DT-03 Racing Fighter

[alvinlwh 5895]

4 hours ago, Kol__ said:

Amazon UK have the whole kit for £80 (free Prime delivery in the UK) at the moment

That kit is actually sent from Amazon EU (DE IIRC), so should easily be available for any EU buyers.

[skom25 1245]

Quite funny, because I found Neo Fighter on Amazon even cheaper.

Racing Fighter is exactly 80 Pounds in my Shop. I heard few years ago, that Tamiya prices are fixed. I am no sure if it is still true.

[alvinlwh 5895]

10 hours ago, skom25 said:

Quite funny, because I found Neo Fighter on Amazon even cheaper.

Racing Fighter is exactly 80 Pounds in my Shop. I heard few years ago, that Tamiya prices are fixed. I am no sure if it is still true.

I believe Amazon may have enough leverage to have a different agreement with them. However, mind you, many Tamiya kits, RC or static, are more expensive on Amazon.

I keep track of a few key kits' prices. A few kits comes up cheaper every now and then. This DT-03 is one that remained cheap(er) constantly, but it was £72 around the Christmas of 2021, so it had gone up by over 10%.

A TA-02 was cheap for a while last year when I picked one up for the budget rally challenge, but it had gone up past hobby shops price now. I think the TD4 is still slightly cheaper.

[skom25 1245]

Weather is getting worse every day, so I still have time to upgrade model before first run. 

I bought stainless shafts and mounted in two places. Unfortunately, 3x22 shafts are not available. I hope they will be delivered soon.

I will not disassembly gearbox from chassis to mount them. I will do this during nearest service.

Two questions to shafts:

1. Can I use them instead of U - shaped bar in front lower arms?

2. Can I use them with front Uprights?

I painted body but effect is bad. It was too cold, too humid, too everything... Colour also is different that I expected. There is no even one thing that I like in body I prepared.

Everything what could gone wrong, just gone wrong. I will try rescue situation with some magic tricks, stickers etc. I am not very mad, because it is still only body which sooner or later will be scratched or damaged. 

Good thing is that I did some mistakes on each step of preparation and painting, so in future I will avoid them.

[BuggyDad 4475]

1 hour ago, skom25 said:

Two questions to shafts:

1. Can I use them instead of U - shaped bar in front lower arms?

2. Can I use them with front Uprights?

I painted body but effect is bad. It was too cold, too humid, too everything... Colour also is different that I expected. There is no even one thing that I like in body I prepared.

Everything what could gone wrong, just gone wrong. I will try rescue situation with some magic tricks, stickers etc. I am not very mad, because it is still only body which sooner or later will be scratched or damaged. 

Good thing is that I did some mistakes on each step of preparation and painting, so in future I will avoid them.

1. Because the u shaped bar ties the left and right together, I think if it was replaced with separate shafts you would create a very weak link, because without it there's just plastic chassis parts not designed to do that job. Although it's simple and non-adjustable, I think for what it is it's a decent part of the design.

2. I believe this is where the 22mm ones go. 

Bad luck on the shell, but once stickered and run I bet you'll soon forget about its faults. 

[Nick-W 1494]

22 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

A TA-02 was cheap for a while last year when I picked one up for the budget rally challenge, but it had gone up past hobby shops price now. I think the TD4 is still slightly cheaper.

Quite expensive now. I had it on my wish list. Egress is only £405 though which isn’t bad. 

[Nick-W 1494]

2 hours ago, skom25 said:

I painted body but effect is bad. It was too cold, too humid, too everything... Colour also is different that I expected. There is no even one thing that I like in body I prepared.

I forgot to mask the windows on my DT-03. Stickers cover a multitude of sins and most things look great running. 

[Kol__ 3377]

19 minutes ago, Nick-W said:

Quite expensive now. I had it on my wish list. Egress is only £405 though which isn’t bad. 

Where is it £405 mate? Or do you mean shipped from abroad?

[Twinfan 1252]

18 minutes ago, Nick-W said:

Quite expensive now. I had it on my wish list. Egress is only £405 though which isn’t bad. 

Yep, cracking price that. I wish I'd waited now, although I got one from a UK seller for only £20 more so I did OK.

If anyone wants one I'd grab one before the price goes up as supply levels drop, which is the Amazon way.

[Twinfan 1252]

1 minute ago, Kol__ said:

Where is it £405 mate? Or do you mean shipped from abroad?

Amazon

[Nick-W 1494]

2 minutes ago, Kol__ said:

Where is it £405 mate? Or do you mean shipped from abroad?

Amazon EU down as the seller. I think they ship from Germany. This is how I originally got my DT03. I recently bought some TRF shocks through Amazon EU for £40 and they took about a week to turn up but there was no additional VAT or fees. 

[Kol__ 3377]

5 minutes ago, Twinfan said:

Amazon

Ah yes, I see it there now. Man is cheap, and that's got to be cheaper than the UK RC shops pay for them from the UK supplier I wonder. I hear there's not a massive mark up for the UK guys, but that could be misinformation.

[alvinlwh 5895]

3 hours ago, skom25 said:

1. Can I use them instead of U - shaped bar in front lower arms?

No! I asked the same question for a WR-02 before.

They have a hopup for that chassis which has a tie piece holding both sides together. Not sure if that will work with your chassis.

[alvinlwh 5895]

4 hours ago, skom25 said:

I painted body but effect is bad. It was too cold, too humid, too everything

 

1 hour ago, Nick-W said:

 

I just painted a body when it was snowing. Unlike static models, PC shells don't mind so much about poor paint quality as it is the plastic on the other side that determines the results, and usually when brand new, it will be perfect. Just wack plenty of paint on and usually you will be fine.*1

Now, the paint on your body don't look too even. Hold it up to light and see if there is any light spots. I think you should wack more paint on, especially on the lighter spots.

