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Newer ReRe plastics different to kits from 5-10 years ago?

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I've recently built a Hot Shot and Super Astute. I also run a Top Force which I've replaced the gear casings on with new parts. With the Top Force in particular, a car I've run in various forms on and off for almost 10 years. It seems like maybe the "formula" for the plastics has changed and the newer cases are more brittle. 

 Anyone else observed this? Might have had a bit of bad luck, or it could be in my head? 

Love to hear others opinions. 

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If anything, the compounds for plastic are getting better with Tamiya , less brittle

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44 minutes ago, Snappy1 said:

If anything, the compounds for plastic are getting better with Tamiya , less brittle

Really?  I have cars from 1982-1987 that have better condition bodies than my GF01 

VWvldjq.jpg

this is an example of every time i take it out. This is about the 16th repair I’ve had to do. Almost The entire body is being held together with shoe goo and I’ve only been running the car for two weeks. However I am not having this issue with my TT02. must be the body geometry 

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19 minutes ago, Exit13 said:

this is an example of every time i take it out. This is about the 16th repair I’ve had to do. Almost The entire body is being held together with shoe goo and I’ve only been running the car for two weeks. However I am not having this issue with my TT02. must be the body geometry 

This is the pre painted GF-01 Land Cruiser 40 body right?

I also tought it was extremely brittle. Spend hours on the decals and the 5yo managed to destroy it in 30 minutes. Several large cracks just like yours. Ok, it was cold outside when we ran it but this shouldn't happen if you ask me. The 5yo was pretty disappointed (we only had experience with Tamiya hard bodies until then).

Could it be that the material for the pre painted bodies is different than for the unpainted bodies? It feels really thin.

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Yeah. Pre painted. I just looked at it again and it broke while looking at it. Now I need to order more shoe goo

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I've restored several vintage Hotshots and don't see much difference from the re-re as far as the black polycarbonate (PC) plastic that makes up most of the kit. The compound of the re-re parts is equal if not more forgiving than NOS plastics. (Although maybe 35 years ago those NOS parts were better, but hard to say now! :D).

As for the GF-01 Land Cruiser body, I think the problem is with design more than material. I have the same pre-painted body (red), which developed serious cracking between the bed and cab almost immediately. It seems to me that the overall shape of the body does not lend well to the end-over-end tumbles my GF-01 naturally likes to take. I've not had that issue with any of my other Tamiya bodies.

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2 hours ago, frameskip said:

I've restored several vintage Hotshots and don't see much difference from the re-re as far as the black polycarbonate (PC) plastic that makes up most of the kit. The compound of the re-re parts is equal if not more forgiving than NOS plastics. (Although maybe 35 years ago those NOS parts were better, but hard to say now! :D).

As for the GF-01 Land Cruiser body, I think the problem is with design more than material. I have the same pre-painted body (red), which developed serious cracking between the bed and cab almost immediately. It seems to me that the overall shape of the body does not lend well to the end-over-end tumbles my GF-01 naturally likes to take. I've not had that issue with any of my other Tamiya bodies.

And of course no replacement bodies are available as far as I can see. I wonder what mother options we have. Wild willys 2 maybe?

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57 minutes ago, Exit13 said:

And of course no replacement bodies are available as far as I can see. I wonder what mother options we have. Wild willys 2 maybe?

Nikko Pro Truck 😉 :

1642708445620.jpg.35043001916c8340b1dda1089307c887.jpg

Does a better job until now. 😅

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7 hours ago, Exit13 said:

Really?  I have cars from 1982-1987 that have better condition bodies than my GF01 

VWvldjq.jpg

this is an example of every time i take it out. This is about the 16th repair I’ve had to do. Almost The entire body is being held together with shoe goo and I’ve only been running the car for two weeks. However I am not having this issue with my TT02. must be the body geometry 

That body is made of lexan which is a thermoplastic polymer. It’s a sheet that is vacuumed formed to a mould. Your argument would be valid if you were comparing that lexan body to one from the 80s.. 

The chassis parts are made of ABS plastic. The quality of the plastic has definitely improved. They also now pure ABS, fibre and carbon infused and ones that have quite a bit flex. 

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6 hours ago, frameskip said:

As for the GF-01 Land Cruiser body, I think the problem is with design more than material. I have the same pre-painted body (red), which developed serious cracking between the bed and cab almost immediately. It seems to me that the overall shape of the body does not lend well to the end-over-end tumbles my GF-01 naturally likes to take. I've not had that issue with any of my other Tamiya bodies.

Same issue with ours. Ended up using gorilla tape for a while. I fInally replaced it with the Suzuki body which has it's own issues due to the end over ends.

