First build comical hornet - what else do I need?

[Evilive99 2]

Picked the comical hornet for my first ever build.  Besides what the kit requires and an extra battery, what else do I need to start my RC build?  A metric hardware kit?  Oil?  Glue?  Thanks!

[waterbok 1282]

Steel pinion, ball bearings, tire glue and some led. Ah and a JID screwdriver or the Tamiya Tool Kit (blue one)

That's it.

[Bromley 681]

Side cutters, craft knife, JIS screwdriver(Philip's will do in a pinch), lexan curved scissors, paint(must be lexan compatible), Steering servo, transmitter and receiver, charger, batteries. 

Those are the essential items.

Worthy upgrades are... ball bearings and a steel pinion. The soft alloy pinions tamiya provides don't last too well.

The bearings reduce wear and improve performance and also offer longer run times from your batteries. 

As for the batteries, I would suggest the nickel-metal hydride type to start with. They are easier to deal with for a newcomer and far less hazardous. 

Lithium polymer batteries offer better performance, but need careful treatment to be reliable and safe.

Other than that a nice cosy well lit area to work and a steady flow of tea and biscuits.

Happy building!

[Frog Jumper 3663]

Beer...  cause why not???

Terry

[Juggular 4964]

As mentioned, JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) is different from Phillips.  But newer Phillips tends to be similar to JIS. Because manufacturers want to make one driver and sell it around the world.  If yours is newer, it might work just like JIS.  If your driver doesn't bite well and tends to pop out?  You might want to get a JIS driver.  

The blue set is a good starter set.  Red set doesn't have hex keys for grub screws.  

The other specialized RC tool you might want to get is a pair of curved scissors.  They are designed to cut around tricky areas.  Not a magic solution, but they work better than regular scissors, even on straight lines.  

While we are on the shell, if you are getting more than RC car, a body reamer makes nice mounting holes. 

 

[Bearings]    

Bearings give you 10% faster acceleration.  20% faster top speed (25km/h to 31km/h in above test).  Probably equal improvement in run time also.  That's pretty good for $5 -$10 worth of bearings.  (you can look for "5x11x4mm bearings," preferably rubber sealed bearings)  The plastic bushings Tamiya includes?  They attract dirt, and turn into sandpapers, grinding down metal shafts.  

Clear bodies cannot take regular paint.  If you imagine painting plastic water bottles, the paint will chip off.  That's because those PET bottles are flexible.  Just like the shells of RC cars.  Tamiya makes special spray paint for them.  They start with "PS."  PS-1 for white, PS-2 for red, etc.  I'm inclined to think PS stands for "Polycarbonate Spray."  Where as TS is, "Tamiya Spray." (TS won't work on clear lexan bodies)  

https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/list/polycarbonate_spray/kit86001.htm 

Tamiya hardly asks for any glue.  I tend to not glue tires. But I'd say more people glue tires than not.  Up to you.  Clear calk you use on kitchen sink can be used on tires too.  Easier to peel later than superglue.  

I use plastic-safe Teflon grease designed for model trains. 

This is how much teflon grease I use.  This will probably last 300 packs.  

 

Just don't gum up the gears with automotive grease.  You can lose all the gains from ball bearings if you plaster this much.  You want to use something that's plastic safe and thin enough for fast rotation.  Included Tamiya grease isn't bad at all.  That's why teflon grease is not on top of the list.  But if you have 36 gears like Dynahead, you'd want Teflon grease.  

If you want, you can put Diff Putty in the differential.  Diff-unloading gets reduced.  Off road performance goes up 200% (that's an exaggeration, but it does improve quite a bit).  

 

 

 

And a good charger is always a plus, if you don't have one yet.   

[Evilive99 2]

Wow thank you so much for the detailed reply I really appreciate it!

[pesanze 12]

Hello guys!

I'm also looking to build this kit and I have a few questions.

1- servo: standard size?

2-paint (never painted anything before) I guess there are 2 kind of paints to be used here, for the body and for the figure, right?

3-hop ups: in general, where do you look for original hop up parts? like compatibility list model by model. And aftermarket alloy parts what do you suggest? PS: I'm in Europe

 

This would be my second Tamiya kit!

[ThunderDragonCy 7886]

39 minutes ago, pesanze said:

Hello guys!

I'm also looking to build this kit and I have a few questions.

1- servo: standard size?

2-paint (never painted anything before) I guess there are 2 kind of paints to be used here, for the body and for the figure, right?

3-hop ups: in general, where do you look for original hop up parts? like compatibility list model by model. And aftermarket alloy parts what do you suggest? PS: I'm in Europe

 

This would be my second Tamiya kit!

Hi! 

1) Yes

2) You need Tamiya PS spray paint for the shell. You need arcylics for the figure

3) Rcmart is good for giving you a sorted list by model, but once you have part numbers just google them. To be honest all i did with my Comical hornet was put a cheap 21t motor and a 20t hardened pinion in it. 

[pesanze 12]

4 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Hi! 

1) Yes

2) You need Tamiya PS spray paint for the shell. You need arcylics for the figure

3) Rcmart is good for giving you a sorted list by model, but once you have part numbers just google them. To be honest all i did with my Comical hornet was put a cheap 21t motor and a 20t hardened pinion in it. 

Thank you

i’ve ordered it!