speedy_w_beans

You'll spend about 2x to build a kit from separate spare parts...

If you spring for Tamiya's 54500 high speed gear set, the included spur holder allows you to experiment with all sorts of spur/pinion combinations in any pitch you want -- 48 dp, 0.6 mod, 64 dp, 0.4 mod, etc. As an example:

Awesome shell. Sabulatech? @Kingfisher sent me a Sabulatech shell some time ago...

Two months into SARS-COVID-2, and it's still business as usual for me. I might get around to making real progress on a build one or two days a week, and I've ordered a few of the new releases (Karmann Ghia and CLK GTR) as they came available. If anything, I feared supply chain disruptions and made a bee line for the paint, stocking up on certain colors and more of the bottled acrylics. Hopups are less important. I was thinking the other day that I'm kind of enjoying the pace of the hobby right now. I don't feel the need to make progress on something every night. I'm on a four-day work week right now, so I look forward to Fridays as the extra day off and a day to do something for myself. Otherwise life in the real world continues. The weather has been unusually cool this spring. On one hand I appreciate having a real spring season this year as we normally transition to summer abruptly and early. On the other hand the cool temperatures are delaying some painting I'd like to do, but I'm confident the temperatures will be warm enough in the not-too-distant future. This summer I plan to focus on a lot of painting and body work.

DigiHUD on the cheapest prepaid phone out there. At one point I grabbed a Samsung J3 Orbit for $30.

OK, last chassis topic, I think... Pretty much every pan car I've ever run in the street has caught a pebble between the pinion and spur gears. When that happens, the spur loses the fight and a tooth or two becomes deformed. The consistent whine of the gears is destroyed with a tick-tick-tick sound each time the spur makes a full rotation. Plus, it doesn't take long for the exposed ball diff to pick up some grit and make it less smooth than when first built. So, for this car I want to try a protective cover to see if it will prevent pebbles from falling into the gears. The first step was to take some measurements of the gears and have those represented. There's a nice FreeCAD add-on called FCGear that will generate quite a few different types of gears. In this case we just need some basic involute gears with 48 dp (0.5292 mod) pitch. The spur has 81 teeth and the pinion has 27 teeth for a FDR of 3:1. The next step was to create some sort of structure for the cover. In my mind I wanted to use some of the Lexan scraps from the 962 body to make the front and rear covers; this just gives the Lexan something to mount to. There's about 2 mm of clearance between the cover and structure and the gears. The rear axle position acted as a reference point for pretty much everything. The top two holes are offset by +/- 10 mm. The mounting block for the rear motor pod was next. The top two holes align with the top two holes of the cover structure and are offset from the axle the same way. The one vertical hole aligns with an existing hole in the top cross brace of the motor pod; the intention is to use a 3 mm fastener to keep it in place. There's a semicircular cutout to make room for an existing fastener, and the notch in the block captures the vertical plate in the motor pod so the whole mount doesn't rotate at all. Between the vertical screw and the notch, the block isn't going anywhere. To figure out the height of the block, I used a height gauge to check the height of the pod cross brace as well as the top of the spur gear, then added offsets as necessary. With the block and the arches finished, the next goal was to create a cutting template for the Lexan. The extra cylinders and blocks represent additional cuts besides the outline of the arches. There's a magic button in the Part workbench that lets you create a 2D projection from any view. So, by selecting the top view and then using the tool, a basic wire outline of the cutting profile is created. This is then exported as a SVG file to Inkscape, where the template is copied and mirrored to create an inner Lexan piece in addition to the outer one. The inner piece gets both cuts for the pinion and axle, but the outer one only gets a cut for the axle. So I ran the printer last night and made the mounting block and arches, and today after some chores printed the templates, cut them out, and taped them to the Lexan scrap from the body. After some cutting and using a body reamer to make the holes, it all came together pretty well. So hopefully this keeps some pebbles out of the gears. The design is meant to stop most debris from entering the top or sides, but if something does get in, then the bottom is wide open to let it fall out. Onward with the body, I think.. This should be fun seeing it come together!

Another sexy body showed up today...

I've used cotton balls stuffed between the gears. It works, and it's easy to reverse later.

The tube of Permatex blue thread lock gel I have says not to use on plastic parts. This is pretty consistent with what I've read/heard for most thread locking compounds. I'd avoid using it except for metal-metal interfaces.

Today I couldn't take it anymore and I had my wife shave my head. I needed a haircut just as stay-at-home orders were issued, so I was already behind. Now with another six weeks behind us, I couldn't take the wings, curls, fuzz, and god knows what. We went outside and I trimmed up my beard as I usually do, but then we set the guard to the lowest setting and she went to work. There was that moment of indecision before committing, but I figured worst case it would grow back. Actually, it turned out better than I hoped. It's not quite like Jason Statham but it's definitely not terrible like Lobot either... I may not need a barber anymore...