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One thing to note about the GF-01 bodies is that they were all pre-painted. It might not be the lexan in it's original form that is brittle, but the paint being used to paint them with is making the lexan more brittle. Having said that, looking at the photo above the lexan does look fag paper thin

 

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13 hours ago, Raman36 said:

That body is made of lexan which is a thermoplastic polymer. It’s a sheet that is vacuumed formed to a mould. Your argument would be valid if you were comparing that lexan body to one from the 80s.. 

The chassis parts are made of ABS plastic. The quality of the plastic has definitely improved. They also now pure ABS, fibre and carbon infused and ones that have quite a bit flex. 

Specifically the ABS.

The Top Force I have now started life as a DF01 Porsche Cayenne. This was used as a base to build a TA01 touring car, with the first version of re-re Top Force J parts and FRP chassis plates, about 10 years ago.

The gearbox's and J parts lasted years of drifting, and when recently rebuilt into a buggy, lasted a good number of months. Recently replaced parts last days. Hopefully bad luck. I just really thought during a recent Hotshot re-re build that the ABS has a different feel to it, but it's probably in my head :)

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Material utilization is of interest to me. Most Tamiya plastics are ABS/PC, though the have added PA in as time went on and even stepped up with GF at times. The parts tree/sprue usually has a tab with the material type listed on it. I will admit my perception of Tamiya plastic has changed since my childhood. As a kid I was impressed by their slick black color and intricate molding, not to mention good parts fitment. Compared to the less-than-perfect fitment of Associated's white nylons, I thought Tamiya seemed higher quality. Now, I know better. Intricate or not, from a durability standpoint, ABS/PC is inferior to the PA/nylons Associated was using. Having had my hands on other plastics like Kyosho's nice GF stuff, I can say standard Tamiya shiny plastics feel cheap and brittle in my hands now.

For being master molders, I'm not sure Tamiya had a good handle on the stresses involved in RC car usage. Part of that might be that they didn't anticipate how their products would be used around the world. With silvercan 540 power, or at most, using their vaunted Technigold motor, on the tracks seen in Japan in those days, what they used was probably good enough. On rougher US tracks with more power, the shortcomings became more obvious. They learned but never seemed to truly anticipate the next breakage point in the chain when it came to track use. For example, the Thundershot series began using blue PA plastics for the arms as an improvement to the brittle ABS/PC arms of the earlier Hotshots, but still used ABS/PC for the fragile A5 part as they didn't foresee what an impact would do to it in usage. Take the front gearbox on the DF01. The lower cover and subsequently, its mounting holes in the gearbox bottom not only formed the bottom of the gearbox, partially mounting the diff, but also is the main anchor point for the lower front suspension. They used run-of-the-mill ABS/PC  in this area and then made the platform a jack-of-all-trades. Probably fine in a TA01 touring car, less so in a Manta Ray for off-road duty and even worse in a Top Force meant for the racetracks. That's one area I see the Egress as superior as Tamiya used GF plastics in its construction, knowing it was supposed to be a competition buggy. For all its love (and probably better performance) the Top Force Evo still uses the same bottom tier plastics in critical areas. Its typical Tamiya, all the option parts thrown at a platform without addressing its true weaknesses. While part of that critique is absolved by possible usage beyond the manufacture's intent, there's an interesting video of a Tamiya driver on a Tamiya track in Japan shattering a DF03 front gearbox in a relatively minor crash.

There's also the whole issue about how the car was assembled. Ramming tapping screws into ABS/PC can cause tiny stress fractures on initial insertion. These become cracks as time wears on, particularly if the initial insertion hole was undersized. Overtightening makes matter worse. For this reason, I hot-screw all my fresh plastics to relieve internal stresses. Sometimes, if there's enough material surrounding the hole, its never an Issues as ABS gains strength through mass. Other times the stresses are too high and/or there simply isn't enough material and fractures become cracks which become failures like the screw pins used for Fox's hinge pins. If that's not enough, time and storage play a factor too. Over time plasticizers migrate from the parts leaving them brittle and more fragile. UV accelerates this. I've had restorations turn to dust in my hands because of how the car was stored. In this sense,  Associated's nylons are superior again because they can be re-hydrated in water to rejuvenate them. ABS/PC doesn't respond this way as its basically waterproof. I've been searching for a way to reintroduce plasticizes to old parts but my research indicates once the plasticizers are gone, their gone. Tamiya ABS/PC plastic has a finite lifespan. I have gently heated them in water which will relax internal stresses, realigning some of the inner molecules (this is why carefully heating a gray Super Champ bumper in hot water reduces the white stress marks they tend to get in usage) but get the water too hot and you risk warpage, plus nothing is done about the lost plasticizers. Additionally, while the internal stresses have been relived, the tiny internal fractures are still technically there.

