Southern Scale Trail 2023 - The Action and Photos Thread

[87lc2 2575]

You made the right choice...As much as I love RC there's nothing that would keep me away from a clean shower and my own bed at night.  Hope tomorrow goes well. 

[Mad Ax 8385]

Well, I'm back! I decided there was no point in arriving early, so I had a relaxing morning, got the Hilux fixed and have only just got here. Still around 6 hours of trailing ahead of me so plenty of fun to be had. Just going to check in, then take the Toyota on the trails.

Bit of rain this morning has cleared the air, should be a little cooler

[Mad Ax 8385]

The Hilux did well given its lack of ground clearance, but it's time to take the Big 6 out for another run over some tougher terrain. I thought I'd get the fleet out for convenience

[Tamiyastef 1629]

Is that a Cherokee towing a trailer? On what chassis as I may ask? 

[Mad Ax 8385]

Well, big 6 was fab all around the woodland section, made it over most obstacles and could be winched over the rest. No breakages and only 1 2200mAh 3S pack used, despite the motor being rather hot! Going to run the micro now, then break for lunch before the show and shine scale run thru mallet creek

[Mad Ax 8385]

1 hour ago, Tamiyastef said:

Is that a Cherokee towing a trailer? On what chassis as I may ask? 

Yes, the Cherokee is a Proline body on an old SCX10 G6 Edition chassis. There's a thread fairly close to the top of this forum somewhere as I recently updated it.

There's a thread on the F150 Trailer too with loads more info.

Just had a cheeseburger to replenish all the calories I burned this morning, going to take the jeep and trailer out for a bit. The mallet creek scale run starts in 30 mins but I can't remember the format. Will be there to get pics, there will be some nice rigs on display 

[Tamiyastef 1629]

Thanks for documenting all this, will take a look at the Cherokee and at the trailer thread.

We have your yesterday's weather today overhere...

[Mad Ax 8385]

We made it back from the show and shine, lost a wheel about 20 metres from the van and had to come back on 3 wheels. Or 5, depending on how you look at it. The trailer probably helped counterbalance it.

Been overcast and drizzly all morning but the sun is out again now, there's a cool breeze and lots of people have left already, so it's nice and quiet.

I haven't driven the FJ40 yet, I need to do that after all this work building it

[Tamiyastef 1629]

1 hour ago, Mad Ax said:

lost a wheel

Looks to be no real damage, just the wheel that worked itself loose. Way better than a broken axle or something like that.

[Mad Ax 8385]

Well folks, that's it for SST 2023. It's been a blast, today was awesome, the fj was superb for a small wheel rig and Big 6 has not disappointed. Had some issues with a sticky brush in the last hour but otherwise it's been a dream to drive.

Just throwing the last of the trucks in the van, then I'll set off for a relaxing drive home in the sunshine.

It's not all over for 2023 yet, tho - the UK Scaler Nationals are less than 7 weeks away, and I'm considering doing a Tamiya Junkies meet in between if I can raise the funds.

I'll be back on during the week with the event photos and a full write up, but for now, I'm off home for a pizza and my first alcoholic beverage of the weekend 🙂

 

[Mad Ax 8385]

20 hours ago, Tamiyastef said:

We have your yesterday's weather today overhere...

Yes, Sunday was definitely cooler - a bit of rain in the morning but not heavy enough to need a jacket, I stayed in shorts and t-shirt all day.  Warmed up in the afternoon, enough for the hills to be challenging but nowhere near as roasting as Saturday.  Our forecast said it would be around 30 - 31 degrees, it rarely gets any hotter than that in the South West.  Maybe warmer indoors, but I've never seen 37 on a thermometer in the UK  

17 hours ago, Tamiyastef said:

Looks to be no real damage, just the wheel that worked itself loose. Way better than a broken axle or something like that.

yeah, it's a common problem with these wheels.  The recess in the hub nut cover is too narrow to accept a flanged nut and too shallow to accept a locknut, so they're fitted with plain M4 nuts, which invariably work loose, no matter how much threadlock I use.  Plus, those hub covers take 8 tiny machine screws, so they're a real pain to get off to retorque the nuts before every run.  It wasn't the only wobbly wheel by the time I got back, I think some others are about to come off.

