What do you do with spare parts from a RC Kit?

[RC_Hobbyist]

What do you do with the stock parts that come in RC kits?

I bought a TT-02 Chassis and bought a set of CVA shocks as one of my first upgrades (along with metal
bearings/bushings).
I already assembled the CVA shocks and they are ready to be put on the chassis once I get to that stage.

I was going to build the spring shocks that come with the kit and keep them as spares, in the unlikely
event that one (or all) of my CVA shocks fail and I need to order a new set of CVA shocks.

[markbt73]

I stick them in a box or a plastic tote for about ten years until I forget what car they were for, then pull them out, attempt to do something with them, fail miserably, and then put them back for another ten years.

[RC_Hobbyist]

15 minutes ago, markbt73 said:

I stick them in a box or a plastic tote for about ten years until I forget what car they were for, then pull them out, attempt to do something with them, fail miserably, and then put them back for another ten years.

I'd be the same way, since I have a Hornet Evo.

All my spares go in a toolbox, so I am guaranteed to forget which part goes to which car down the line 

[Frog Jumper]

All my spare parts and extra things go in the kit box, and the kit box goes in the closet.  In some cases (like my Frog and BF), I have separate plastic bins to keep all the stuff.

[Twinfan]

^ same as Frog Jumper here, but for closet read garage!  

[Kowalski86]

My spares go back in the box, friction shocks are useful as spring testers, or just something to hold the chassis up if you decide to retire a car.

[magnumb]

Shoe bins from Menards with a label of the kit name. Usually, 3-4 cars per bin 

[ADRay1000]

1 hour ago, RC_Hobbyist said:

I was going to build the spring shocks that come with the kit and keep them as spares, in the unlikely
event that one (or all) of my CVA shocks fail and I need to order a new set of CVA shocks.

it never hurts… you might find yourself someday building something out of spare parts and they would be handy. 
 

I typically keep spare unused tree parts in the kit boxes, and I have a little plastic caddy that I throw all of the hardware into for spares. 

[bRIBEGuy]

For me, I typically will put all the kit spares in a large ziplock freezer bag, and then label the bag with the model.  Those bags in turn go into larger plastic storage boxes, which are stashed away.

[Klausen]

Parts related to the car, I keep in the kit box. Screws, bolts, shims and so on, I keep in a general sparepart box.

[Rokka]

I organize all leftovers and spares from models into separate minigrip-bags and then put these bags into a larger bags labeled with model name. Also pre-purchased model-specific spares go into these bags. The larger bags go into a lidded box which sits on a shelf next to other similar boxes. Generic parts (screws/nuts, bearings, connectors etc) which did not come with any specific model I keep in various organizer-boxes.

[Hypoxic]

Just took out my BlockHead Wild One spare parts in order to find the wheel adapters for the Grasshopper rear paddle tires.

[alvinlwh]

I "top up" the parts I need and build another car out of the leftover parts.

If they are completely useless, like the friction shocks, I burn them along with the box the original car came in.

[MadAnt]

I usually keep spares in multiple boxes, sometimes to save space I'll cut the parts off of the spures. I also have a box of just new parts that are still in the packaging. I try to keep a good inventory of replacement parts that I might need, because breakages do happen sometimes and many of the Tamiya stuff is not in stock at the local hobby stores.

[skom25]

Plastic parts in one box.

Each car has own small box for small parts like pinions, spurs, springs etc.

I also have the same boxes for universal parts which fit most of the cars.

I will upload few photos later.

[TurnipJF]

Big plastic crate containing Ziploc bags, each bag corresponding to a chassis type.

[JimBear]

Most of the spare parts are floating around Juniors room, and excursions are often set upon, trying to unearth the rare and wondrous Rear Wheel Hub (10+ points, with Magic Abilities). Oftentimes, Something Else of Importance is found and marvelled at. Worst case, when something isn't found, the mission is aborted and then we retreat to the kitchen, munching cookies instead.

For my own spare bit and pieces, a few yellow (PS-6) containers are used, together with shoeboxes containing hopups for a not begun Project (of whatever kind).

[alvinlwh]

The words "spares" and "leftovers" are quite different.

Spares are extras or duplicates of something in use and can be swapped in if needed. A good example of this is the A parts of the Dragon family. Break A8, buy the whole tree to use one part. The rest of the tree are the spares, spares that may never be used. 

Leftovers are extras that are not used for the particular build, usually of no use* unless one has another variation of that chassis that actually uses the leftover parts. An example of this will be the WR-02 family. 

* when a part is leftover because of a hopup, it can technically become spare. 

I will also introduce a third word, "alternatives". These are parts that are used to change the build from what it was first built as. An example of this will be the chassis length parts of the M family. 

Generally spares and alternatives should be kept but leftovers can be disposed. Being the horder, I had mostly kept all the unused bits from my earlier build taking up tons of space. This post actually reminded me to go through them and dispose of the useless leftovers. 

Literally yesterday, I placed an order for two kits of the same model because I wanted to build a variation that is sold out. 

I looked through all the instructions comparing the different trees and buy two of the cheapest variations that are still available that can build the variant that I wanted, in this case original + Ver R to get to Ver S. The leftovers from them two can then be bashed together to get me an additional model. 

[JimBear]

1 minute ago, alvinlwh said:

The leftovers from them two can then be bashed together to get me an additional model. 

Yet another TT-02?

[alvinlwh]

1 hour ago, JimBear said:

Yet another TT-02?

No, this is a static model, but the principle still applies. 

[Saito2]

With the exception of Clod and ORV monster parts (because I have a ton of them), like others here, spares go back in the kit box. Sometimes, digging around in one of those kit boxes, I'll find something good, like a lighting unit I forgot I had. I even keep sprues now as the question "what's x part made of?" comes up on occasion and the sprues have the material code on them.

[ChrisRx718]

I have 2 large boxes of spare plastics / parts sprues. 

I figure that if I throw them out, I'll undoubtedly have needed something the day after the bin collection.

I experienced this when throwing out some old TA-03 parts. Now those very same parts are difficult to obtain 

[2qwik]

Man so many so organised! Great stuff!

As my workbench is a couple of chests of (wide) drawers with a benchtop screwed to it, I simply have an electronics drawer where all the removed recievers, msc's/esc's etc go, a plastics drawer with sprues, body bits and loose parts with a shocks container in it, a sticker and decals drawer, metals drawer with screws spacers etc, and a miscellaneous drawer. Nothing is organised and its all just thrown in there. No idea whats from what but I always find what I need for whatever Im doing.

[Nikko85]

Most of my cars are either from the Quick Drive range or the GF01/MF01x/TL01 family.

Any QD spares go in a box with QD on it.

The rest I put in an increasingly full box. To make matters worse the box is also black plastic, which means finding anything is awful.

I should bag them up by type, for example GF01 arms, MF01x arms, TL01B arms etc. etc. but frankly I'm too busy.

I did spent some time organising the little bits like pinions, bearings, dogbones etc all really neatly, but the spare parts sit spare.

I have pretty much got enough to build a spare chassis, and I've got something in mind, so when that happens I will collect up the missing pieces.

 

 

 

[Andreas W]

I have until now kept the boxes, so all spare parts go into the box and is kept in my hobbyroom/workshop in the basement. If I get hopups I put them into the corresponding boxes, if not fitted straight away.

 

The same way it goes for future projects. The Optima Mid 60th has a box on top of it's box with spare parts,  hop ups and electronics, and beside it is the Carten M210 FWD. 

 

New tyres are kept in boxes and not exposed to light. I tend to buy in bulk, when I order from abroad, so now I have a buggy and rally box and an M-chassis box.