Saito2

Well, the drip is still soft. When it dries, I will try to slice off the bulk of it as suggested and then try @jonboy1 suggestion to level it.

I'm curious too. I drew nothing but Tamiya vehicles for many years as a kid.

Painted three bodies today. The Grasshopper came out horrible. The Bigwig came out so-so with a little paint bleed through on the two-tone, but its a runner, so I'll deal with it. The Super Sabre came out perfect and finally completes my early 4wd buggy set. Did I mention I hate painting bodies? Still, it kept my mind off having to return to work next week and the risk of Coronavirus that enviably entails, so I'm grateful for the distraction. Stay safe out there.

Its one big drip on the lower right side I have to contend with (the "Grasshopper Racing Team " decal goes over it). There's also some dirt nibs I'd like to knock down a bit and polish out. Fingers crossed.

Anybody have any success sanding down paint runs and polishing the affected area without re-painting? I botched the paint job on my Grassshopper. In the 1:1 world, its possible to carefully sand runs flat and then polish/buff the area back to a shine as long as you don't sand through. Does Tamiya's synthetic lacquer TS paint sand and polish ok or should I just give up? Thanks.

I have a can of TS19 Metallic Blue sitting here in front of me and I have no idea why. Ever buy paint or parts when putting together an order, have them sit around for awhile, and then forget what you planned to do with them? Frequently when putting together a Tower Hobbies order, I would add paint to the order in an attempt to reach certain amounts for discounts. The problem being, I might not get around to painting for another year yet. So, now I have this TS19. I'm gathering up bodies I need to paint for my last week of unpaid leave before putting myself and family at risk and returning to my greedy employer. I have a Bruiser body and a Super Clod body to paint and neither use TS19. In fact, the only vehicle I own that seems to use it is my Bullhead and I'm not repainting that. Anybody know how close TS19 Metallic Blue and TS50 Blue Mica are? I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

I miss my Marui Land Cruiser and Super G my folks threw out but other than that, not much. I had a short arm RC10 I sold once I kinda regret, but I met a great fellow enthusiast during the sale so that balances out I guess. I wish I hadn't sold my F350 High Lift, but it funded my Bruiser re-re at the time. I don't let go of too much honestly. There are a lot of 1:1 cars I sold throughout the years like my '65 Nova SS and the V8 Vega I built that I feel very bad about parting with down the line. I guess when you're in the thick of it, you don't think about how baby boomers are going suddenly use their new-found spending money to drive up the cost of a hobby to crazy heights (even worse when you're whole existence, from job to home life is based around it). Anyway, that taught me a valuable lesson about seller's remorse so I'm very careful about what I sell. Usually when I sell something, it has sat for years untouched. You have to think about stuff like that and think "is my life going to be any less enriched if this thing isn't in it?". Its tricky because nostalgia is a tricky lens through which we often view the past. I may miss my Emaxx I sold one day but I have to remember 1. It took forever to charge two batteries. 2. It was too big and fast for my yard. 3. It was too big and heavy to be lugging places to run and there weren't any places to run it anyway. 4. Not a Tamiya, and I'm slightly embarrassed to be seen in public with Traxxas gear because of the Traxxas-user stereotype (stupid, I know) 5. Still looks like one of those weird truggy things and not like a real monster truck. From a more nebulous approach, this: There was a sweet spot in the early/mid 2000s when I joined Tamiyaclub. I had more money than when I was a kid and older used kits were affordable on Ebay. Just getting my hands on some of these childhood dreams like a Monster Beetle or M38 Wild Willy was like a dream come true. Everything was less serious and fun. Tamiya was bringing out new and interesting models like the DF03, DB01, High Lift, TXT-1 and CR01, not just recycling the TT02B and DT03 or, until recently, the years of WT/WR01 trucks with different bodies. The upside is the amount of re-res we've been blessed with although the excitement of even those has died down. I remember the incredible amount of post leading up to the rerelease of pivotal models from the first news to time-of-purchase. The Hotshot re-re topic got 331 post of raw excitement. The Terra Scorcher now sits at 47. Apples to oranges perhaps but still...

Good point. Tamiya was definitely looking for an edge with these. I don't know much about them, being an off road guy myself, but always found them interesting.

Assuming the Frog still runs a mechanical speed controller (MSC), did you have the transmitter switched on before plugging in the battery and turning the car (receiver) on? If the car is turned on and the battery simply plugged in, the throttle servo attached to the mechanical speed controller can "jump" or simply be stuck with the MSC on full throttle. If you pull the throttle servo back to the neutral position, the motor should stop if there isn't a short somewhere.

There were very highly modified Blackfoots from back in the day designed to combat the influx of RC10 conversion trucks (pre King Cab/JRXT days). I've seen ORVs loaded down with every conceivable hop up from fiberglass shock towers w/ Kyosho Golds and Trackmaster belt drive transmissions and they still couldn't stand up to a set-up RC10 conversion truck with equal drivers. In the end, yes probably. The DT02's transmission is a bit more refined and compact, but both are good and strong. The Blitzer uses the older two-piece suspension arm design (which actually stay cleaner in dirt) but there's nothing wrong there. Both have direct steering. I suppose the DT02 chassis is stronger but I wouldn't consider it worth the extra time and money to make the conversion. I don't know the particulars on how to do it (IIRC, the front uprights are different on the DN01 than the typical Tamiya fare) but the end result would be a great handling stadium truck.