Also, you should consider backing that paint, yellow shades should be backed with white. Backing is like a primer coat in normal painting and can help with the color. There are some who will even spray multiple colors behind their main color but I don't think it make a difference. An RC body makes for a poor show model anyway.

*1 unless you are doing smoke or translucent colors which can be rather difficult to get right. For those, I use an airbrush to ensure I got the fine control.

[skom25 1245]

6 hours ago, Nick-W said:

Amazon EU down as the seller. I think they ship from Germany. This is how I originally got my DT03. I recently bought some TRF shocks through Amazon EU for £40 and they took about a week to turn up but there was no additional VAT or fees. 

Shop in my area which I mentioned few times:

https://zabawki-modele.pl/pl/tamiya-47489-17895.html

1906 PLN is exactly 360 British Pounds.

1 British Pound = 5.29 PLN for now.

 

[Nick-W 1494]

11 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

Now, the paint on your body don't look too even. Hold it up to light and see if there is any light spots. I think you should wack more paint on, especially on the lighter spots.

 

Thanks for the concern. The photo was just of the first coat, the point I suddenly remembered the window masks 🤦‍♂️. I used the masks as templates against some black sticker sheets. It looks… ok especially when running. 

[skom25 1245]

I had the same idea, just to use masks as template for outside stickers. 

To be honest, I do not understand transparent windows in models without interior. Why? I read something about race rules but Neo Fighter is exactly the same model and windows are just black stickers.

I really like Tamiya but sometimes it is really hard to understand their philosophy 🤷

[skom25 1245]

Episode 1:

I started work with body today. I was very optimistic but during sanding orange peel on wing, I went through paint to clear lexan.

I decided to do wing by myself. I had sheet of stirene. It is strange material. Very easy to work but attracts dust and particles. I am little worried that heat from engine can deform it but we will see.

It is not perfect. It was quite hard to form using hair dryer. Then I sanded whole wing with 3000 abrasive foam and polished with two Tamiya polishing compounds. 

Body colour is different but at the end, white is quite neutral colour so maybe it will not be end of the world.

[alvinlwh 5895]

15 minutes ago, skom25 said:

I started work with body today. I was very optimistic but during sanding orange peel on wing, I went through paint to clear lexan.

I decided to do wing by myself. I had sheet of stirene. It is strange material. Very easy to work but attracts dust and particles. I am little worried that heat from engine can deform it but we will see.

Body colour is different but at the end, white is quite neutral colour so maybe it will not be end of the world.

Sanding? Which side did you spray on? Any defects on the inside of PC usually will not show through to the other side. Anyway unless you managed to put a hole in the plastic, usually just wacking more paint on will fix it 

The heat from the motor (people use both interchangeably, but the difference is that motors run on electricity and engines run on combustion) is usually ok, but it does depends on the surface you run on. I run my DT-02 on a football field and it got burning hot. I ended up using a 550 motor instead.

Pro racers don't even paint their wings as it is usually the first part to be broken, so you are fine there.

[skom25 1245]

I sprayed on bottom side but effect was bad, so I tried to rescue it. On body it is not an issue, because it is not visible. 

It was the same case as during car detailing but in reverse. In car if you polish too much on edge, you will see primer. In my case I saw clear lexan.

I did not want to spray it again, because I sprayed two layers of different colours.

Anyway, it is how it is. It is just RC model for bashing around, not that funny "shelf queen". 

[BuggyDad 4475]

47 minutes ago, skom25 said:

Episode 1:

I started work with body today. I was very optimistic but during sanding orange peel on wing, I went through paint to clear lexan.

I decided to do wing by myself. I had sheet of stirene. It is strange material. Very easy to work but attracts dust and particles. I am little worried that heat from engine can deform it but we will see.

It is not perfect. It was quite hard to form using hair dryer. Then I sanded whole wing with 3000 abrasive foam and polished with two Tamiya polishing compounds. 

Body colour is different but at the end, white is quite neutral colour so maybe it will not be end of the world.

Nice creative idea. Look forward to seeing the whole thing. 

[skom25 1245]

Back to chassis and ball joints. I want to use them in lower mount of rear shocks.

I have two versions: 5 mm and 7 mm. 

5 mm seems to have not enough space ( maybe I am wrong? ). 7 mm is better but I not sure about offset. I want to have shock as vertical as possible.

This is how 7 mm looks:

Use it or not? What do you think?

BTW:

How do you remove e.g. shocks from ball joints? I saw tool like wedge but I have not found any in shops...

[alvinlwh 5895]

1 hour ago, skom25 said:

How do you remove e.g. shocks from ball joints? I saw tool like wedge but I have not found any in shops..

Just a small flat screwdriver or one of these.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_Ez23hzd

 

[skom25 1245]

Build finished. Only few minor things to improve left.

I made second wing, little wider. I also bought Neo Fighter front tires.

Not too much stickers on body. I prefer that kind of look.

[TurnipJF 9192]

On 3/13/2023 at 9:24 PM, skom25 said:

Back to chassis and ball joints. I want to use them in lower mount of rear shocks.

I have two versions: 5 mm and 7 mm. 

5 mm seems to have not enough space ( maybe I am wrong? ). 7 mm is better but I not sure about offset. I want to have shock as vertical as possible.

The 5mm ones should fit fine - they should put the bottom of the shock petty much bang on where it would be with the step screws. There doesn't need to be a whole lot of room for fore-to-aft movement, so the lack of space shouldn't be an issue.