Strange thing is, I didn't even notice!  I was towing the trailer back from the scale village to the van when I decided to attempt one of the tougher hillclimbs.  I didn't get too far (I didn't expect to tbh) before it dug in, I tried going forward and back a few times but it still wasn't having it.  I heard some other people talking about losing a wheel, but I assumed they were talking about something else - from where I was standing, I couldn't see the missing wheel.  I managed to get the truck unstuck and back down the hill before I realised the wheel was off, then I had to scramble up to get it.  Then I foolishly decided to put it on the roof rack to drive it home, it fell off and rolled into a muddy puddle 

I'd forgotten to bring my kinetic tow strap, I could have strapped the tyre to the rear to help counterbalance the missing wheel.  What I really needed was a feral bloodbag hanging off the back.

[Mad Ax 8385]

So - I was gonna do a full write-up on the SST, but you all got a fairly good blow-by-blow account of what went on, so I don't think it's really necessary and there isn't much to add.  I just pulled over 300 photos off the camera, I've skipped through them all real quick, converted them and uploaded them to the album.  You can browse them all here if you so wish:

https://tcphotos.net/album/Zcx3

A few additional points from me that didn't make it into the live-action updates:

I spent a long time driving the BOM on Saturday.  It's still rubbish.  The rear end is much better behaved with my inboard shock setup, but the front is still way too floppy, and it falls over a lot.  I bumped into another BOM driver and we talked loves and hates about it - he said his was totally planted and would easily do everything his mate's LCG rig would do, I said mine was loose and floppy and fell over all the time.  We both agreed the standard body and cage are awesome, although he had junked his in favour of a conventional body and rear shock setup.  He had Losi shocks on the rear, but still had the BOM shocks up front, which are definitely a weak point - I need to consider something better all round for mine.  We both also agreed the stock tyres are mind-blowingly good for what they cost.

In the end though, I took the BOM back to the van because I was fed up with it falling over all the time and swapped it out for some scale driving in the  Class 1 Bitsa Bruiser instead.

I haven't driven the Bruiser in a long, long time - I'll probably put an update on the thread about it sometime.  It surprised me how well it went and how scale it looks crawling around the scale town, although it couldn't do many of the wooden obstacles in that area - it's just too low down.  But for proper scale driving, it's great!  Unfortunately it lost a screw holding the top link onto the front axle really soon into the run, I limped it back to the van but would you believe it?  By the time I got there, the screw holding the other end of the link on had come loose and the link was nowhere to be found!  Fortunately, as I'd decided to head home that evening, I had time to make up a new link in the workshop ready for some scaling the next morning.

The new Toyota FJ got some track time too.  It's a little low for the real technical stuff, but the bottom is fairly smooth and the brass rock sliders work really well, plus the overdrive from the Element transmission helps a lot around the technical stuff.  Despite having very basic FTX axles with 2mm hardware, it survived some pretty hairy driving and nothing broke.  And it just looks fabulous.  Even with (or perhaps because of) those basic FTX shocks, it rocks and rolls just like a real truck over the bumpy stuff.  In some ways I was disappointed that the new FMS FJ is getting popular now, for all the work I've put into mine I could have just bought one that looked just like it, especially as most of the really special stuff is hidden away inside mine.  As my wife pointed out, you really can't see the cage at all when the shell is fitted - you'd never know it was there.

[Mad Ax 8385]

Rig of the weekend though was Big 6.  It's an absolute beast.  I still think the tyres could be better - the Chyraxes look right but just don't offer the same level of grip as the genuine Proline items.  But, add the servo winch into the mix, and it's unstoppable.  It's a seriously heavy rig, and those winches usually aren't up to much, but it gave it just enough to get the tyres to bite and haul it over just about anything.

It's tall, and top-heavy, so it'll roll over on a hill - maybe I can lower it just a little to help with that - but otherwise it's planted.  It's nice to have a rig that doesn't get beached on breakover or flip over backwards on climbs.

Only drawback - the motor and battery got seriously hot after a long run.  I've never known a scaler get hot before.  It's a 16 turn 5-slot, so probably a little too much RPM, I can swap it out for the 20 turn in one of the other rigs.  It'll probably need a rebuild before the next event, as the brushes started sticking towards the end of the day.  Hopefully the comm isn't burned up too bad, but I can always skim it.  I don't think I can gear it any lower, it's got the biggest possible spur, smallest possible pinion and there's no space to get a reduction unit in anywhere.

