GooneyBird

For sale due to me thinning out the collection of unbuilt stuff: This body set is NIB, unbuilt, uncut, unpainted, untouched, un-you-name-it'd. From what I can see through the bag the thing is in good condition. The header card is torn, but that obviously has no effect on the body set. Bag is slightly yellowed, but everything inside seems to be fine. I couldn't find pictures of it online anywhere to save my life! It's NOT the BTCC Ford Mondeo, this body set is different. Ideal for your vintage TC / BTCC collection! Or if you're from the US and really REALLY into Contours this could be your thing too. (Hey, I'm not judging!) I am located in the Netherlands. Shipping is a bit dependent on where you are from, obviously.I'll do my best to find sturdy boxes. I have another body set for sale, and shipping costs will be the same if you buy one or both. Price: 80 euro / 70 GBP / 90 USD

For sale due to me thinning out the collection of unbuilt stuff: This body set is NIB, unbuilt, uncut, unpainted, untouched, un-you-name-it'd. From what I can see through the bag the thing is in good condition. The pic below is purely for illustration. Ideal for your older TRF to capture that mid 2000s Reinhardt-look! I am located in the Netherlands. Shipping is a bit dependent on where you are from, obviously.I'll do my best to find sturdy boxes. I have another body set for sale, and shipping costs will be the same if you buy one or both. Price: 40 euro / 35 GBP / 44 USD

Long looong loooooong overdue update: I believe the Basher has died. The last time out it suddenly swerved out of control, had a nasty crash, and ended up at the back of the closet. I took it out today, seeing what's up with my little guy, and found the chassis plate has cracked from the servo hole all the way to the side of the chassis, not only making it impossible to mount a servo, but also leaving the chassis very floppy. And of course, 6 years after the fact, spares are all but unavailable. Not sure what to do now....

Hi. No, I looked all over last night, and actually went for a second dive this morning when I had daylight on my side (yay, working from home!) I found the box it was supposed to be in, but it wasn't in there anymore so I'm guessing I must have moved it on and forgot about it. Sorry to get your hopes up.

I think I've got one of those... Let me check tonight. Functionality unknown though, as it came in a box with other bits when I bought my Clod, and looks suitably mad-scientist-y that I'm not touching it. Will update when I've found it.

... there's one from the Far East that fits almost too well. I got mine from Aliexpress, but I'm sure there are plenty other webshops that carry it. Anyway, the thing is almost as wide as the rear of the chassis, with the rest taken up by a couple of washers.... I had to take off a bit of the arms to prevent the body from snagging. But other than that it fits really well! (Please excuse the dust on the Clod. It's been too hot to run, and thus, has been sitting for a good while) And it should prevent the bumper from destrying itself when the fronts pop up.

Quick update: I still have the thing, and took it to a track last year. It did poorly. xD I mean, this could potentially be due to the fact that: a) I am VERY out of practice when it comes to tracking RC cars b) I'm not experienced in doing off-roady stuff on track. c) the track itself was a bit shoddy and covered in dampness d) Traxxas never meant for this thing to be a track car. Still, I had fun and didn't break anything, despite my best attempts.

Nice build! I can highly recommend the JConcepts servo mounts if you want decent steering without ruining the retro look. That's exactly what I did, as I wanted my Clod to appear stock but steer a little better. You can mount this AND retain the stock bumpers. https://jconcepts.net/regulator-servo-mount-kit-bas-1-set

Yep, that's in the 419. I've started out running it on 0.6 mod because as a TT-racer, that's what I had. I later converted it to 64dp as my local track/shop had a lot more variety in that pitch. What I noticed is that on-power there's less 'clunk' as the gears engage. I'm attributing that to simply having more teeth engaged (or partway engaged) at the same time than a coarser pitch gear. While I agree there's a little harder to mesh correctly, it can absolutely be done well if you get a feel for it. What I look for is the slightest amount of freeplay in the gears. When meshed correctly, and with both pinion and spur fresh, it should be near whisper-quiet. As the spur wears it'll get a little louder obviously, but still nowhere near the sound of a 0.6 mod gearset. I'll have to look if I've got video, but at our old indoor track (which was carpet on a wooden floor) you could hear the thunking of the wood as the car flew down the straight. The car itself was that quiet.

In my experience, going from 48dp to 64dp in my onroad race cars, it's smoother making for easier on-power transitions, and a lot quieter.

Yep, I figured it was the later release. However, the upper hull still has copyright marks from 1974, making that part at least the same as the original model.

Very cool to have that connection. Have you ever been there yourself?

