Ray_ve

Finished painting the Shogun body, gave the windows a dash of smoke, and decal time! Far better then when it came in...

Wanted to go to the LHS this morning, only to find my daughter's hamster looking like he had a late-night party with too much tequila. So off to the vet first.... Turns out hamsters can get the flu so hopefully he'll get better in a few days with the medication we got..... Could finally go to the LHS later in the afternoon, and got 2 coats of black on the Marui Shogun shell.

Pinion for the Marui Shogun came in, so the motor could finally be mounted and added electronics. I also realised I had 4 NOS tires that I used to buy for a Kyosho model, and they fitted the Shogun perfectly so wheels are now complete. Took it for a small test-drive in the garden, and it runs perfectly and smooth. So now all I need to finish this car is to get a can of PS-5.

The Marui Coors Melling Thunderbird body and Galaxy RS wing. Very happy with that.

Spend 2 hours masking up the Marui Shogun body, to start painting it box-art. Sprayed a lot of silver coats, looked OK. So removed the masking. Only to find I made a masking mistake at the silver section in the nose. Doooooh. So re-mask and repaint........ Next up is black, but I don't have enough so need to wait for the stores to open next week. Doooh.

4 Tamiya. Blazing Star, Mini Cooper, Konghead, Bullhead. And also 2 HSP Himoto and 5 Marui.

Ordered a Marui Galaxy wing as that is missing from the Galaxy RS that I still need to tidy up, and a Coors melling Thunderbird body. I have a 4WD HSP Himoto buggy that I wanted to sell, but there is no interest in it. Given that the Thunderbird is the same chassis as the Shogun, the body should fit on the HSP buggy chassis that is similar in wheelbase and width. Nice combo for a retro runner body on a modern chassis.

Was looking for tamiya 53059 tires online, for the Shogun. But got a bit frustrated as nobody except Tamico has any in stock, and shipping from Tamico is expensive for just tires.... I'll try again next month. Already spend enough money on electronics measurement equipment for this month, and since the Shogun body shell is also not finished, there is no rush. So packed up all left-overs, organised other Marui stuff and found the Galaxy RS I completely forgot about. So next project is in sight, and order a wing and decals at some point....

Got the Marui Shogun chassis build up as far as it will go for now. I forgot to order a steel pinion, so did that next. Missing the rear body post, so using a Clodbuster body post for now... Only needs the ESC, reciever and motor. Now there is a bit of a dilemma on tires. The tires that came with the 2 cars that I used are either worn and have flat spots (set 1), or are covered in paint and cracked (set 2). Trying to get the paint off with the tamiya stripper to see if set 2 can be salvaged and glued, but if that fails for whatever reason I'm thinking of using Manta Ray tires, they look almost the same...... Does anyone know the Manta Ray wheel diameter and width??

Did 2 more rounds of parts cleaning for the Marui Shogun, so everything I need to get started is now available. Time to get this lot looking like a car again!

If it was a kit I would buy just to run it without a special custom paint job, I would be very happy to buy a pre-painted shell! The one thing I truly dislike to do is painting, whether it is on my house or a bodyshell. All the tedious cutting and cleaning and masking. Painting and getting paint all over the place and having painted hands for days as it won't come off my skin.... Waiting to dry as it is the last thing I'll do but I really want to run the car..... No thanks!

For the casual driving that i do, the wheel is my preference. The first electric RC's I had used stick, as they were the cheapest radio sets at that time ('80s). But when it evolved into nitro cars, the wheel radios were affordable and from an ergonomics point of view, I stuck with wheel ever since except for an RC tank (2 vertical sticks works better for those). Wheel can be driven using a single hand, thump on the wheel. That makes it even more practical.

That's the funny thing. I also did the battery cover, bumper, suspension arms... They were all fine, paint stripped right off and no ill effects or fog. Being confident that all was well, I did the chassis last and that was the only part that went south and showed fog. Could be a slightly different material as the chassis is not on a sprue. Oh well, stuff happens.

More work on the Marui Shogun. The plastic chassis had turned foggy white after a round of Tamiya paint stripper. I believed the paint had simply smeared, but it turned out there is a reaction between the stripper and the old Marui plastics. The outer layer will dissolve a bit! So gave it another round with the stripper to dissolve the white fog, followed by a washdown with water. Let the chassis sit for a few days to evaporate and the plastics to turn hard again, and a round of commandant cleaner to finish. Looks Ok now thankfully.... Got some JB Weld and glued a crack in the front bumper and an eyelet from one rear shock. Sorted all the screws and nuts for easier assembly. Next up, assemble the gearboxes. And strip the blazing Star for an ESC, servo and receiver.

Working on the Marui Shogun. The shocks are cleaned, shafts are polished. Re-assembled the front shocks but need to glue one of the lower 'eyes' that has a small crack in it. Then the rears can be assembled as well. Gave the chassis a rub-down with Tamiya paint cleaner to get rid of the unwanted paint spray this car collected while sitting in someone's shed. The paint came off ok I thought, but when I washed the chassis it looked horrible! At first, I believed the plastics were damaged by the paint cleaner, but it's starting to look like the paint itself was not entirely removed but smeared all over the chassis. So this needs a few more rounds of paint cleaner......