Getting "stuck" in a segment of the the hobby.

[Saito2 6686]

When a RC enthusiast begins to acquire a larger collection, many times its not uncommon to have a variety of vehicles from various segments of the hobby, i.e: 2wd/4wd buggies, monster trucks, crawlers, trail trucks, touring cars, F1 etc. My collection is embarrassingly, um, not small (isn't admitting you have a problem the first step to getting better?) Rather than aimlessly wander about, I tend to get in "moods" where I'll dive hard, down a rabbit hole based on which segment caught my fancy. It might last 2 weeks or a month. Everything else seems to take a backseat as I concentrate on that one segment. Currently, I've been doing nothing but working on my mod Clods, specifically builds that recreate or mimic the popular Clod chassis from BITD in the States. I've got ESP, Bennett and Sassy Chassis style builds going on now all at once. Its fun and satisfying for me to focus that hard but it is unfortunately to the detriment of my other projects. I don't sweat it because I know eventually I'll swing back around to other segments and pick up where I left off. It is a little sad to see my Avante sitting off to the side, patiently awaiting my attention.

I suppose this scenario isn't much different then how our other hobbies tend to be cyclical. I was just curious if others find this cyclical nature of interest within our one hobby of RC based on its segments.

[Willy iine 18806]

I think I am the same way, it's just that my RC collection is much smaller so I only get to do one car at a time.  

I think the only difference (?)  is that I tend to look at my RC hobby from high level, meaning the entire "pretend RC shop" is one unit and project.  So I may be working on a Optima MID this week, but it is indifferent from my M38's as it is all part of the same project.  My styrene projects, shelving decor.. heck even going to the office for my money making gig..all towards the same project..

In more macro level, I also have my 1:1 car hobby and music hobby which usually take turns through the seasons.  I play keyboards and my cajons all through the year, but I don't compose music usually in the warmer months.  (honestly my DAW has been asleep for more than a decade..) 

 

[BuggyGuy 1106]

I'm very similar with builds, but very different with racing. I'll race whatever is running locally, but with builds I also tend to go through phases like yourself.

Last phase was TRF buggies, and now they are all complete I'm onto TA series touring cars.

Next will be M-Chassis I think.

I don't tend to try and have one of every chassis, but will go for ones that have easy availability of parts, so for M-Chassis I'll probably stop once I have completed M05 onwards.

[El Gecko 1344]

My segments are more seasonal--fast buggy-type cars in the dry sun in the summer, either on tarmac or dirt, and in the soggy spring/fall and winter, it's all crawler all the time.

I have felt like something is missing lately though. My Grasshopper/Hornet hybrid has been going through a mostly aesthetic series of upgrades and has been on the shelf since like June. The only thing holding me back from driving it now is taking some good pictures before I go mess everything up again

The other general segment I want to get into is 4WD. I have an SG Coyote somewhere, but can't seem to find it. That was my only experience with 4WD back in the day, and it was... less than optimal. Having just done a refresh on my cousin's 4WD Slash, and seeing so many cool 4WD builds on here, has definitely piqued my curiosity about 4WD. Plus I can clearly see the benefits of true 4WD crawling vs. the more simple "tough trail" running I'm doing with my 2WD monster truck.

[OldSchoolRC1 984]

I've been running crawlers and trail trucks pretty much exclusively for the past decade. I restored and built a few Tamiya's in the meantime to scarcth the "go fast" itch,, but my focus has been on trail trucks. I think I've finally burned out though, and am now working on some bashers (I'm on a T/E Maxx kick right now having picked up 2 rollers in the past 3 weeks) I even fired up a nitro for the first time in what, 12 years? 

Switching up every now and again keeps the hobby fresh for me (and my bank account drained!) Going back and working on a nitro was like a trip down nostalgia lane, and re-sparked my interest. Thankfully, I've amassed quite a collection over the past 30+ years so I can switch things around pretty easily. 

I will say as I get older, I find building, fabricating, and wrenching to be the most interesting part of the hobby. I don't spend much time behind the wheel anymore. I'd say about 1/3 of my collection has never even seen action. 

[GermanTA03Guy 1327]

I'm not Stuck. Theres So many different things you can do with a ta03. 

[Big Jon 684]

I’ve found that I fall into rabbit holes. I’ll go nuts with a certain niche for a while, return to the center, paint bodies for a few months, build plastic models, fool around with Mini4WD, work on restorations, go into hermit mode, do nothing but trail machines, and so on. 
It keeps the general hobby interesting.

I’ve been really into M chassis lately, with my MF-01X taking a different direction, a new M06, progress on the Cup Racer, the M07 getting some unnecessary hop-ups and a new body, and a couple of used M-Rage chassis on the bench currently. 
 

 

[berman 5315]

5 hours ago, BuggyGuy said:

Next will be M-Chassis I think.

I don't tend to try and have one of every chassis, but will go for ones that have easy availability of parts, so for M-Chassis I'll probably stop once I have completed M05 onwards.

🤣 best of luck with that... if you find a cure, lmk

[Mad Ax 9329]

I can be a bit like this.  For a while, all I was interested in was monster trucks, I bought several kits and made 2 custom-chassis trucks during 20 and 21, and even bought an LMT earlier this year after saying they were too expensive and I'd never own one.  Same with crawlers too - at the end of 2020 I decided to get a CFX-W to "replace" my ageing SCX10 that had been doing trail duty for many years, and I loved the build so much that I fell right back into the hole, and bought 3 new crawler kits since then, and still can't keep my mind off getting another (even though the last kit I bought is a half-assembled box of bits and I have absolutely no idea what body to put on it).

