Weird Things You've Done With Your Tamiya

[Saito 5]

When you collect old Tamiyas, you're bound to find some odd things here and there that previous owners have done. Some are creative and others...well, just leave you wondering what the previous owner was thinking. I thought back to my childhood and realized I did some pretty odd stuff too. My first (and for the longest time only) Tamiya was a Lunch Box. Being 1/12 scale meant alternate bodies were few and far between so I got the brilliant idea to make my own after seeing a section in my '87 guidebook about it. Hobbyshops didn't carry any Tamiya fabbing plastic sheets so I used cardboard, cardstock or whatever was handy. Some I made weren't bad and others were downright awful. Regardless, all it took was one rollover and the thing was a crumpled mess, but I kept making the things. I also had a habit of painting wheels. I lusted after the beautiful alloys that were available back in those days but in no way could afford them. Sooooo out came the Testors paint and I'd have "chrome" wheels with gold centers for my Lunchie. Looked just like Technicrafts...sorta...um, maybe not. Ah it was all fun though wasn't it?

[Tamiya on the Brain 0]

another good topic - was gonna start one of similar nature as I found that building these kits ( for some) went far beyond the manual and spurred the imagination of some ( for good or bad:) to kloodge parts together for their rides

I remember making a cool wheelie bar once using some aluminum sheets and rear derailleur gear from a mountain bike that was worn down. Worked quite well

[wilsonian 41]

When I was a kid I once got my Fox up on a marquee roof and drove it over the top - loads of fun but couldn't get round in time to catch it on the way down - still a tough little ****** though - just a bent aerial

[30cms 7]

me and few friends strapped a solid fuel rocket engine to an old tamiya renault F2 car back in 95. (you know, the yellow one)

we had high hopes, but it didn't work, and the car caught fire and melted to a sticky blob.

thinking back on that now, i cringe, as i got the F2 car in a lot of parts and cars - and the renault body parts set was brand new in its box.

[kaiser 8]

lol, i did the rocket engine thing too, on a grasshopper with snow ski's on the front.

mine didn't melt or catch of fire though.

[Singapore_959 18]

lol, -

"Weird Things You've Done With Your Tamiya"

This gets my vote for the scariest thread title award!

I am almost frightened to read what gets posted up!!

[floppydisk35 0]

Hmmm... It must have been when I tried to drift my RC down a road steeper than Laguna Seca's corkscrew. It got caught in wild grass and debris at the side of the road itself, and I ended up rolling the thing for around 4-5 times. Did I mention I did it in my stock FF01?

Another weird thing that I'm gonna do in another FF01 is to transform it in a FWD dragster. Yeah, I love FF01's

[Corpse Thrower 16]

When I was a kid I used to tie the radio box on my Ranger shut with an old sock because I lost all of the cam locks

[slimmy 0]

When i was young, I used to melt the plastic parts on my hornet back together because i couldnt afford to buy new parts. plus i didn't want to waite for them if i did have money. melting plastic to reinforce cracks worked better than super glue.

Oh, and one time i left my hamster on the pool table. and the darn thing chewed the felt all up from between his cage bars. I was so mad the next day i took him outside and chased him up the street with my frog. Never could get him he was to quick and just jumped to the side.

[dannos85 0]

Brand new fully hopped TL-01,

Melted my MSC and and brushes on a nosram tornado motor in under 10 minutes

Ur wondering how?

Well I cable tied a house brick on top of the chassis for traction and pulled myself along in my wheelchair

I was only 16 at the time

[Novastar 241]

I took the drive shaft out of my old Avante so it would be more fun trying to control it in 2WD mode and I'm sure it weighed 10% heavier than normal due to the amount of solder I piled onto the terrible mess of wires to keep it going. I really should have spent my savings on a brand new kit but well it was an Avante so I had to have it.

[Swarm 242]

Hmm interesting topic .

Made up a thing out of Meccano for my first FAV back in 1986 to give it another set of back wheels and motor so it had 4 wheels on the back I attached a seperate battery to the Meccano jig (motor) I made I had no control over speed it just went flat out was crazy looked very different I guess I was bored and tried to experiment with different ideas .

