Tamiyaddiction part 1
“The term addiction can be used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user himself to his or her individual health, mental state or social life”.
Thanks to Wikipedia I can confirm I am an addict.
My name is Mark and I am hopelessly addicted to Tamiya.
When Simon asked me, somewhat tongue in cheek, to write an article about my collection of Tamiya RC cars, I thought OK I’ll just let you all know I have built up a small collection of cars and I enjoy a couple of shelves in the spare bedroom that house a few of my favourites.
But then I got to thinking, I should say about the cupboard full of NIB kits and the fact that the loft has all the ones in it that don’t fit in the cupboard. Which is OK because that leaves space in the loft for all the NIB body sets and NIP spares for the restoration of several cars. So hands up who knows what NIB and NIP stand for? I have found these acronyms invaluable in finding ‘new in box’ and ‘new in pack’ items to complete ‘the collection’ using auction sites.
Which is what Simon wanted me to wax lyrical about. ‘The collection’.
This is how it began.
Since before I can remember I have been fascinated with cars and when dad came home in 1986 with a Tamiya Holiday Buggy. Sporting a massive (literally) 6v of power and a Mabuchi 380 motor I have been hooked by the red and white Tamiya logo. The red side meaning passion and the blue side meaning precision. Well our passion was ignited and in time my 13 year old thumbs would cope with the precision of racing these bad boys around our local race track.
We lusted after the more powerful cars. The Fox, Boomerang, Hotshot, and the pinnacle of all things Tamiya the Avante. Never earning enough from the paper round to upgrade to the latest model. Tantalisingly close but always out of reach. We raced our Hornets and Sand Rovers on the beach, in the forest, on holiday, after school, even at school when it was show and tell, I can tell you all my classmates confirmed me as the single biggest geek known to man that day.
We only paused to charge our 7.2V 1200mAh batteries on an old 12V battery and a simple resistor charger. Not even a timer in those days, leave it too long and come back to a pile of smoking metal and acid. Not the safest thing in the hands of easily distracted teens!
It was relentless, new tyres, new bodyshells my poor parents must have been going insane. No homework got done, very little revision. How things have changed as I write this article from my work bench trying to look busy on proper work stuff. Halcyon days indeed.
Then as quickly as it started it was all over. College, real cars, Uni and perhaps the single biggest drain in any man’s life – girls.
But it lurked. It waited. It waited for 10 whole years before sneaking into a men’s magazine. FHM, August 1999 in among the semi clad babes and essential man articles sat two small pictures a Subaru Impreza and a Mini Cooper and a tiny red and white logo. Something distant stirred, those stars, the superb scale bodyshells, those two words ‘radio controlled’. Were Tamiya selling an actual Mini Cooper and a Subaru Impreza? What had happened to the off road buggies? Before I knew it I was stood in the local model shop staring in wonder at shelf upon shelf of proper scale RC cars. The ubiquitous Impreza, Toyota Corolla WRC, Evo IV, BMW Z3, no off road buggies but it didn’t seem to matter. I had to have one. Just one, it couldn’t hurt, could it? After much deliberation I was leaving the shop with a shiny new Subaru Impreza on a TL-01 chassis.
And then came the killer blow, my new best friend Richard said the immortal words to me. “Are you going to race it?” Race it? Where? when? how?
I know now that Tamiya had won. I tried deserting the fold for years but they had me.
Worse was to come though Tamiya had two aces up their sleeve.
Written by mark.
Radio Control Car Price Rises
I learned from my local hobby store (Reality Racing) yesterday, about the latest increases in UK prices for Radio Control Cars…
For example, the HPI E-Savage RRP is now £324.99! That’s a huge increase from £249.99. And a massive amount more than I paid when it was in his sale just after Christmas!
The weakness of Sterling is really hitting the hobby in the UK at the moment, so much is more expensive, as pretty much everything we use is made outside of these shores. It’s impacting how people are racing too, often choosing slower classes to save ongoing maintenance and tyre costs. I personally am planning only a limited number of touring car race meetings through the year, probably a local club championship, and a regional champtionship.
The majority of my week in week out racing will continue to be with the Tamiya Mini, which is cheap and cheerful. And of course I’ll continue bashing with my E-Savage, which is great, as I can get my RC fix without having to wait for a race day.
Written by simon.
Schoolboy Error…
If you’re gonna mess about with motors at midnight, remember to test them afterwards…
I put my car down on the line for my first heat tonight, and it went backwards…
Turns out I’d soldered the wires on backwards. And they were too short to just swap the connectors over… Had to borrow a soldering iron and redo it…
Written by simon.
Midnight 540 Fettling
I had a bit of a moment last night, I was on the way to bed, past my bedtime at about 12:30am… and I ended up messing with silver can 540s for an hour.
The one I’ve been using in mini this season is not the same one as last season, but they are both identical black-end Johnson 540s. This season’s just never seemed to have qute the same edge, even though looking through the slots the brushes seem a lot more bedded in.
So I ended up testing all three (including an old metal ended one), and true enough, last seasons seemed to sound the fastest when connected to a cell pack.
But oh no, that wasn’t enough, I then cleaned them all, motor cleaner, brasso, cotton buds, motor cleaner, re oiled bushings, comm dropped them. All three of them! It was now 1am…
Re-testing found them all sounding a little faster than before, I think, but last season’s still sounded the ‘brightest’. So it got refitted (I swear RC’s worst ever job is refitting a motor to an M03 mini…), soldered in and we’ll have to see how it goes on Wednesday night.
I can’t help thinking though, it still doesn’t seem to be totally run in, those brushes aren’t perfectly fitted to the comm, even though it’s had dozens and dozens of meetings, it was used by the previous owner for a year before I got it, I ran it for a year too. Should I pull it out again and try the old water (or better, Coca-Cola, apparently) dunking trick?
I got to bed at 1:30am, sigh…
Written by simon.
Lazily addicted…
I’m now in my third period of radio control car addiction. The first was in my teenage years. The second in my mid-twenties. The third, I’m now in my thirties.
It’s clearly an addiction: I’ve tried to give up twice, though I’m not sure why. So, I just carry on, trying to find a balance and not taking it too seriously, being lazily addicted…