Back in 2019, I was all about the big rigs.  Pretty much all I'd worked on for ages was big rigs - custom trailers, Beier installs, lots of mods to make my rigs more realistic.  The lockdown in 2020 pretty much killed trucking for a couple of years, and even now the scene doesn't seem to be recovering too well.  My rigs came out once for a meet last year, but I don't know when they'll come out again - meets seem to be happening on an ad-hoc basis due to low attendance, and I need solid calendar dates work them into my plans.

But, all of that also works around events.  If I'm racing in the Iconic Cup then a lot of my build time will necessarily be about vintage touring, as I have to get my race cars ready.  Entering in the Revival means necessarily getting 4 buggies ready to run - a 2wd car, a 4wd car, and because Revival and because England, getting 2 wet cars ready as well.  Even if my focus is entirely on monster trucks, or crawlers, or big rigs, my build time must be directed towards getting those cars done, otherwise I won't enjoy my racing.

[Nikko85 3455]

I've found I'm only really interested in trucks based on real cars. On road, racing and buggies just don't to it for me. When I started I really got stuck into a 1/16 scale, using the Tamiya QD series and smaller chassis like the GF01 and cut down MF01x. I would source ebay for old Taiyos, and then use the body shells.

I ended up with these, plus an extra QD or two that I bought super cheap.

This was quite fun as it has meant that I had to be creative, but I really wish I has started at 1/10 or 1/12 scale, as there are so many more options. I am actively now looking to trim my collection down with all my QD and smaller scale stuff, but as it's all modified there is probably no resale value, so it'll probably go in the loft for a while until I find again in a few years and give to Felix (or nephews etc.)

 

[87lc2 2666]

I think most of you know where I stand on this    I am admittedly an RC Monster Truck junkie, can't get enough.  It's even worse now than I'm racing 2-3 weekends per month, gives me an excuse to keep building, modifying, and spending.  I'm sure at some point I'll tire of it, but having regular events attached to it and actual goals makes it even more fun.  

Definitely into other forms of RC, but haven't done much with them lately.  I was really big into crawlers for a few years and still love them, but don't get to use them as much as I'd like.  Same goes for buggies and other fast stuff, not as much time to get out and use them.  I rarely sell anything so luckily when one of the other genres piques my interest again everything will be right there and I can pick up where I left off. 

 

[Wooders28 4723]

I get a notion every so often, to try a different path of RC. Bought a drift car, got bored after 2 laps,  swapped it for a fitbit. Bought an F1, and just couldn't get to grips with it at all ( turned out, it wasn't the best example ,so may revisit with a new chassis at some point), and currently getting badgered by @neowhizz to get a mini atm, for indoor racing over winter...

With most of my projects, they've sat for a while, collecting parts as and when they crop up at an exceptable price. Once its all pretty much there, load them into the boot when I'm nightshift , then it's head down and crack on when I get a quiet shift. Unfortunately, not had a quiet shift for a good while, so things have just sat.

The 1:1 is the main project to get crossed off the list atm,  so RC will need to take a back seat , although,  I've still the DT03 sat in the dining room, waving at me, every time we sit down to eat..😬

[berman 5315]

Think I'm at 18 or 19 M-chassis cars? With the M08R to pick up next week..

I'm looking at the drag cars now, they have that cool Losi Magnaflow F100 drag truck in my LHS, and also the chassis only set, and on top of that I've ve always been tempted to do a RC version of my 1:1, and Jconcepts does a (albeit poor) version of the body. The downside is I don't have a lot of interest in just doing straight line RC.

Also my LHS has a Losi SBR 2.0 which would be cool, but it's a hefty price tag, and would need 2x 4s batteries as well 😬

 

🤷

 

[Willy iine 18806]

@berman Wow, that's a lot of m-chassis.   Are those all Tamiya cars?  

[berman 5315]

8 hours ago, Willy iine said:

@berman Wow, that's a lot of m-chassis.   Are those all Tamiya cars?  

Yes, all Tamiya cars, all Tamiya bodies. Would like to build some 3rd party mini chassis cars also (like you have) 🙂

[moffman 5752]

Very interesting reading what you guys do with different types of rc and I think we all basically do the Same jump from one to the next when we are building or doing rc project's! I was really bad with going from one type to another and it got a bit out of control with suddenly having a passion for monster trucks for example and spending an absolute fortune then they would take a back seat in favour of some other rc so a few things would happen! it would quickly empty my bank account  and I would never finish a build because of the flip flopping so a few years ago I made the decision to just concentrate on the rc buggies that were the racing machine of my younger days and I've just stuck with that but it's sometimes not easy at all with some of these super cool looking monster trucks and pan cars I did buy and build the Mercedes c11 a few months ago and I absolutely  loved it but knowing I was going to sell it! it was just the building experience I wanted but it looked superb but it had to go..........them their the rules!

[markbt73 5316]

Oh yeah, I definitely go through phases. Most recently it was getting back into on-road, both pan cars and touring cars. Before that it was wheelie machines. Before that, monster trucks. Each phase seems to last a few months. I haven't painted two of the pan car bodies yet, nor finished building one of the touring cars, so maybe that one is waning a bit? Who knows? I have had an itch to go back to the static models for a while now...

I do have some constants: scale/trail trucks are here to stay, though my interest in them ebbs and flows. Same with pre-1990 buggies. And since I have largely stopped buying and completely stopped selling, my collection will remain stable from now on, forcing me to focus on what I have and really getting everything I can out of them. But the nice thing about this hobby is that as long as you take a few precautions, the stuff keeps well. It's there waiting for you when you want to pick it up again. I mean, a bunch of my models are 30-40 years old already; what's another year on a shelf?

And like @Willy iine, I tend to take a holistic approach to my model car hobby. Everything is in one room, both RC and static, and most of it is out on display. So when I work on something, I'm changing the look of the whole room, however subtly. It's the room full of stuff as a whole that makes me happy, not any one particular model.