I've read similar things. Apparently, in more serious collisions the DT03's chassis can snap. The Blitzter series is very close to the Bear Hawk that birthed them. The chassis and suspension arms etc. are all the same. Tamiya added oil shocks as standard. The gave it longer front uprights for the stadium wheels. Lastly, Tamiya did slightly alter the internal gearing to drive the larger stadium tires. Bear Hawk and Blitzer gearboxes are different. Blitzers are fairly rudimentary compared to an RC10T. They have the "look" but not the tech. That said, they work really well. They handle decently, jump well and are durable. There's a few additions like turnbuckles you can add, but as a runner, they need nothing out of the box aside from a steel pinion and bearings. The rear tires wear fast on pavement and there is some bumpsteer. The bumpsteer can be mitigated by flipping the uprights side to side as others have done on here. The chassis tub does come originally from the Falcon which was famous for tub cracking issues at the front end. For some reason, I hear less about this issue on Blitzers. The front suspension sub assembly is completely different between the Falcon and the Blitzer. There are some bracing methods including one from Ampro to aid with this, though I've never had an issue with it on mine. Honestly, they are descent little trucks. The DT02 always seemed like the natural evolution of the Berahawk/Blitzer to me. The two share more in common design-wise than the earlier DT01 for sure. The DT02 can easily be converted to stadium duty with longer front uprights, stadium wheels/tires and an appropriate body/mounts. Nothing else needed. The DT02's gearing is not optimized for the stadium sized tires however. This might be an issue with brushed motors. I can't say directly for sure. I know someone in the showrooms has done this conversion. The DT02 seems a bit more "refined" or streamlined design-wise than the Blitzer but both are equally serviceable with strong drivetrains. I'm unaware of any chassis issues with the DT02.

Terra Scorcher. Like others have said, the drivetrain is durable and it will handle a greater variety of terrains. The Terra Scorcher was a good step up from the previous Hotshot series of buggies. It comes with a nice metal motor mount instead of those fiddly little silver plates. The steering is finally ironed out and the bumpsteer was eliminated. From what I recall, it turned in pretty well too, being far less plagued by understeer than previous buggies. The TT02B seems to be one of those buggies where most of the off road buggies that came before it were better at... well, being an off road buggy. I know why Tamiya made them (homogenize platforms, etc) but with low ground clearance and a questionable drivetrain, I don't see them as particularly effective at being an offroad buggy, entry level or not.

I was messing around with some Stadium Blitzer tires the over day, marveling at how "plastic" they felt vs the typical rubber feeling of most Tamiya tires. I pondered why, out of the blue, Tamiya decided to make Blitzer tires out of this hard, rapid wearing compound. This brought the usual raft of questions to my mind about other Tamiya products... The Bruiser had pretty stiff tires which I'm guessing was partially based on supporting the weight of the vehicle. Blackfoot. Were these the same compound as the Bruiser? I heard claims in either direction. Regardless, I think the Blackfoot and Monster Beetle tires could have been a bit softer. Adapting the softer, wider tires of the Marui Big Bear was a popular practice back in the day to improve the performance of the truck. Lunch Box/Clod Buster. Different tires, but both a nice and soft and squishy. I always felt, in this case, Tamiya was taking tire compounds into consideration. The trucks have less-than-sophisticated suspensions or high unsprung weight. I'm thinking Tamiya's compound choices here were to aid each truck's handling. Juggernaut. Not sure what Tamiya was thinking other than looks. From what I gather, they were on the stiffer side. That, plus their rounded profile, couldn't have helped the top heavy Jugg in my mind, but I'll let the owner weight in on this one. Purely conjecture on my part. The softer early spike and paddle tires seem to help the bouncier early buggies too.

While I know quite little of the show aside from doing some coloring pages with my daughter and catching some clips here and there, I'm definitely most akin to Maud Pie . I did find a lot of what cartoon network was showing in the late 90's pretty good. I liked early Dexter and the Power Puff Girls along with Ed Edd and Eddy. I rushed home to catch Toonami after work, promptly getting hooked on Gundam Wing, Dragonball Z and Rurouni Kenshin (and the anti-hero, Saito of course). Aside from CN, Invader Zim always made me smile and Daria was one of my all-time favorites.

Be sequestered at home with my 7 year old daughter means I get a steady diet of her television entertainment. I grew up in the 80's where we were inundated with half hour cartoon shows that were often just toy commercials. Honestly, compared to some of the dreck I see my kid watching (or stuff I flat out ban) I prefer the stuff I watched, ulterior motives or not. She once watched some videos of people opening toys. I don't get it. Now she watches videos of adults playing with toys. I don't get it. When I was young, all I wanted to do was play with toys, not watch others do it. One particular individual who goes by the name of Blippi capers and covorts about like a fool while speaking to kids in a sickeningly inane way that makes my skin crawl. On one hand he does teach things at times (while tempting me to throw a brick through the TV) but on the other hand, everything about him (from his voice to the colors he wears) is carefully cultivated to ensnare young viewers which I find distasteful to say the least (all the more so when you dig into his rather unsavory past). Aside from Youtube (which I limit), there are some shows that I actually like and some I ban. I don't mind Peppa Pig. There's a certain inside humor present that adults pick up on (the use of glitter in school projects for instance and how it gets everywhere). The toys are outrageously expensive but aside from that, the whole thing isn't too bad for me. My daughter is a big fan of PJ Mask. I suppose, being into comics myself, it doesn't bother me as much as it irks my wife. There are some big plot holes that bother me and I wish the kids didn't seem to be yelling all the time (not to mention the villains' sickening laughs) but overall, I'm indifferent. Then there's Caillou. This whiny little spawn of the underworld is forever gone from our home. There's an argument that the little bald twerp is actually written to be more akin to how real children act. If my child acted this way, I'd ask for a refund. As soon as we saw our daughter starting to mimic some of Caillou's behaviors, that was it. No more. When someone asked my daughter if see watched it, she's well aware her parents' answer is commonly "Caillou's evil". Boy, do I miss my G1 Transformers. Anybody else enjoying their children's TV choices while being tucked away?