Well, well, well, what do we have here? While the second rear wheel was printing I reused most of the design for the front wheels. The main difference between the rear wheels and the front wheels is the front wheels are 5 mm narrower and capture flange bearings instead of a 12 mm hex. They all printed fine and needed the same filing and sanding to clean them up. The front flange bearings measured 7.93 mm diameter, and I was able to find a 7.90 mm drill bit in the garage to clean up the bearing holes. That led to a perfect fit between the bearings and wheels. I adjusted the chrome vinyl design slightly to make the sticker easier to center, and I reduced the red stripe diameter by 1 mm to make it easier to install as well. Here they are installed on the chassis. I lucked out and got the front bearing spacing just right; it's possible to tighten the front lock nut down completely and have the very slightest of friction in the wheel bearing. Backing the nut off an eighth of a turn leads to a freely coasting wheel with virtually no side-to-side slop. Looks good still... I'm really eager to paint the body now, but there's more preparation to do. Patience...

Something quick and easy I use are soccer practice cones: https://www.amazon.com/slp/cones-for-soccer-practice/qmn8p6m9edg93kw Either the low-profile or the 7" cones work fine. The low-profile ones make it easy to see the car go around the corner, but the 7" cones are a little more forgiving if you cut a turn too tightly (they'll just bounce after the car impacts them whereas the low-profile cones could flip the car depending on how severe the collision is).

Got some fun stuff today. Some Lunch Box tires, a Clod body, some glue, masking tape, knife blades, some paint...

Worked on this today... Pleased with how it came out!

Ah, happiness today! I modified my rear wheel design slightly and changed the orientation of printing, and kicked off the printer mid-morning. Worked on a bunch of house chores throughout the day, and after dinner I retrieved the wheel and cleared out the support material. A little bit of filing and sanding, some test fits of the tire, and I proceeded with applying the chrome vinyl wheel face and the red vinyl stripe around the tire. From 1/64 to 1/10: The way I did the chrome vinyl was to export the face of the wheel as a SVG (scalable vector graphic) file from FreeCAD and import it into Cricut Design Space to ultimately run the Cricut Maker we have. That insured the cut vinyl would match the printed wheel. For the red stripe, I just measured the OD and ID of the tire and picked a diameter in the middle. I was even more delighted when the wheel's hex mated with the axle adapter almost perfectly. Grabbing some M4 hex nuts from the stash, it's looking good on the chassis. There's a little bit of rubber flash on the inside of the tire; I'll clean that up soon. So, three more wheels to go... Looks like the printer will be running most of the weekend. It'll be a real milestone when all four wheels and tires are on the chassis.

Hmm, motors w/ built-in ESCs and servos w/ built-in receivers? Sound like candidates for the new TC-01 chassis coming out...

Update: My tires arrived today on April 30. So that was 19 days between ordering and receiving them. I don't think the time for the cheapest shipping option has changed much, at least for small parts orders.

50 here. I have to grow old, but I don't have to grow up!

I think I count 42 ball/socket joints in this model... I wonder how they are addressing any looseness in all those joints...?

Good question; I've never sprung for Tamiya's titanium screws due to price. Here's how the YR set looks:

I've used a few sets on TTs; they're fine. I didn't have any issues with a Dynamite 2.0 mm hex driver, and they threaded into the ABS/PC parts just fine. I recommend putting a small dab of ball diff grease / silicone grease on each screw before installing it; the screw goes in more smoothly and doesn't deform the plastic threads too much when removing it later.

Spent about half the day cleaning up my spread of RC from around the house. Half the kitchen table had been overrun with a body, paints, some tools, etc. On the floor was a drafting set and some electronics in a tackle box. So most everything came back to my main hobby space, and a few tools went out to the garage. The second spot that needed some tidying was a storage room where I have some boxes on shelving. I have a bad habit of digging into boxes and leaving them out while I continue on with a build. It was getting difficult to walk around in there, so it was time to put things away. The third spot was our bedroom; I've been stocking up on paint and had them all on the night stand next to the bed. It was getting out of hand so they went into a box and found a storage spot out of sight. Finally, my main work space was overrun with all sorts of stuff; it was no longer possible to do any actual building there. Lots of tools were put away; parts were stored; all the chemicals were organized and some were tossed. I was a little bummed that a few glues had actually solidified in their containers. Anyhow, things are tidy and organized again, and there's room to keep on building...

Mr. Postman dropped this off today, one of the last kits you can find on Tower Hobbies these days... I liked the original Team Hahn release, but I was really wowed when this body set came out!

Finished my TC competition entry, "Not So Wild Willy," in the spirit of the "Bored" theme... From the entry: "Poor Willy. With COVID-19 running rampant, there's not much he can do except watch vintage Tamiya commercials and flip through Tamiyaclub on his tablet. He hopes for better days when he can pull wheelies in his Jeep once again! Fortunately he has plenty of snacks and drinks on hand, and his cat Wilbur will always be there to keep him company." "Stay safe everyone!"

Rumor has it Conrad makes these, so be careful!