Things you've never done with a Tamiya

[Re-Bugged 10138]

Hummmmm........Build a 1/14 Truck is probably highest on the ‘Like to list’ I find myself getting more into just making the best job I can of a kit now as I have a few runners. When I’ve built something and given the paint the best I can I suppose I feel a bit more attached to the thing so any thought of driving to destruction doesn’t even enter my head. 

As for your SRB on the beach dilemma though @Saito2, my SRB has been well used and nothing’s ever broken (apart from loosing a windscreen wiper somewhere!) and is only on a Silvercan 2s Lipo. It does struggle a bit in really deep soft sand but that is more to do with the ball diff I suspect than anything. I avoid wet sand for corrosion as well. I did buy some 2mm x 6mm strips of aluminum to stiffen the chassis but never did as it’s not got a powerful motor in it, 

There are some mud flats near me that I find suits it best for me, mostly firm with loose stuff around the edge. I now have 3 bodies for the 1 chassis. A Buggy Champ ‘Shelfer’ but does get a poke around the garden and gentle run. A runner Buggy Champ and a runner Sand Scorcher that I enjoy running. 
 

 

[pourMoneyIntoSea 55]

when I was small I drove my friend's Tamiya hornet into a lake. the water was so clear that we were able to watch it going further and further, deeper and deeper. finally the thing went out of signal. my friend looked at me. I looked at him. we looked at the lake. 

[TDanny 146]

6 minutes ago, pourMoneyIntoSea said:

when I was small I drove my friend's Tamiya hornet into a lake. the water was so clear that we were able to watch it going further and further, deeper and deeper. finally the thing went out of signal. my friend looked at me. I looked at him. we looked at the lake. 

I'm not sure that is this only the beginning of a horror movie or is this a complete horror movie?

Sorry mate, as a kid it must have been shocking...

[Grumpy pants 4485]

Built a new kit and completed it.

On my to do list this year and learn to solder. 

[Mad Ax 9312]

11 hours ago, Saito2 said:

I know exactly how you feel. I have an Egress re-re that I just can't seem to get out for a run in the dirt for the reasons you listed

I think I'm the same way with vintage cars.  Years back I bought a restored MadCap from @matisse.  I still remember driving around to his place late one night to pick it up.  It looked great in black and red, and looked perfect on the shelf next to my boxart Dark Impact, but I could never bring myself to run it.  I knew someone else had put a lot of work into getting it back to as-new condition and I didn't want to ruin that by breaking it.  I guess back then I saw vintage restoration as a dark art for people with a lot of patience and tenacity; not for someone like me who just likes to build and run.  I'd hate the idea that I'd break a rare part and have to spend months searching for a replacement, or box it up and forget about it, or sell it on at a loss.

Virtually all my runners are either re-res, vintage with re-re parts support, or modern stuff with plenty of parts available.  I don't even run my TL01-LA any more since LA kits became harder to source.

7 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

I have never felt the desire to build anything other than 1/10 scale.

I had exactly the same view.  I went out of 1:10 scale a few times but they never looked right on my shelves so they went on.  That's why it took me so long to take the plunge on a 1:14 tractor truck.  Now I have a small fleet of those, I find myself looking out for toy-grade 1:14 cars on clearance at toy stores and supermarkets.  Some of them have very detailed bodies and look great parked up on a layout.  Static models add a lot of scenery detail, if the price is right.

I did the same with my Konghead too.  I cut up a King Blackfoot body.  I call it my Truck of Many Wheels.

So I do now have a collection of different scales, but it annoys me that I have to.  I appreciate that 1:10 is probably the perfect size for a touring car that won't get hung up on every bit of gravel while still being small enough to carry around easily.  1:10 feels a little too small for buggy racing but at least we can run on smaller tracks - those 1:8 racers need a lot more space.  And a 1:10 scale tractor truck would be impractical for most of us to store, and they'd never drive around a village hall layout.

What annoys me more is that almost all manufacturers take so many liberties with scale.  Like, a Civic has the same wheelbase as a Volvo 850 tourer.  That's just not right.  The Civic always should have been M-chassis sized.  At least when they gave us M-chassis cars, they gave us alternate wheelbases.

Just recently an issue has come up surrounding shorter touring bodies.  Like the HPI 106, and the Tamiya Corolla WRC.  Normally you have to run these over a short 4wd touring chassis, but during discussions for the Iconic Cup it's come about that you can use M-03 parts to make an FF-02 to Corolla / 106 length.  Now, OK, the Corolla WRC was 4wd, but the regular shopping-spec Corolla was FWD.  That would be a perfect scale body for a vintage FWD racing class.  Except Tamiya never officially released the FF-02 in short spec, so it's not legal to run it in the Iconic Cup - everybody in the FF class must run standard touring length chassis.  (M-chassis class allows all official permutations of wheelbase).  This isn't a complaint at the Iconic Cup but at Tamiya, for not releasing more FWD bodies on shorter FF chassis, and for that matter, for not making more touring chassis with adjustable wheelbase and an assortment of different-length shells.

1 hour ago, pourMoneyIntoSea said:

when I was small I drove my friend's Tamiya hornet into a lake. the water was so clear that we were able to watch it going further and further, deeper and deeper. finally the thing went out of signal. my friend looked at me. I looked at him. we looked at the lake. 

Ouch.

When I was in my teens I had a Nikko RC boat.  Not a speedboat like seem to be popular these days - it was a little scale river boat thing, actually a very good looking model, I wish I still had it to use as a load on my 1:14 trailer.

A friend of mine lived near an ornamental lake, so we took it there to play.  We spent an hour chugging around near the shore before we found the courage to run it out into the middle, way out where it was far too deep to wade and probably not safe to swim because of all the reeds.

Yes, all the reeds.  The same reeds that got hung up around the prop and rudder.

We did eventually get it free, after lots of forward/reverse/forward/reverse, but it took a long time and I was terrified the batteries were going to go flat.  I was trying not to let my friend see how worried and upset I was, trying to act cool by forcing nervous laughs every time I spoke.  Funny how events like that stick so clear in the mind.  I think I was shaking with relief when we were walking back home after.

[matisse 1581]

@Mad Ax of all the cars I sold i miss that the most

[Mad Ax 9312]

18 minutes ago, matisse said:

@Mad Ax of all the cars I sold i miss that the most

If I still had it I would sell it back to you.  Actually, if I still had it, I would probably have started racing it when the Iconic kicked up the vintage racing scene a few years back, so it would probably be very well used by now.

Alas, it was one of the cars I sold during a rare moment of existential crisis back in the early teenies, when I unloaded a significant percentage of my collection onto other TC members.