Also at the that time I was lucky enough to live on the water and had access to a boat ramp I had a R/C fan boat Aeroflyte Platypus I tied a piece of strong string onto the boat and the other end to my FAV which was on the boat ramp and got a mate to operate the boat on the word go we both gave each R/C full power to see who would win the FAV pulled the boat out of he water and dragged about it 20 metres smashing the boat to bits I miss that boat and have been trying to find one ever since.

If I had my time again I would use a bigger boat

Had a R/C plane when I was younger as well tied fishing line to the back of it with a fish hook I think its still hanging in a tall gumtree about 100 feet of the ground I dunno what I was thinking obviously not much

What can I say I was young bored and stupid and probaby a six pack short of a carton in the brains department

Stuart

[Mad Ax 9329]

Years ago when I was in my teens and "too old" for pocket-money, my only runner was an ancient Grasshopper with a Fox body that I'd managed to bodge together out of parts that I'd been given. Me and a lad who lived on my friend's street were taking it in turns to play with it, and it flipped over on a curb and smashed the front shock tower off the chassis.

I was way too broke to buy a new chassis, so I took the metal shock tower and shock off an ancient 3-speed Hi-Lux and, using lots and lots bits from a mechano-clone type kit, managed to attach it to the chassis. So I basically had a standard Grasshopper shock on the right, and a big metal tower with an aluminium shock on the left, and lots of metalwork and bolts and things holding it all together. It looked seriously bad and drove even worse. A few days later I got hold of some money and bought an NIB Kyosho Sand Master nitro buggy, which was a huge mistake - I should have bought a new electric buggy or just restored the Grasshopper.

I did plenty of other wierd things in my youth. I had a Mud Blaster, but the big wheels were too much strain on the servo so I put some well-abused Brat wheels up-front. It looked odd but it accelerated and turned much better and the battery seemed to last longer, too.

We had a swimming pool at my parents place, so I decided to make an airboat. For the hull, I used the centre section out of an inflatable dinghy that had been ripped out by some overzealous dinghy-diving by a friend who came to stay from Germany (oh, those were fun days!) For the propulsion, I used a 5-inch airscrew that I acquired from somewhere (I don't know where!) Power was provided by a Tamiya stick pack and an MSC, all contained in a framework of Lego Technic pieces and held together with sticky tape. The rudder was a bit flat Lego panel (used for building bases for houses etc) on a big square Technic frame, operated by a servo stuck to the frame with sticky tape. Even the motor wires were attached to the MSC by being twisted around and bound with electrical tape - I had no soldering iron in those days.

The whole assembly was a bit too big for my pool and it wasn't that reliable - it would cut out or fall apart in the middle of the pool - but it was great fun. On full power it would accelerate pretty fast, although sometimes the motor power was enough to disconnect the Lego tower that it was taped to and it would collapse in the middle of the pool and I'd have to wade in and get it. Handling was great - making it stop was really difficult but with full power and full lock it would turn really quickly.

Then there was the time with a Nikko aeroplane - I think it was a Sky Ace, or something - a 2-channel polystyrene/plastic trainer that actually looked pretty good and would fly for 10 minutes off a 6v stick pack before the motor cut out, leaving enough power to glide it back in to land. Anyway, a freak accident with an overhead electricity cable left us without a tailplane, so we retired to the workshop and pinned and glued it back together. After an hour we decided to give it another fly. Up it went, up and away, round and around in circles, way up over the hills and out of sight. We'd forgotten to reconnect the pushrods. I've no idea where it ended up - we never found it

I'm sure I'll remember some more crazy stories later on.

[JAnderson 59]

Chased a friend down the street with my blackfoot while he was driving his 1:1 ranger. That was until he drove over it once then backed over it again.

[chris350z 0]

the restiter caught fire on my blitzer beetle.

lol

chris

[PaPeRo 30]

About 10 years ago I lived at a place that had a kidney shaped swimming pool. I used to drive my WRC Corolla around the edge of this pool like you would around a racetrack. Well one day while stopped I tried to back up and the car slipped into the pool. I ran to catch it before it sunk to the bottom but it was well underwater. After pouring the water out of the tub chassis the ESC started smoking.

Another time the same car got partially ran over by a real car. The real car had stopped just in time but my RC car was halfway under the front tire. After the real car backed up I discovered that my RC car's body posts were very bent but miraculously no damage to the chassis.