Grasshopper and Hornet duo

[tilstad1]

My son and me just finished a gh and hornet rerelease, which is my first build since back in the 80's. The grasshopper is for my 4 year old son, and the hornet for me to have fun with him. Also I wanted to avoid getting something obviously superior for myself, which would make him feel lesser about his.

He helped me assemble gearbox, and most of the mechanicals. Only when it became very fiddly, or things had to be redone did he loose interest intermittently. He applied some of the easier decals, I showed him proper water/soap technique, he brush painted a lot of the details, figure, roll bars, nets etc, and got to torque down most screws that were used in the build. He also cut out parts trees, spray painted and screwed together the rims (tires was too hard for him to mount), and generally took part in most of it, perhaps 85% of the work.

The grasshopper is actually extremely sparkly, as it has glitter/flake type green paint. I let my son choose the color scheme, and he helped out doing some of the coats. So because of this, it was decided to do the Hornet in a 2 tone aswell to make a matching pair. I used tamiya metallic orange for the accent color.

Ball bearings in both, custom rear shelf for the gh, for some scale acessories, window nets just cause they were fun to do and looked cool. Lighting system coming soon with added dedicated 3'rd channel to both tx's. The gh is surprisingly speedy, it will spin the tires easily on floors and asphalt if one hold it up against something.

I got the gh because it had the 380, but its hardly slow. Just a tad bit slower than the Hornet.

The super sparkly green on the GH gives me associations to Star Wars 1, when R2D2 and CP3O had saved everyone and came out super shiny. It's as if the GH won the race, and got this over-the-top paintjob to show off.

I do owe a thanks to this forum though, as I have been reading it for inspiration and general interest for years.

[mongoose1983]

Fantastic paintjobs, there!

[Theibault]

Welcome and those cars look great!

[kontemax]

Glad to see a daddy with all these attentions to the son.

The choose of a Hornet for not "make him feel lesser" is great!

Max

[tilstad1]

Thank you all.

I tried to do a little better this time around as my last build in the 80's was a Fox, and I got impatient, so it received a quicky 1 day paintjob, and driver was a single color. Regretted that later when it became dusty and dirty and not so suitable for repaint anymore. My skills was not there, nor was the funds for enough paint cans.

Back to this pair though, they both have LED lighting, yet to be connected, custom driver in the grasshopper, it's a sand scorcher body attached to the GH head, which needed some trimming of the neck length to fit, as it's very snug over the esc. My son pointed out that the driver had no proper arms, so we added that change together. So now has a steering wheel aswell. All wires inside the tub were blacked out, as was Phillips head screws to add more to realism. Color matched tire lettering for the heck of it, steel antennas for roll over protection, and my son wanted the number "1" as his race number, since "I want to be the winner" as he put it.

He loved driving it, and frankly so do I. I think a pair of RC's are better, because otherwise the parent, who often put a lot of effort into building, will be overly cautious and demand the kid to be overly careful to the point it's no longer any fun for the kid. I've seen that in RC in the past. This way He can mess up and I'll be busy doing my own thing. We've already rolled them, flipped around, gut stuck under vehicles etc. But they still look great! My thinking was that it needed to look great to start with to make up for the damage that will come.

 

[BangkokBulldog]

These two look great, especially the wheel colour and tyre lettering. I definitely need to experiment with a few different colour schemes on a Hornet.

[Nobbi1977]

Fantastic. Love the look

I have just put a 80T in my Hornet for my 5year old, fast but not so fast he cannot just keep the stick forward on a large field.

This is great hobby for family's. I just got my 3 year old a 1/32 scale to get her in the right frame of mind

You have a lot more painting skill then I will ever have.

[7.3L PSD]

They both look great, I really like the color schemes!!

[XV Pilot]

I like it when people come up with their own colour schemes for iconic RCs, rather than being slaves to box art. Well done!

[tilstad1]

Added another member to the family. Green No.1 now has been upgraded with a NOS system in the back, and have had many rebuilds. Rockstar was first with a crawler motor, and no paintjob. Needed to give it a proper girly paint job to honour her taking part in this.she selected color and glitter flake. Its so sparkly it looks like miniature emergency blinking lights when its moving.

[tilstad1]

With a 3D printed driver head. In her own words; "I love it!"

[Willy iine]

@tilstad1 Awesome!  Nice work.

 

Hey, is that driver Heida Reed?     Nice job again.  

[tilstad1]

No, its my daughter. You send in a front and profile photo of both sides, and they'll 3D print it for you.

[Willy iine]

11 minutes ago, tilstad1 said:

No, its my daughter. You send in a front and profile photo of both sides, and they'll 3D print it for you.

You have a beautiful daughter.   Huh, that is cool I did not know such service existed.  Thanks for the info!

[tilstad1]

Thank you. I think it was this website;  http://www.myfaceonafigure.com/PurchaseHeads.aspx

It was meant to put on some sort of action figure, but I figured it would work just aswell on a Tamiya driver.