Right, so as promised, how I set up the radio to work with the tank. Tamiya themselves make a guide on how to do it, but I've found it's mostly incorrect (!) Mainly, the channel layout. Anyway, for reference, I've bought a Flysky FS-6i. It's a mode 2 transmitter, meaning channels 3 and 4 are on the left stick, and 1 and 2 are on the right. This means that the tank is completely controlled with the right stick, and the turret and special features go through the left. What I wanted was a way to have the tank be drivable without 'accidentally' shooting at something. This means messing with the dual rates and the throttle hold. What I did was: - set the end points of ch3 and ch4 to 75% in the radio - reset the DMD-T5 according to the manual, and then teach it the end points of the sticks - I then set the end points of all channels back to 100%. This means I now could control the things I normally needed the trims for simply by pushing the sticks to their very end. Now the fun part: Channel 3 was designated as 'throttle' by the radio. This meant I could employ Throttle Hold. I set Switch B to be Throttle Hold, and with it in the default (up) position, it would hold ch3 at 50% (neutral, as far as the tank is concerned). So with the switch up, I could not move the gun up and down, nor could I shoot. With it down I can (as it now goes through the normal travel, plus the extra bit because I set the end points to 75% before teaching the DMD-T5). Channel 4 is turret left/right, and all the way to the right is turning the lights on/off. The first I wanted to lock out, but I did want to be able to turn the lights off and on without touching a switch. What I did there was use the dual rates AND exponential. With Switch A up (default), the stick had 100% range (so it would hit the rightmost point required for the lights) and 100% exponential. This meant effectively that the stick would stay at 50% travel for the most part of its range, until it hit about 90% range, at which point it would jump to 100% travel. I think a screenshot explains this a little more clearly. Keep in mind the graph the radio gives isn't 100% accurate. This meant that with the switch up, channel 4 would do nothing until it hit the VERY END of the travel in either direction. For the left this still meant it did nothing (100% left = nothing), but to the right this would flick the lights off and on, but not move the turret as it was past the range for the turret to respond. Remember how we set the endpoints to 75% when we taught the DMD-T5? with the stick at 75% range it would still ask 50% of travel, only jumping to 100% travel at 85-or-so% of range. Effectively: With both switches up, the tank is drivable through the right stick, and tapping the left stick all the way to the right turns the lights off and on. With switch A down I now gain control of the turret left/right rotation, but still can't shoot. With switch B down I now have control over the gun, can raise and lower it, and I can shoot. So Switch A = turret control, Switch B = gun control. Also, I have an idea on how to remote-control the volume, but it's.... ... a bit tight for space in there, so more pondering is required. Oh, and those red tubes? Antennae. With the receiver essentially being an aircraft receiver it came with 2 aerials. I stuck both to the top of the speaker box to get them out of the metal chassis. The receiver itself is stuck to the front of the speaker box, with the wiring tucked away as neatly as I could.

So a Full-Option M4 Sherman, sans radio, fell into my lap. (Long story) I've never owned a tank before, so I have no idea what I'm doing here or getting myself into, but it seemed like a fun vehicle to have in the fleet. I've driven (commandeered?) both of @Fuijo's tanks before, and had a blast with them just rolling over stuff and taking fake-shots at each-other, so yeah, I decided to take the plunge. It even came with a box, the manual, the whole nine yards! It was disassembled in three main components (hull, upper body, turret) to fit in the box, but all were quickly assembled. I ordered a 4 channel radio from the Far East, and when that arrived I assembled the whole thing and gave it a rundown. (yeah, I'm a Linux nerd) https://youtu.be/3v5KaDRBpIo Anyway, it runs just fine after I fiddled with the radio and the MFC. Usually I'm pretty good with electronics, but having a radio with no instructions to speak of, combined with an ESC/MFC/Fancy Box that I'm not too familiar with at the same time is daunting. It works now though, and with clever usage of dual rates I never have to touch the trims again. I'll make a follow-up post detailing what I've done to get it to work. Now what, though. I like the thing as a RC vehicle. It's great fun to roll around the living room and... ... terrorize the cats. But as an object, I feel ambivalent. As an RC vehicle I can appreciate the effort that went into making it as realistic as possible, and it's technically Tamiya's first RC vehicle so it has that going for it. Also, the electronics on it are so unbelievably advanced for...what, mid 1990s? Using a camera flash module as the light effect for the cannon (not to be confused with a camera flash for a Canon) is quite clever usage of existing tech for something new. However, I'm not much into real-life tanks. Or anything war-related for that matter. I can appreciate the intricacies of planing and what it does on a social and economical scale (I'm Dutch. Hellooo Marshall-plan and cultural imperialism!), and can consider myself somewhat of a history buff. badword, I wrote a whole novel set in the East-Berlin of 1989, and got complimented on it by people actually from the GDR on capturing the spirit of their Heimat. But the actual, physical act of going out and harming people? No, not really my thing. But, it's a model of a tank sitting pretty on my shelf regardless. So I've decided to take it on a slightly different route. And no, I'm not going to paint it metallic purple and put flames on it, tempting as though that sometimes can be. My job sometimes takes me to and through Arnhem, of Operation Market Garden-fame. Sure, it's just another city today, but there are still traces of where the liberation started for 'us' all around. One of them is a Sherman M4 parked in a WW2 museum that I regularly drive past. What I'm going to do is model the tank as it looked when it rolled through the streets of Arnhem. What that entails, from easy to difficult: - Paint a name on it, preferably badly with visible (1:16th scale) brush strokes and all. I'm open for suggestions. Keep it family-friendly. xD - Find a scale lady and drape her across the tank in the best of "hello boys.."-fashion -... and maybe add a couple of soldiers ogling aformentioned lovely gal. - Improvised flag post or something on the back, so I can stick the Dutch (or whatever's historically accurate) flag on the back - Maybe weather/wash it a bit? I mean, those tanks did do a lot of traveling before arriving in The Netherlands... - Find a TINY TINY MP3 player or Bluetooth speaker so I can play the sounds of crowds cheering and/or the Dutch anthem as it rolls around. Regarding the last item on the list: I've thought about tapping into the wiring for the speaker playing the engine sounds. It's a good speaker, loud as heck, and already on the tank. However, the wiring is old, and not easily replaced in case something goes wrong. So, separate speaker. Either an MP3 player with its own speaker, or a Bluetooth speaker running from my phone. Space is at a premium, so it'd have to be quite small, or modular so I can start hiding it in leftover spaces. And preferably battery powered. I've got two ports free on the (6 channel) receiver, but I don't know how much BEC overhead the DMD-05 has to play with. Having it be a standalone system means I can remove it in case I ever decide... I dunno, to indeed paint it metallic purple with flames. Anyway, not sure if this is going to be something that's going to be finished in two weeks, but watch this space for updates.

I call mine Steve.