[87lc2 2575]

Big 6 is awesome!  I need to buy (or make) a 6x6 truck some day, its been on my list for quite a while.  My dad brings out his 8x8 Cross trucks quite often and its amazing what those things can do even with stock tires. 

[Mad Ax 8385]

The trailer went really well, although it's very bouncy, having a lot of weight and no shocks, which upsets the tow rig a little.  I also lost a couple of little screws from the leafs, so they twisted and caught the wheel - no damage, and I didn't even notice until I was unpacking on Sunday evening.  I managed to get it over a couple of obstacles, and it'll be fun cruising it around at the next event.

OK - more about the event!

Usually my favourite part of a scaler event are the long courses.  50 to 100 gates, and even a crazy 500 gate perimeter trail, are the norm at the Scaler Nationals.  There's something about starting at the beginning, then queueing up behind a load of people to tackle it gate-by-gate, and the mixed feelings of completion and relief when we reach the end, which really makes the events worthwhile.  Scaler Nats usually has half-a-dozen or so courses, so all the competitors can spread out and avoid big queues from forming (ISTR on my first year it took over an hour to get through the first 20 gates because of the queues).

Well, SST does it differently, with an all-new perimeter trail system.  There's a course that starts from the car park, and goes around the entire site.  It's painted out, not gated, and it's designed to be tackled by ultra scale rigs, so no hard rock climbs or awkward side hills, just a nice, scale-happy crawl around the park.  Then there are 20-gate courses leading off of it.  Shorter courses means less queues, plus if you get to a course and it's busy it's easy to skip past to the next, and come back later.  Plus you can never get lost as long as you can find the painted trail - just pick it up and follow it and eventually you'll find the car park (or another gated course).  While I did kinda wish for some longer courses, the perimeter trail system really made up for it, and meant there was a nice easy route to follow whenever I felt like it was all getting too much.

The small-scale stuff was cool too.  I ran my 1:18 around the smaller courses.  Dang, that thing needs some work!  No weight, no grip, way too top-heavy, and no turning circle.  But I can see why people like it - I'm not sure I'll bother investing in mine, although I was very tempted by a set of Traxxas tyres from the hobby shop at the site.  If I found someone selling brass rings for the wheels I might have bought them.

Mallet Creek was inspired.  They had a competition for the person who built the best 1:10 scale building.  I kinda fancied having a go, but a) I had too many rigs to build and 2) I've got nowhere to keep a scale building, so it would have to be flat-packed and would no doubt get damaged in storage.

The Show'n'Shine was a neat touch as well.  Entry was free, competitors had to choose their most proudestest rig and drive it through the creek in a scale fashion.  All manner of different things turned up, and the judges picked what they felt was the most scale.  Loads of pics in the album but here are some highlights:

This is not Mad Inventor's rig - this is another builder from the south west:

So - to sign off, an epic event, very well set up, and well worth a visit if you fancy testing your rig over all manner of terrain.  Roll on September 2024  

[Mad Ax 8385]

6 minutes ago, 87lc2 said:

Big 6 is awesome!  I need to buy (or make) a 6x6 truck some day, its been on my list for quite a while.  My dad brings out his 8x8 Cross trucks quite often and its amazing what those things can do even with stock tires. 

It was a seriously fun project, but very challenging, and now it's done, I love it.  I think there are still challenges - the up-and-over routing probably adds a lot of drag, which is why the motor gets hot, and it's really tight for space.  Those propshafts weren't cheap and I'm wondering how long they'll last.

I'd actually love to make a 6x6 monster truck, with a freer transmission for some big-wheel bouncing.  A Clod is the obvious choice because it avoids any transmission issues, but the ones I've seen never quite hit the spot for me.  One day...

[OldSchoolRC1 921]

Very cool pics and write up - looks like a great time was had by all!

Interesting your feedback on the BOM, I found mine to be super planted and very capable. Wondering how we could come to completely opposite conclusions. I installed my rear shocks in the V configuration, I can't imagine that made too much difference. 

The Big 6 looks like a beast!  

[Tamiyastef 1629]

Weird that one BOM is praised for being planted and another one is falling over so many times the driver gets fed up with it, on the same front shocks... 

I love this rig