Ever done a spares build?

[GermanTA03Guy 1163]

Hmm not REALLY but i always build ta03s so all of my spares are compatible. And you can build a front motor, middle motor, short Version with front or middle motor. Rally car (long dampers, long springs) or onroad car...Its a real versatile Plattform , a bit like rc car lego.

[Dakratfink 824]

I built a T Maxx mostly out of spares , but to be fair , most of the spares were acquired at the time I bought my other used TMaxx with a bunch of spares included .

I did buy a new engine from Tower and a wheels and some misc bits from a kit breaker ( Jenny’s RC ) 

[Juhunio 6766]

It makes me shudder a bit to think about it, but yes, once or twice:

The genesis of each build in the thread is either gathering so many Hop Ups that I ended up with enough spare parts to build a whole new chassis, or starting with so many Hop Ups that it didn't make any sense to then buy a kit and instead just gathered everything else and built the whole thing from parts. It's financially insane, but it is how I love to approach the hobby...

TA04-R

TA04-TRF

40th Anniversary spec TA02-SW

TB Evo III

TB02-R

FF03-RR

TT02-Type S (and some)

Next up is either going to be this Mini Cooper M05 with a shiny red chassis...

Or this full-option carbon TA02-W with a red, white and blue theme...

Either way, I have a lot of painting and decorating to do this summer!

[Pylon80 1022]

1 hour ago, Willy iine said:

I've done it in the past when I was poorer.. 

Right, building by bits is such a money saver... 

[Willy iine 16955]

1 hour ago, Pylon80 said:

Right, building by bits is such a money saver... 

I didn't mean it in an offense manner.  Not sure why you took it that way.  It is fact that I was more in tuned to make things out of scrap when I didn't have much disposable cash.  People saw a few random plastic bits, I saw a car.  The random shapes I combine to make garage accessories out of styrene all come from that experience.  

[Gebbly 503]

15 minutes ago, Willy iine said:

I didn't mean it in an offense manner

I dont think Pylon80 was offended? I read his response as humour. As in lots of people do it thinking they will save money but end up spending more. Like when I do all the DIY. The thought is always that I will save money....I just need to buy a few new tools first

Cool little pump by the way.

[Willy iine 16955]

2 minutes ago, Gebbly said:

I dont think Pylon80 was offended? I read his response as humour. As in lots of people do it thinking they will save money but end up spending more. Like when I do all the DIY. The thought is always that I will save money....I just need to buy a few new tools first

Cool little pump by the way.

Oh okay..  that's good.  I wasn't trying to p i s s anyone off, so.  

[Pylon80 1022]

No, not offended at all Willy. But I think it is good to let would-be bits-a-builders realize that making what would have been a 300$ kit touring car (for example) will set them closer to a thousand dollars once bits have been sourced one by one. We see these cool builds all the time here on TC. It is also a common misconception that a few perfectly usable sprues will make a car. Small items, perhaps less visible will make the cost escalate very quickly. On the lower end of the budget scale, I have considered many times building just another TT-02 because I had a lower deck and some arms and a pair of diffs and a motor mount. We upgrade these so much that we end up with what looks like 90% of a car (that would be absolute junk being stock). But soon you realize you need a spur and a pinion and the spur cover and shocks and a servo saver and a bumper and... see where this is going? By the time you have bought what you needed you spent 250$ on something rather lame that would have come with a body for 120$. Now there is nothing wrong with spending a lot of money on something we enjoy. There is also some excitement is seeing the result take shape (literally) one part at a time. So yes there are many fun aspects to it but I do not think saving money is one of them. Again no offense taken at all 

[Pylon80 1022]

1 hour ago, Willy iine said:

Oh okay..  that's good.  I wasn't trying to p i s s anyone off, so.  

I could make a "do as I say not as I do" build thread where I would explain how I converted a TT-02 from standard to Type S and it cost be about the same as a TA08 kit! I am sure a lot of people have had similar experiences.

