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bRIBEGuy

bRIBEGuy vs. The Frog...

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Tracking down a Tamiya 18t didn't seem worth the effort/cost, so a good old RR steely will suit the role.  Getting the motor mounted up was as easy as... well, mounting up a non-adjustable motor.  :lol:  Dug out a couple shorter screws to use to get the heat sink mounted up as well.

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With the MSC in, I mounted up a NOS MSC link I had found, along with a new ball end.  I couldn't bring myself to mount the servo with zip ties like shown in the manual, so I'm opting for good old fashioned screws.  Crazy stuff right here I tell ya...

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Front end gets cleaned up with the new & blasphemous re-re bumper, and a NOS.....er.... metal plate thingy?  Certainly not the correct term, but I feel like my coffee isn't working today...

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NOS steering linkages and ball ends... and the MSC linkage that somehow I was able to install one post earlier... :rolleyes:

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Ah nuts...

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...and bolts/screws... :lol:

All 40 screws and nuts were extracted from the trashed OG wheels on both The Frog and SuperChamp.  These got cleaned and sorted since... well, it would seem the Super Champ used different F&R length screws, while The Frog keeps them all the same length.  Ya.

Super Champ hardware got set aside for whenever that project kicks off, and I started wrestling some new rubber onto some new plastic... aaaaaand....... front end turny things are done, c/w some new bearings.

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So I made the logistical error of starting this build on the dining room table.  It worked fine for a while... probably longer than it should have... but mid-October means Thanksgiving... which means people coming over.  Strangely, these people want food, and not a partially finished vintage Tamiya chassis... so this event (in conjunction with an out-of-country work trip right afterwards), saw the project get boxed up and placed back down in the basement. 

Once in the basement it got buried under something else. 

And so it sat...

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

:(

Well, a few weeks ago I dug it out and decided I'd start painting up a new shell for it.  The Frog has a super easy paint scheme, so I figured I'd bang it out in an evening or two.  This assumption would be my first error...

So..... I sat down with a roll of Tamiya masking tape, an x-acto knife, and proceeded to waste an evening (and a lot of tape) trying to figure out how to do the masking on something so "simple".  Eventually I gave up, put it back in the box, and time continued to move on...

Last week, I stopped by the (always more and more depressing looking) LHS, as I was in the area and had some time to kill.  Hmmm...... Tamiya masking tape was in stock in 10mm, 6mm, 3mm, 2mm, and 1mm widths.  Maybe this is what I need to paint a Frog?  Picked up a few widths to try, and left quickly before I was tempted to pick up the Grey Edition ClodBuster they had on the shelf.

Fast forward to this weekend, when my wife had the opportunity to take a trip out of time, and I was left a few hours of the elusive "Free Time".  With one hand filled with a ridiculously expensive amount of masking tape, and the other grasping a Frog body, it was game on once more...

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It should be noted, that masking The Frog is just straight up terrible.  :lol:

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Any amount of love that may have sprouted for the quirky-AF ORV chassis was quickly washed away by my inability to quicky or effectively paint a simple 3 color body.  The hands on the clock swirled around furiously as I slowly masked away with a wallet-worth of tape...  Soon the clock would strike [enter some time here], and I would be finished..... the masking for the first color.

:blink:

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With time having lost all meaning, I diligently journeyed on... somehow forgetting to take many pictures along the way...

Somehow another body got worked into the mix... different, yet the same....

The black went down.....

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...and then the tape came off.... 

But then the tape went back on... different, yet the same. 

More paint, but now black was pink... and then the tape came off yet again...

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18 hours ago, bRIBEGuy said:

masked away with a wallet-worth of tape

Never use Tamiya tape for the whole body, your wallet will thank you for that. Use them only for the edges of the paint. Use cheap painter tape for everywhere else. 

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39 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

Never use Tamiya tape for the whole body, your wallet will thank you for that. Use them only for the edges of the paint. Use cheap painter tape for everywhere else. 

Ha ha, true story, right? :lol:

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Not my best work, but not my worst either.

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There is a tiny spot of black overspray I missed, but in general I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Next up... stickers, and the continued internal debate about whether or not it's worth it to try to source a NOS rubber switch cover...

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Cleaned up the OG side lights...

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And re-lemoned them... :lol:

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And some flat black for the light backs and driver bases (which already had the bodies painted in flat white in an invisible step somewhere in the middle of this post...)

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Stickers are starting to go on... forgot how starkly clashing the red bits look on a pink car... :lol:

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And lights on... and switch in...

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Busy evenings have slowed down progress, but the driver is slowly coming together...  The OG manual suggests the helmet color is your choice, and "my choice" was decided by my wife and daughter to be the same "Lemon Yellow" used on the lights.  Makes sense, so why not?

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I've sprayed the last couple helmets I painted, and as such, forgot how much harder brushing on paint is to get a nice smooth finish...LOL.

Added some color to the meaty bits...

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And some creepy white globs to be detailed later...

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Continuity is king, so seatbelts now match the helmet.

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Silver buckles and a bit of (extremely poor) dry brush detailing on the torsos was added.

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My daughters Midnight Pumpkin needed a bit of a servo update, so the vintage Futaba S148 that was in it got moved over to Froggy steering duty...

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Nice to have matching bits for Go and Turn...

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Before and after... scary to think that there is a potential 39 year gap between these bodies!

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Got the driver finished up last night.  Or at least, that's what I thought until I went to post this and in looking at the pictures realized I forgot to close in the eyes a bit more, fix a few spots, and add eyebrows... :lol:

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At least I got him mounted into place and everything before I realized my goof up.  :rolleyes:

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I did end up fixing the eyebrows at some point (and by "fixing" I mean "added some"), and believe it or not, even finished up the project...

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I'm not going to lie and pretend like this restoration flipped my opinion on The Frog and turned me into a fanatic... though it did give me a bit more of an appreciation for it's quirky design, and for its (arguably fugly) overall aesthetic.  

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The "Pink & White" did grow on me... no doubt in part to also finishing a Midnight Pumpkin in this colorway recently as well.  As such, I opted to run with it (albeit in a pretty lazy and uncreative way) and bust out a quick DT03 "Neo Frog" variant as well...

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