  

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Haven’t noticed any difference in the plastics. I’ve had a lot of ta01, vintage and re re … I do notice using the right jis screwdrivers and not over tightening into plastics and other things I wasn’t aware destroyed my cars.

 

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@Exit13 @bavee @tamiya_1971

This certainly seems to be a very common theme. A couple of contacts on Instagram have both destroyed their Land Cruiser 40 shells. As has been said, they just aren't very well designed I think. In some spots the moulding has no give but then right next to that it's very thin so tearing seems a common issue.

It's one of the reasons I got a Jimny shell, which I was going to use as a basher but then I did lots to it and am now too worried to run that too ;) I do have a second LC40 shell though so will probably just fully gorilla tape and shoo goo it and see what happens. 

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I bought the gf-01 land cruiser when released originally (with unpainted body). I tortured the body on every drive and scratched it up but it never split like that, I found it to be really strong and as I recall never noticed any point or part of the body that I felt was too thin.

Maybe either that batch of prepainted bodies has been produced too thin and/or the painting process has affected it.

 

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On 2/12/2022 at 3:10 PM, Saito2 said:

standard Tamiya shiny plastics feel cheap and brittle

This! In my experience they ARE brittle. Why the guys at Tamiya haven't embraced up-to-date composite materials yet is beyond me...

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It seems like the newest releases (Super Avante and Astute) have a new plastic. From what I've seen and read online It seems more forgiving and durable.

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1 hour ago, GeeWings said:

It seems like the newest releases (Super Avante and Astute) have a new plastic.

Yes, and I've read the CC02 does as well. I'm pleased as this is a good step forward for Tamiya.

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38 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

Yes, and I've read the CC02 does as well. I'm pleased as this is a good step forward for Tamiya.

Yes, agreed. And it makes me more interested in the Astute, but I still just can’t get excited about how it looks. 

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18 hours ago, GeeWings said:

It seems like the newest releases (Super Avante and Astute) have a new plastic. From what I've seen and read online It seems more forgiving and durable.

Why can't they use that plastic in the molds of all the rere's moving forward?  Unless it's a totally new process for making parts trees?  I mean who would get mad if Tamiya rere'd the King Cab but with up to date high quality durable plastic?  Ummm....nobody?

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On 2/11/2022 at 9:47 PM, MadInventor said:

One thing to note about the GF-01 bodies is that they were all pre-painted. It might not be the lexan in it's original form that is brittle, but the paint being used to paint them with is making the lexan more brittle. Having said that, looking at the photo above the lexan does look fag paper thin

 

I think you might be onto something there. I have had two Suzuki Swift shells, one prepainted, one unpainted which I sprayed myself with PS paint. The prepainted one was full of cracks after its first run, while the one I painted myself is still crack-free.

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On 2/13/2022 at 6:16 AM, taffer said:

I bought the gf-01 land cruiser when released originally (with unpainted body). I tortured the body on every drive and scratched it up but it never split like that, I found it to be really strong and as I recall never noticed any point or part of the body that I felt was too thin.

Maybe either that batch of prepainted bodies has been produced too thin and/or the painting process has affected it.

 

I hope it is a specific problem with the pre-painted GF-01 LC40 bodies. Gives me some hope for The Frog thats on my build list.

This is our GF-01 LC40 body after one 30 minute run:

1644867332935.thumb.jpg.d5e91c502c07acb2d64a3ebeec636b43.jpg

As I said it was cold outside and our boy doesn't drive responsible but I really think this one cracked too soon.

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3 hours ago, A-Baum said:

Why can't they use that plastic in the molds of all the rere's moving forward?  Unless it's a totally new process for making parts trees?  I mean who would get mad if Tamiya rere'd the King Cab but with up to date high quality durable plastic?  Ummm....nobody?

One reason may be mold longevity. Reinforced or GF plastics are harder on molds, reducing their lifespan compared to something like ABS. 

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On 2/14/2022 at 11:47 AM, A-Baum said:

Why can't they use that plastic in the molds of all the rere's moving forward?  Unless it's a totally new process for making parts trees?  I mean who would get mad if Tamiya rere'd the King Cab but with up to date high quality durable plastic?  Ummm....nobody?

Most likely due to shrink rates differences between the materials.  When a mold is built the intended material is specified and you're pretty much stuck with it if you want the part to be the proper size.  If tolerance isn't super critical another material can be used as long as the runner system will work with said material.  It's definitley possible to switch materials, but you'll either suffer tolerance issues or need some slight modification to the tool or molding process (injection pressure, temp, etc).  

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