[Kowalski86 1607]

Technically my Frog was originally picked up as a "parts car", but it ended up being in better shape than the one that I wanted to restore.

Otherwise its rare that I hold onto spares once a projects done, usually I pass them on to someone else to help their project.

[Tamiyabigstuff 798]

I built a few Tamiya R/C cars up from 100% new spares - but this was around 15 years ago when the parts were cheap and readily available.

Sonic Fighter, Striker, Falcon, Astute, Super Astute, Madcap, Saint Dragon...to name just a few.

Buying a NIB vintage kit only to then go ahead and build it seemed like the wrong thing to do...that and getting another big box past the wife...much easier if just a few spare parts arrive in the post every few days.

I think it would be more of a challenge these days as the spares supply just doesn't seem to be there.   

[RichieRich 502]

I have built probably 4 or 5 RC10s from spares with different options. I could probably build another one or possibly two. As some have already mentioned, this was at least 15-20 years ago when parts were cheap and no one cared.

[Kowalski86 1607]

2 hours ago, Tamiyabigstuff said:

I built a few Tamiya R/C cars up from 100% new spares - but this was around 15 years ago when the parts were cheap and readily available.

Sonic Fighter, Striker, Falcon, Astute, Super Astute, Madcap, Saint Dragon...to name just a few.

I think it would be more of a challenge these days as the spares supply just doesn't seem to be there.   

It depends, re-building a cheap model like an M03, TL01, Hornet, Grasshopper, or what not wouldn't be hard. Yet, there was a time when I had a Hotshot chassis and I wanted to complete it, but it was difficult to find a lot of the replacement parts despite it being re-released.

Also, I would've made my Frog into a Brat, but finding either shell (let alone a Brat kit) isn't easy, at least here in the US.

I can only guess that Tamiya focuses more of its production on its recent on-road models than some of their re-re buggies.

That being said, my Grasshopper has a transmission and headlights from a parts bin deal. The original transmission was fine, just full of gross black grease. The spare headlights were just painted nicer. I dunno why but I prefer "scrap" builds more than all original stuff.

[BuggyGuy 1062]

I built a TT02 entirely from the spares bin, I had a buggy version and an on-road version - both with a few hopups and ended up with enough bits kicking around build a stock version I run in my local clubs spec class. I built an associated RC10B3 as well from a huge box of spares I found in my parents shed - though I did need to order some new imperial size bearings and screws to complete that one, and a body.

Only other build I've done entirely from parts (but not from my spares bin) are my TRF201s. Built an XR version and a standard version entirely from NIP parts as there were no kits available at a price I was willing to pay. It was still expensive to do - but nowhere near as much as some ebayers wanted for NIB 201s. I'm only a few parts away from another new build 201 as well so I probably went a bit OTT with that particular chassis (but it's the best 2WD buggy Tamiya ever made IMO, so ...)

Probably only a few bits away from being able to build another Ultima ReRe so I might do that next (but I'd have no spares to take to race meetings then), and I'm contemplating an Optima Mid LWB from parts as well as I think I can get one at the spec I would like cheaper than getting a NIB ReRe and all the other bits I'd need for a race grade car.

Theres way too many older out of production cars I'd like to new build to add to my collection TBH. I'd like to do a Yokomo MX4, and a Losi XX4 - but far too many parts are so rare it wouldn't be practical (or affordable!) to justify it - and if you raced the things you'd need a few extras of the rarest bits, so it's a none starter really.

Cheap hobby this RC lark 

The saving grace of some of my builds is that they are worth quite good money in their condition, so if I really needed it I think I could get quite a lot for a few of the rarer cars and parts I've acquired over the years

[Jonathon Gillham 4430]

I've built a TA07 from the leftovers when I hopped up my other one.  It wasn't entirely spares though, I had to order a few specific bits for it, as well as some unnecessary hopups for my other one to free up parts.  Still, given what I had done with my first TA07, it was a really cheap second TA07 which is actually a decent club racer now.  Since I converted mine to an RS7 the spares TA07 had good hopups too like the carbon stiffeners.

