the 5 small pieces covering the other body holes... WAIT... Front body post (1) + Rear body posts (2) + antennae (1) = 4 holes? Why they heck do I have 5 spots masked off? Ah, no biggy... probably just a random piece of tape stuck to the outside of the body... It IS on the outside of the body right?!?!

The PS-1 went on without issue, and I was feeling pretty darn good about my choices and my progress... The next morning I made some coffee, and hit the body with a few quick coats of silver before the family was up. What can I say... life was good, and the Thunder Shot project was back on track...

So here's the "fill in the blanks" part, between the bits of painting. The silver was finished up mid-late afternoon, and my initial intention was to do the white the following morning. I hung out with the family, played some video games with the kiddo (Lego Jurassic World is sooooo good!), and had a beer or two between these events and making dinner. Cooked a nice dinner, and had some wine with wifey... both along with said food, and after dinner. Later in the evening I thought to myself, Hey... the house still kinda smells like paint... why not bang out the white portion right now, and be able to do the final backing in the morning? Makes sense, right? And so I warmed up some PS-1, washed my hands, grabbed the Thunder Shot body, and removed the masking around the blue bits. Ready for paint... The fact that I remembered to grab a picture at this point, is actually kinda funny in retrospect...

The answer is "No". No you cannot rid the house of "The PS Smell" in a few hours. Dad, it smells like nail polish. Were you painting your nails? The blue was backed with a couple coats of silver to seal it before the switch to white was made. And we were "ready" for more painting. This would prove to be the next error to be made...

So as an FYI, cranking down the spring only increases pre-load, it does not make the spring stiffer. It essentially works to adjust ride height and the amount of force it takes to initiate motion in the spring... once the motion has begun, the rate is unaltered. Stiffer springs will be your solution, and the internal diameter of the coil (and maybe the thickness of the wire itself) is likely to determine what will work on your shock bodies. Lots of companies offer aftermarket springs, so it will just figuring out what will fit and what will work. You may want to trying filling the shocks first and playing with them a bunch before investing too much in springs though... it's be a shame to buy a bunch of spring sets and then find out the shocks leak. There are a lot of shipping regulations around oils/fluids/grease, so that likely could also factor in your oil-less shocks. In all honestly, I've never received shocks (unless on an RTR vehicle) with oil in them.

As others have said, and ultrasonic cleaner is the way to go. Buy a half way decent one, as many of the cheap ones are garbage. As an added bonus, they are actually super handy to have around. My wife cleans her rings and jewely in it whenever I have it set up, and I have done the same with metal watch straps, and various other bicycle parts & mechanical doodads. Be warned, they are also a great way to accidentally strip paint and plating off of things, and wreck perfectly good parts.... ha ha ha! Another less effective way would be to dump the parts in a fine colander, and scrub them in there with soap/degreaser and running hot water.

Any hobby can have it's ups and downs, and wreak havoc with your emotions. RC can get frustrating quick if straying outside of RTR land, as the compatibility of parts and electronics can be "testing" at best. Brown outs and electric gremlins can be extremely frustrating to diagnose, and it's honestly one of the reasons why I try and put good electrical components into my cars, even if it's not financially ideal. I've been burned by bad components a few times when straying off brand, and honestly, even when using good brands on occasion. I once spent the better part of a week trying to figure out an odd issue with an ESC that turned out to be a faulty on/off switch. Similarly I spend a silly amount of time trying to pair a defective receiver. Running a faulty servo will make you question your sanity. But sadly, it is part of the hobby if you're going to piece things together. As you've heard from a few others in your "brown out" thread, the MX6 has a pretty bad reputation for reliability and signal. A new radio might be a better place to spend some money than on a few more shiny bits of Tamiya blue. Good luck with the rebuild.

In the RC world, it's a short term loss of signal or power creating issues with the car. Think one level up from a "glitch" but one level down from a "black out". It's becoming increasingly more common with miss-matched electronics and power requirements. Ha, true story! I think in reality ALL hobbies can be a money pit (and emotional nightmare) if you get in deep enough. But oh, those moments when it all works out....

Starting to lay down some PS-4 blue while my wife and daughter are out of the house... wonder if I can get the smell out of the basement before they get back?

Tested some paint colors... Turns out PS-23 is pretty close to the old FasKolor "Charcoal", so that's good news in my books...

Project ADHD continues, and instead of working on the chassis cover or the drivers helmet... I opted to use some spare time to start prepping the main body for paint. Washed, rinsed with distilled water, and pretty well skake-dried... Then set aside in a warm place to finish drying the last few drops... Common painting sense tells you that on a blue and white paint job, you should paint the blue first, and then the white. In looking at the box art of the Thunder Shot, it is quickly apparent that it would be MUCH easier to paint it the other way around. I have enough experience here that I know this can work, if you just back the white with a few good coats of silver first. With all of that said, at the last minute I opted to stick with the "traditionally correct" order, and embarked on the not-insignificant task of masking off the white area. This would prove to be my first mistake...

I'm not sure if I should be happy or mad that TamiyaUSA won't ship to Canada...

HobbyWing 10BL120 (G1)