mustclime

Just trying to help out...if they turn out to be less than helpful, get intouch with tamiya, ask them how many tanks they are selling in canada.....that might help.

sevoblast

So show us what you've done. You may or may not have seen any of my posts, you know, how to put bearings in wheels, how to tweak suspensions, idler systems, dust sealing, PE, electrical hygene, bearings in transmissions, turret rotation tweaks, elevation tweaks, gear downs to achieve scale speeds, motor mods and replacements, weld seams, zimmerit, etc etc.

I'm sorry as heck you don't have the time to post what you actually do, what with a day job, custom builds, etc etc.

FreakyDude

Mustclime, I would bet that AAF pricing is less than wholesale pricing. ( exclude shipping and all that jazz, we are talking base price for the product ) If I get terrible service at a restaurant I don't go back. Best way to hurt a business is to vote with your wallet.

Ronan87

Huh he has posted plenty of stuff + videos on numerous occasions on multiple forums.

A bunch of members do that, which helps the community a lot. Heck, w/o all of this info i wouldn't have been able to do a clean wiring + servo recoil mod + everything else on my 2 tanks without trial and error.

I think what he meant is he doesn't have time to do it every single time. I'm pretty sure most of us don't etheir.

FreakyDude

Yeah I have seen some of your builds. I am not going to comment on them either. Same as I won't participate in this conversation any longer, so if you have some positive comments your welcome to continue posting. If all you want to do is try and flame someone or something then have at it. My skin is too thick for finger pointing and puffed egos. Your opinion on what I have done or do has no bearing on the satisfaction I hold for my projects. On my tanks it is my opinion that counts. On the ones I have made it is the owners opinion that counts.

ausf

It is for me. Tamiya's list price is so high, even the typical 40-55% wholesale offered puts them the same or higher than AAF on most kits. The only time it ever got attractive enough to buy through a distributor for me, you were talking volume incentives. AAF is providing a great service, they certainly aren't getting rich off Tamiya.

White Tiger88

I had my local hobby store try to carry Tamiya tanks and all i can say is....Damn he would need to buy 5000 in tanks to even have them sell to him along with duty and so on he worked out there is so little profit there is 0 point in carrying them here. On the other hand maybe Tamiya will drop there prices one day........(lol i know)

Oh and after reading about how people are saying Heavy Tanks suck for RC battles due to there speed i was just thinking that it would make sense to have an effective gun range, Tanks like the Tiger 1 & 2 generally had way better range and power......

no12skyline

You're in Burnaby and that's a lot closer to the border than some of the other Canucks. Have you tried calling if any of these retailers would stock a Tamiya tank that you could drive over to pick up?

And no it would not make sense to have range limiting for RC battles because everyone would just field heavy tanks. No one would want to buy or build a Sherman or Pz IV when for about the same money you could have a Tiger, King Tiger or Pershing. On that basis, the Leopard 2A6 would be damn near invincible because its 120mm smoothbore cannon would own anything else on the battlefield and rounds fired by WW2 tanks would simply bounce off or be taken care of by the reactive spaced armor.

sevoblast

The only problem with making a cross border run is you never know what you will run in to at Border Control when returning. If the luck of the draw gives you an inspector who's hung over or has an ingrown toenail, your tax and customs duty can grow exponentially. Where I live now, parcels of less than E 200 are, in both theory and law, duty free. Over E 200 the customs is 20%, same as the theoretical VAT. The reality is I've had to make a contribution to the Border Control Pension and Ladies of Easy Virtue Fund on parcels of as little value as E 50, and yet had parcels of way over E 200 have come in duty free.

In my experience the worst countries to ship to are EU in general and Norway, England, Spain, Italy, and Canada in particular. The progress of the parcel can be glacial after entry in to said countries and duties can become confiscatory. It's gotten to the point that a couple of countries are going to be put on the 'don't ship to' list in the not too distant future.

Your emitter range argument is correct. If ranges are set to what the real tank can do, it will be heavies only and long barreled ones at that. More practical would be some kind of filter on the apple to reflect the armor of the tank. IFA is easy, you just tape off the front quarter of the apple. I have from time to time fooled around with various materials to filter the apple but have never really had the time in the last couple years to get deep in to it.

Ronan87

Doing a border cross with the goal of bringing stuff in secretly can get you in so much **** it's not worth it.

cleong

There was once I visited Vancouver BC and headed down to one of the Premium Outlets in Seattle and came back with bags of shopping. The border personnel didn't bat an eye at the amount of stuff I had in my back seat. I guess I was lucky!

Ronan87

Very lucky. I have seen them go ballistic over a box of cigs on the back seat.

i have like 50+ crossing and I hate it everytime.

Strato50

You're in Quebec though, everything sucks there It's Canada's Mexico...

ausf

I've probably got nearly twice that going the other direction to see my beloved Habs.

Never an issue going North, they always seemed preoccupied with cash, especially $10,000 which never made sense to me since a bunch of credit cards in my wallet were worth much more than that.

Heading South, they never batted an eye at the cases of Brador, but always were interested in my hockey gear, asking how much I made while in Canada. Someone in the truck always responded with, 'if you ever saw him play, you wouldn't ask that'.