I guess I've also built a TA07MS from parts too now that I think about it...

I can see the appeal to get a car that you couldn't get otherwise, but obviously its cheaper to buy a TRF420X than hopup a car, even if that limits you to just having one car and not all the extra cars you get from hopups

[TheMidnight Pumpkin 179]

I’m building another Clod Buster from scratch/leftover parts. I love building the regular kits. But building from a random pile of parts is 10x more fun!

[Saito2 5650]

3 Clods, 2 Blackfoots, 1 Frog and 1 RC10 in my collection were spares build in my fleet.

[BJoe76 567]

I did that with my Grave Robber bodied Wheely King, it’s at least half made up of spare parts of other trucks and the kit was bought to try and build a Super out of, but with a sudden lack of interest, that failed. I then added 4WS and the Proline Clod rolling stock as well as going from a XL5/Titan 12t to the VXL system that is back in it now.

[Big Jon 634]

I built a couple of Traxxas Stampedes and Slashes out of bits that were around, and my DB -01 is 100% option parts except for hinge pins, bumpers, and wing mounts.

I built an RC10 BITD with 100% aftermarket parts, and an Anza/Proline Slash a few years ago that didn’t have a single Traxxas part on it. 

There’s at least two complete TT02s in my parts bins including screw bags and pogo sticks, and I’m pretty sure I’m just a gold tub away from another short arm RC10.

My Houge RC10 appears to be an old bitsa build too, with a variety of Associated production run parts (including a cut first run rear bulkhead) and Houge chassis, shock towers, trailing arms, steering with a very nice 6-gear, almost like someone bought a complete Houge conversion and used spares to complete it.

Building a roller out of spares is a good way to organize the hoard.

 

 

 

[Gebbly 503]

1 hour ago, BJoe76 said:

I then added 4WS

Ooh that sounds like an interesting thing to learn how to do. Did yo have to take the normal front steering fro another car and then adapt it to run in reverse?

3 minutes ago, Big Jon said:

Building a roller out of spares is a good way to organize the hoard.

I aspire to "a hoard"

[BJoe76 567]

1 hour ago, Gebbly said:

Ooh that sounds like an interesting thing to learn how to do. Did yo have to take the normal front steering fro another car and then adapt it to run in reverse?

It was pretty easy, the front and rear axles are identical with the only real difference being the steering lockouts. When I converted the Grave Robber to 4WS, I bought a second Servo mount for the axle, along with a second servo, second Servo saber, matching parts for the tie rod and drag link, and since it was rear battery at the time, a Servo lead extension to get to the Rx.  If you’ve converted a Clod to Servo on Axle and 4WS, it shouldn’t be much different.

Here’s the stock steering and rear lockout.

then what it has on it now.

 

And then here is an old video of it in Action with a 3s and read battery, I’m hoping on 2s with a front battery and the current Spektrum AVS Rx, it will be more manageable.

 

[Gebbly 503]

35 minutes ago, BJoe76 said:

here is an old video of it in Action

Ooh now thats a tight turning circle. It looks like it isnt just 4 wheel steering locked together but independent steering too? So you can angle front and rear wheels and sort of "crab" sideways. Very clever. Are you using a stick transmitter so each stick can steer one pair of wheels?

[BJoe76 567]

47 minutes ago, Gebbly said:

Ooh now thats a tight turning circle. It looks like it isnt just 4 wheel steering locked together but independent steering too? So you can angle front and rear wheels and sort of "crab" sideways. Very clever. Are you using a stick transmitter so each stick can steer one pair of wheels?

In the video I am using an early DX3 radio where the 3rd channel holds it’s position, the one in it now is a modern DX3 that self centers when done. Wouldn’t mind putting the JConcepts Servo on axle on my Clod, then I could just use the same transmitter.  Got the Clods rear steer pretty well thought out though too, even if counter only.