c64orinoco

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope Santa bought you lots of Tamiya goodies!

My wife got me the Super Avante (and a set of Tamiya tools!) for Christmas, so I know what my next project is.

Wow, that takes me back. Once of my first cars was a Sand Rover - it used the same 6V battery and the same coil MSC. My first radio was a Futaba, but not the one you have, I can't remember exactly which one it was. Great times!

What is the front end on that? It looks like Sand Rover / Holiday Buggy front arms.

It's sort of translucent, so it benefits from light, even coats. I think I did about 3 or 4 coats, then the black. I did it on a nice warm, dry day so only needed a few minutes between coats.

I have used the irredscent purple-green paint. I started with a coat of the Lame Flake first, for extra glitter. I did a few coats of the purple-green, then backed with black. The colour change is very noticable, especially in strong sunlight.

Is that Tamiya's mythical 'synthetic rubbber cement'?

That brings back memories of an F1 game on the C64 from the 80s - Jeff Cramond's F1 I think? Anyway it had Brands Hatch, so I really should give this one a go, I haven't raced for a few months.

We have a wet Xmas period forecast here in eastern Australia, but I'm hoping for a few fine days so I can paint some bodies. Chassis-wise I'd like to build something over the break, it's a toss-up between the M07R (I already have a finished Alfa Mito body for it) and the VQS. Maybe the TD4 my wife has got me for Xmas though?

The top one is not RC, it's the Lunchbox Junior - just a free-running motorised 4WD. The middle one is the Lunchbox Mini, based on the SW01 chassis so a bit smaller than a WR02. You can't have too many Lunchboxes!

I'm not sure which kit to get into. Over late 2019 - 2020 I bought 10 kits, I have unbuilt - Frog, Hornet, Fighting Buggy, King Yellow, M07R, VQS and coming at Xmas a Super Avante. The big problem is storage, the house is a bit of a mess. I have 3 weeks off over Xmas so I'm going to try to do a bit of cleaning out which will give me space for built cars.

Finished my Lunchbox at last. I'm rather pleased with the paint job, the purple contrasts perfectly against the yellow and orange. Thats the wife's Sand Scorcher coming together in the background. It's Lunchboxes all the way down.

Painted details on the Lunchbox. Should be able to get it finished next weekend.

Mine has been delivered; Australia. But it's an Xmas present so it will have to wait.

That's like me with my tastes in music.

Did some hand painting of details on the Lunchbox while my wife did some more work on her Sand Scorcher.

My wife is building a Sand Scorcher, and we're having some trouble with the antenna. We are using a modern Flysky receiver with an antenna that is about 150mm long. The old Sand Scorcher seems to use a much longer antenna. Where sould we route the modern short antenna? Presumably we should avoid the speed controller, but it doesn't leave much length to work with. It looks like the antenna is going to stay within the radio box. Where is the best place to put a modern short antenna in the old Sand Scorcher radio box?

I have half a bottle of Tamiya shock oil from 1983 and it still looks like new.

The problem I have with servo splines is that I can never seem to get the arm to line up in the correct centre position, and the digital trim on my Flysky transmitter doesn't go far enough to get the correct center. I end up having to alter steering rod lengths to center the wheels properly, and I end up with more steering lock on one side compared to the other.

I think of the song by Kate Bush. Showing my age there...

Architect, focussing on BIM (Building Information Modelling) - essentially fulll digital twin of the built form.

My wife is building a SRB Sand Scorcher. We're up to the dampers, and it's already noticable that the SRB dampers seem to be pretty leak-prone. I have seen the dampers installed upside-down in some pictures - is there any drawback from mounting them like this? Otherwise it seems like the damper oil is just going to drain out over time.

In order of aquisition: Sand Rover - original 1983 version, owned since new by my brother, now mine. TT02B Neo Scorcher M07 with Mini body (body not Tamiya) M07R with Alfa Romeo Mito body Comical Hornet Frog re-re Hornet re-re GF06 King Yellow SW01 Lunch Box VQS re-re Fighting Buggy re-re (my first car in 1983 was a Super Champ) Lunch Box re-re My wife has: Comical Frog SRB Sand Scorcher re-re I thought I had a problem but now I can see I only have a very mild case.