When You Finally Get "there"

[taliesin]

you know that feeling you get, when you finally feel like you've gotten the hang of something. i'm sure it was a milestone for each and every person in the rc hobby. for me, it was just recently.

i haven't been at this hobby for that long; less than 2 years. at first it was all a complete mystery and when something went wrong i was frantic trying to figure out how to fix it. the LHS was sometimes useful and sometimes useless. when i started with tamiya, other than this website, i was totally in the deep, dark forest. nobody to ask, no locally available parts, nothing to compare to.

gradually, after hours of lurking and reading the posts, and then more hours of asking questions and experimenting, i finally started to not panic when something went wrong. sometime in the last few months i started buying some fixer uppers off ebay and recognizing what would be in my comfort zone and what was just too much. i started stockpiling some common parts that seemed to always be breaking or things that i like to upgrade with.

lately, when my cars break, i usually have the parts i need to make a quick repair, sometimes even an upgrade or permanent repair. i even found myself modifying things lately, saying to myself, "well that's not very good, this would work much better." and usually it does. sometimes it is a train wreck, but i haven't panicked or freaked about it. its just something to laugh about, and then go back and fix correctly.

most of my collection is now tamiya, with only a few exceptions. it seems like the philosophy and ease of repair has struck a resonate note with me. it also really helps to have a nicely organized box of spares that easily interchange. and to kind of know what part or hop-up is likely to work with what model, and which models i like and which don't appeal at all.

this last couple of weeks have been frustrating in some ways, but really satisfying in the ways that matter most. i'm knocking on wood really hard now, but it is a pretty good feeling to know the training wheels came off somewhere along the line, and i didn't even miss them. it just took awhile to notice.

[ryanbored]

it also really helps to have a nicely organized box of spares that easily interchange.

I tidied up my model room today, and now wanna build summat.

Organisation is so satisfying when you've lived in mess for weeks/ months!

[Dazza1]

Ryan if you want to build something I have always got that nib Repsol cosworth you want sooooo much.

Come on part with that well earnt wonga.

[taliesin]

i knew i should not have jinxed myself; while running my GHII this afternoon a front shock broke and i saw the whole front corner take a dramatic plunge - right before the buggy flipped end over end over end ... yeah, you get the picture. not a pretty sight. little bits of yellow plastic flying around. chunks of chassis laying about. steering links bent beyond repair.

the chassis is completely destroyed and one shock is pretty mangled and here's the jinx:

i have absolutely no idea how to fix it.

i think the sum total of the GHIIs in the world was suddenly reduced by one today.

its as if millions of GHII owners suddenly cried out in pain and were silenced.

[Danbox]

its as if millions of GHII owners suddenly cried out in pain and were silenced.

I got a good laugh from that.

[taliesin]

ok, so i found a chassis for a super hornet that will work, rebuilt the shock from bits i have laying around and have 2 viable ideas to replace the steering links. the shock looks a bit frankenstein, but who cares, it works for now. i may need to fabricate some stuff to make steering links, but it should be ok.

now that i've had some time to think about it, this is fixable. if i couldn't find a chassis, i really wasn't interested in messing with it, but if a chassis is available, then....

we can rebuild it, we can make it better than before. better, stronger, faster... the six million dollar GHII.