A long time since I last posted!

[mud4fun]

Hello folks,

It has been a long time since I last posted on here and I'm not sure how many of the members from back then are still around. Over the last few days I'd seen a few hits on my own website that had come from here and I thought I'd pop in and say hello. I also noticed that the last thread I'd posted, about my aims for self sufficiency, had been resurrected a few years back and I thought it would be nice to give those members an update, albiet a few years too late......

First off the reason I stopped posting back in 2006 was down to the arrival of yet another baby, our third daughter. This on top of the demands of renovating the old semi-derelict house we'd bought and of creating a garden out of the hardcore and weed covered plot that the house sat in meant most other hobbies stopped. Finances grew very tight and the R/C car hobby was knocked on the head as money needed to be spent on things for the house and garden. I sold off virtually all my R/C cars (except the thundershots) to fund renovation work.

The house renovation was completed in 2007 but the garden is still evolving and our vegetable growing has expanded continuously so that more and more of the original garden is now being turned over to food production. We grow a huge variety of vegetables now and for most of the year are largely self sufficient for those so that has been a great success. Our quality of life is also really good even though money has been very tight. Sadly I'm still stuck in my old job that means doing a stupid amount of commuting. The recession put paid to my plans to sell the renovated house and buy a smallholding but that is still our dream and I hope that one day we'll achieve it.

I still get the R/C cars out every now and then. While my eldest daughter, who used to come down with me to the Clumber park events back in the early to mid 2000's, fledged the nest a few years back my two youngest daughters are now old enough to be playing with the cars and indeed last summer I had them build a thundershot each from the parts I had.

However for me, my main passion has always been 1:1 Land Rovers. I have owned at least one continuously from 18 years old until buying this house. I found myself without a Land Rover as I'd had to sell my V8 Defender project vehicle in order to pay for a set of windows for the house. It was a sad time for me which lasted six years. In the meantime I'd downsized my hobby to 1/10 R/C trucks hence the reason I was a member here for a few years in and around 2003-2006.

Thankfully after six years without a Land Rover and with the house renovations finally completed I had more time and money available to focus once more on my hobbies but this time I went back to my main passion and bought another 1:1 Land Rover, a 1960 Series II 88". I have stripped it down to individual parts and am building it back from the ground up on a brand new chassis. I also bought my wife another Series Land Rover which I've refurbished for her so I now have two of them to work on.

Clearly with my focus on my Land Rovers I've had little time to enjoy other hobbies so the R/C cars have taken a back seat for now although as my youngest daughters get a little older I'm sure I'll need to visit for some advice as I've been out of the scene for so long..

The last time I tried to login back in 2007 I couldn't because I'd not renewed my subscription. However I notice that today I've managed to login fine and it seems I can post too so I guess the policy changed at some point? Nice to be able to login again and catch up with what is going on.

For any of those interested in the vegetable growing or Land Rovers you can find more detailed info at my blog: http://mud4fun.wordpress.com.

Apologies for the long post,

Best Wishes,

Ian

[30YrsL8r]

Nice to see you back - I think I might have caused a blip in your site stats as I asked a question about traction control on a four-motor crawler:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=70298&hl=

I found your site extremely interesting and, just today, I've bought a tank gearbox to try a few experiments on

[mud4fun]

Thank you 30yrsL8r, it was indeed your posted link that triggered my return :-)

The thundershot based crawler you were looking at was built over ten years ago on a tiddly budget so was making do with what I had. However the key components were a set of rod ends and propshafts that a nice chap named TWINSET sorted out for me. That truck is still going strong and my daughters have had good fun crawling around the garden with it. If I was building another one these days it would be built with more modern technology as the lower prices and variety of parts for crawlers is mindblowing these days compared to 10-15 years ago.

Best wishes for your build

[Gruntfuggly]

Hi Ian

You don't need to be a member to post in the forums - only to have a showroom. It would be cool to get your showroom re-instated though - I still point to your old postings when people ask thundershot related questions! I remember you had some great mods in your showroom.

The RC world is definitely a bit different now (even only after 6 or 7 years!). LiPo and brushless are the norm and nobody is desperate for a re-re Sand Scorcher anymore

[mud4fun]

I'll wait and see how my younger daughters take to the R/C car scene in the next year or so, if they become big fans then I'll happily pay a subscription and re-instate the showroom. At the moment every spare bit of cash is going on my Land Rover as I need it back on the road ASAP.

Yes, I noticed things had moved on in leaps and bounds since I was last here. I remember building a buggy that was clocked at 40mph and back then it was considered extremely quick, now I have a work colleague building a car that will do 100+mph. Brushless and Lipos were only just starting to become widely available when I was last here and yet now they are it seems very common.

I still have all my thundershots and the parts. We built some new ones last summer and the girls enjoyed a good few weeks learning to drive them. If we ever get some warm sunny weather I was thinking of taking them back down to Clumber park for a day out.