Jamesbeat

This may sound dumb, but bear with me... Try putting that body in a bucket of water with a small amount of dish soap. Leave It in a corner of your garage and forget about it for a few weeks or even months. When you come back to it, you will probably find that you can remove those scraps of paint with your fingernail or a toothbrush. It's amazing what an extended soak in water will do - I recently did this with some 30 year old duct tape residue on a chassis. It took two weeks, but the old hard adhesive just fell off with no damage to the plastic. This is after a variety of solvents failed to touch it. They don't call water the Universal Solvent for nothing...

Not really rare per se, but I have a Mardave Meteor. I'm from England, but I now live in the States. The Meteor is also from England, and was never exported here (at least not in any quantity). I always wanted one when I was a kid, but never got the chance. I never managed to get a UK seller to ship one to me here in the States, but I eventually found one on eBay from a seller in Texas. He told me he got it in a job lot of gear from Norway, which is how it got here. So, not really all that rare in general, but very rare for this country. I bet there aren't many U.S. members here who have heard of it, and even fewer who own one! Unfortunately, it is missing a rear wheel, so the quest continues...

It can actually be bloom or release agent - they look very similar to each other. Vintage tires are more likely to have bloom, but I have had new tires look like that after getting wet for the first time because the water affects the release agent. Something that I have never encountered before was what happened with my second Tamiya kit just yesterday. I was putting the tires on the wheels, and wherever the tires stretched, they became white. I thought at first that this was stress lines (like when you bend ABS plastic) but it turned out to be a hard waxy release agent.

Not a Tamiya, but a similar vintage buggy. I saw a Radio Shack Golden Arrow on eBay that was in bad shape and had been sprayed gold. I really wanted to get that buggy, fix it up and add modern electronics to give it a new life, but it was way overpriced (about the same as what a good condition one is worth). The listing was buy it now with best offer enabled, but the seller simply ignored my two offers (the second one was more than reasonable). It was up there for several months, but eventually someone bought it. I don't know how much it went for in the end, but I hope whover bought it didn't pay the asking price, and I hope they are restoring it.

No, I am aware of Tamiya's reputation for quality, and my opinion of them is still high. These things just happen sometimes. I hope they make it right without me having to pay to ship it back to them - I don't believe I should be expected to incur any out of pocket expenses to get this fixed. The rest of the kit appears to be of superb quality. I was especially impressed with how well the two halves of the chassis fit together. Having built a good few models in the past, I know that long narrow sections often don't meet well along their full length and often have to be persuaded with heat, but this chassis is perfect. I guess the bodies go on a fixture to have the holes punched, and my example must have not been aligned properly. Not the end of the world by any means, but I don't want to have to enlarge that hole enough to have the body sit straight, because that will introduce other problems. I'm pretty sure that if I was to enlarge it enough to fit the chassis properly, it would also be large enough for the body clip to slip through.

I'm at work at the moment but I'll try to get a photo uploaded later. The hole on yours looks to be spot on. I love the purple by the way Mine is pretty far off the centerline - probably 5-6mm. I told my wife (who has never so much as touched an RC car) that I may have to return the body, and when she asked why, I handed it to her and asked her to take a guess. She looked at the body for a few seconds, pointed at the hole and said 'is that hole supposed to be in the middle?'

Yes it is! Well, that's that cleared up, thanks I feel a little silly now, but in my defense this is only the second Tamiya model that I have built, and the first one had a hard ABS body (Lunch Box). It's a shame about the front body mount hole being off, I'm still going to have to return it I think. Tower Hobbies disclaims any responsibility once you have started building the model, and directs you to the manufacturer. This is of course completely illegal, but it's not worth the argument, so I called Tamiya. It seems that Tamiya considers the day before New Year's Eve to be a 'major holiday', so the office is closed. What is Tamiya like to deal with regarding returns? Will they allow me to return just the body, or will I have to send the whole kit back? Will I have to pay for shipping it to them? I'd like to carry on with the build if possible.

I received my DT02 Racing Fighter yesterday and started building it. After I had put the tires on the wheels and got the two chassis halves together, I happened to look at the body shell and noticed what appear to be two imperfections. I'm probably going to have to return the shell anyway because of the first fault, but I'm curious to know if the second one is actually an imperfection or if it is normal? 1. Tamiya has pre-cut the holes for the mounting posts to pass through. I guess this was intended as a thoughtful gesture towards the beginning modeler, but unfortunately the front hole is badly off center. I don't think I would be able to get the body to sit straight without 'egging' the hole out substantially. 2. On the left side window (if viewing the body from the front) is a small circular depression, roughly 2mm in diameter. At first glance it looks like a hole, but it is actually a deep depression. I have done some vacuum forming in the past, and it looks to me like the plastic was overheated and got sucked into a vent hole. If it was elsewhere on the body I would just ignore it, but being on the window it stands out like a sore thumb. I guess it's possible it is supposed to be there for some reason that has not occurred to me. Has anyone else got this shell? Could you take a look at the window and see if yours has the same issue?