Of course this was in the 80s and 90s, I haven't been Nord since the closed the Forum. [&o]

YHR

Respectfully range adjustable tanks would add another variable for clubs to play with. IF all you did was add range adjustment and never tweaked the rest of the "game" then I suppose your argument would hold water. However the ability to limit range on an IR cannon would allow other types of games to evolve. Set all tanks at a hit level of 5, and let the range dictate the strategy is one example of tweaking and deviating from the norm. The idea of each tank being given a point level, and teams rosters are made up with that in mind. Ie a KT is 120 points a Sherman is 40. Each team is allowed to field a total point count of 360. This would mean 3 KT's would have to face off against 9 Shermans

Even without range adjustment, I believe the point total method would ensure every type of tank could be utilized on the battlefield to get away from the" Bring a Heavy" mentality. Some real strategy involving team make up and tank type selection would start to evolve.

mustclime

AFF prices less than Wholesale?....not sure thats the case. I have been "upstairs" where they keep their inventory and its not like there is a 50 meter by 50 meter by 50 metercube of tamiya inventory there. Haveing worked in retail most of my like, compenies like tamiya set retail prices with 100%+ makeup over their wholesale prices.....Sure enough, retail for a tiger 1 is $1293 and aaf price is $630......my guess is they are charging a 3-5% markup on the kit and making a little on the shipping(but that is just a guess).

All I am saying is if you guys up north claim tamiya is impossable to get, then imo there is something wrong. Ether noone is has reached out to the only vender or the only vender is doing something wrong and tamiya should be told there is something wrong. They make these kits to make money, you guys are in ir tanking clubs and you are not some little snot nosed kid with no money....use your numbers, make yourselfs known, ask for things like club discounts. Tamiya just wants their wholesale prices...they want to protect their venders with 100% markups but if you can get through to them and say "here we are and your venders suck, cut us a brake on the prices of just the big tanks" you might get somewhere.I will tell you that if you do nothing....nothing will happen.

ausf

Tamiya's MSRP on the Panther is $1517. My wholesale through MMD is $910 (some product ranges are only 40%, Tamiya is one of them). AAF is selling it for $760. I haven't checked what Stevens International's Tamiya discount is (I don't have my logon info handy), but even if it's 50%, that's $758. Since AAF can get them relatively quickly and Stevens minimum is lower than one tank and they're right up the turnpike, I suspect that's where they get 'em. So maybe they land a whopping 55% discount with volume, there's very little wiggle room, especially considering the size and cost of inventory.

Like I said, they are providing one heck of a service for 1/16 tankers.

Ronan87

After 9/11 it's a WHOLE different ball game. Same with airplanes.

I have crossed borders/contienents many, MANY times and after that dreadfull day, things have changed a lot.

Ronan87

You really have no idea what you are talking about regarding 'up north' mate.

We don't have THOUSANDS of people or even HUNDREDS bounded togethere. R/C retailers are pretty rare here. We have a few big one's, and the one here in Quebec is a complete rip off. Also when ever he does get r/c tanks which is VERY rare, well the tamiya tiger he has is $999 + taxes (15%). It's been sitting on that top shelf for at least 2 years.

Heck, stocking tamiya paint is a big deal here (especially with all the BS laws about shipping paint). Udisco, one of the biggest r/c and model kit retailer in Canada usually has it's tamiya paint shelf half empty and it stay's like that.

Plus now a day, everyone buys online, maybe gets no duty 2-3 times, then gets a nasty sting, and stops all togethere (or drives to the US to bring stuff back here and there after that).

The few that are lucky to live in Toronto or near it, have it better. More stores for this kind of stuff but still slim compared to the US. Also since Canada is so large, you are talking about LONG distance drives to go to stores for most people if they aren't in a large city.

Also i'll let you on a little bit of information about Canadians. I have been living here 6+ years and i have noticed that a lot of them do not realise they are getting SCREWED in taxes/import/duty fee's. Heck most of them have told me 'its just the way it is, its like that everywhere anyway'.

Once i inform them that no its not like that everywhere and your laws are so vague that it lets custom officers charge whatever they want, they aren't happy about it.

no12skyline

I likewise respect your hope that IR gaming can become more realistic and challenging.

But take a look at this shot:



I count six Shermans (plus one hull), two T-34s, nine Pershings, nine Tigers, five King Tigers and one JagdTiger.

To have the 3 to 1 ratio, the six Shermans and two T-34 can only have between two or three heavies in the opposing team. The remaining heavies need to cool their heels and wait their turn. Now, one can get around that by re-spawning the light tanks, but someone does need to keep track. AAF is already one of the best attended battles. With other clubs barely getting four or six players, its going to be pretty hard unless some of the heavies start battling as light tanks. There needs to be some incentive for people to buy and battle a light tank - right now there are none. Even without the IR aspect, people tend to buy the hero tanks - and they're invariably the heavy tanks.

Airbrushler

ya but with a person just getting into tanks which some people try to talk a newbies into first buying a Tamyia
don't they still with these kits have to buy a radio and a battery and a battery charger

Ronan87

Yupp, so that's even more money lol

Strato50

This is the same old argument :P

I like Tamiya stuff even though I don't own any. They seem tougher.

It's my opinion that the gap is quickly closing between supposed quality though. Electronics wise, Clark annihilates Tamiya. Im sorry but to have ~20 functions that I can adjust to a sharp point vs hard coded Tammy gear, I'll take Clark every time.

Things that still need to catch up to Tamiya :

Gearboxes (Taigan & modellspiegel are pretty much there but, noise for the former, $$$$ for the latter)

Hull detail

Stock hull running gear (wheels & bearings, suspension, metal bits etc)






ANYHOO, we're all having fun here. I just have a little more fun when my Mato sherman annihilates a Tamiya (lol)

tomhugill

Well said there strato!!

FreakyDude