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Dr_GN

Old Tamiya 1/16 tanks - or similar?

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All,

My 13 year old son wants an "engineering" project. Something to mess about with in the garage, that he can do on his own. Bit of soldering, bit of mechanical stuff. Like he's doing at school I think, but he wants to do his own thing.

At his age I was tinkering about with old lawnmowers, and built my Tamiya Frog when I was 14.

I was thinking I could get him a knackered Tamiya 1/16 tank, or some other older Tamiya vehicle - the stuff that's got plenty of metal parts. Something with a decently complex gearbox (hence the tank idea) would be ideal. If parts are worn or missing, he can make replacements, or buy/adapt spares if necessary. 

Question is, where to find a suitable candidate? Obviously I don't want to spend a fortune, and I don't want to buy a 'perfect' example, or even something that currently runs. The point would be to take something broken, and fix it. I've looked on EBay, but prices seem pretty high, and to be fair the items for sale look to be in much better condition than I'm looking for.

Any other suggestions welcome. Cheers.

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The old Tamiya tanks from the 1980's cost a small fortune when new and sold in relatively low numbers - decent examples are hard to find today and even the poor examples command good prices as people seek them out for parts to restore another model. I recall buying a 58028 Toyota Hi-Lux around 1982 which was about £130 at the time and the tank kits were probably double that, maybe more. 

Maybe think about Meccano ? Plenty of it about.

Building a tank from Meccano is probably a good project for him to tackle - plenty of engineering potential and no problem sourcing the rare spare parts as you would have with a vintage Tamiya model.

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My wife wants a tank, she wants to paint it pink (think 'Tank Girl'). The prices for the 1/16th tanks are high enough that short of a lotto win I don't think we'll be indulging. I'd love to build a tank myself, they look like great fun. Mechano might have to suffice.

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Thanks all,

I've got a load of Meccano, including plenty of gears, but I'm not sure how it would go. He definitely wants an engineering project where I'm not interfering with what he's doing, and designing and building a tank gearbox  - not having really used Meccano very much - I think would be a big ask at this stage.

I was thinking if he was to start with an assembled but inoperative mechanism/device, that he could a) figure out how it worked and b) figure out what needed doing to get it working. Stripping and rebuilding would also give some ideas on how things are designed.

Not saying Meccano is a bad call - it's excellent, but as I said, not sure he'd be ready. Perhaps if plans were available it would be a different matter. 

We have an FDM 3D printer, and he can use Fusion 360, so the combination of printing, Meccano and basic materials/tools, could make an excellent project, but undoubtedly it would have to be with my input. He isn't at the level where he could design something like that from scratch.

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I just did an ebay search for "tank chassis" and found several Heng Long 1/16 chassis for around £50 plus postage, which isn't a bad start.  Also if you look on the Chinese marketplace sites there are tracked chassis for robotic projects.  I considered one for an RC project but decided it was probably a bit small and lightweight, however if he's interested in engineering and modifying, robotics is a brilliant start.  Also gives him the option of using an Arduino as well as RC stuff, which will be a good introduction to software design, an essential skill not just for budding software engineers but anyone who wants to work in research these days.

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2 hours ago, Dr_GN said:

Thanks all,

I've got a load of Meccano, including plenty of gears, but I'm not sure how it would go. He definitely wants an engineering project where I'm not interfering with what he's doing, and designing and building a tank gearbox  - not having really used Meccano very much - I think would be a big ask at this stage.

I was thinking if he was to start with an assembled but inoperative mechanism/device, that he could a) figure out how it worked and b) figure out what needed doing to get it working. Stripping and rebuilding would also give some ideas on how things are designed.

Not saying Meccano is a bad call - it's excellent, but as I said, not sure he'd be ready. Perhaps if plans were available it would be a different matter. 

We have an FDM 3D printer, and he can use Fusion 360, so the combination of printing, Meccano and basic materials/tools, could make an excellent project, but undoubtedly it would have to be with my input. He isn't at the level where he could design something like that from scratch.

Have you thought about Technic Lego ?

Easy to build gearboxes, diffs, etc...?

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2 hours ago, Tamiyabigstuff said:

Have you thought about Technic Lego ?

Easy to build gearboxes, diffs, etc...?

Yes, we've got loads of Technic. Trouble with that is you end up blindly following an instruction book, invariably building a huge gearbox into a model that magically "works" at the end. I find there's very little actual learning of how things work, or why things are as they are.

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3 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

I just did an ebay search for "tank chassis" and found several Heng Long 1/16 chassis for around £50 plus postage, which isn't a bad start.  Also if you look on the Chinese marketplace sites there are tracked chassis for robotic projects.  I considered one for an RC project but decided it was probably a bit small and lightweight, however if he's interested in engineering and modifying, robotics is a brilliant start.  Also gives him the option of using an Arduino as well as RC stuff, which will be a good introduction to software design, an essential skill not just for budding software engineers but anyone who wants to work in research these days.

I'll have a look at the Heng Long stuff, thanks.

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Second hand you can have Heng Long tanks for a bargain. Only Tamiya tanks are expensive, new and second hand. But Heng Long tanks are not bad and are good engineering (upgrade) projects. 

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I looked at the Hong Long tanks, but the gearboxes seem to be pre-assembled and riveted together, so is there really much scope for getting individual spares or repair? Do they have suspension?

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18 hours ago, Dr_GN said:

Yes, we've got loads of Technic. Trouble with that is you end up blindly following an instruction book, invariably building a huge gearbox into a model that magically "works" at the end. I find there's very little actual learning of how things work, or why things are as they are.

Throw the instruction book away and go free-style. Thats how you learn with Lego.

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For Heng Long and Torro tanks there are many upgrades and parts available. Look at Leopard 2 (torro-shop.de) for upgrades spare parts etc. My brother has many 1/16 tanks and does a lot scratchbuilding and tuning. 

Most brands have suspension.

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