DieHarder

I mounted all my electronics today. I put the battery, winch controller, and receiver up front. Because I had so much extra cable lengths, I had no problem mounting the ESC and BEC on the back "X" shaped cross brace. I got all my wires out of the way of the drive shafts and I put a plastic heat shield over the ESC to receiver wire to protect it from the motor heat because it ran right by it. Everything is wired and looks fantastic! I threw the tires on the rims and did a quick test run. I'm having so much fun just crawling over my laundry basket! This thing is awesome!!! I love it! I wish it would turn tighter, but I know it will when I get it outside. It doesn't work real well on carpet. The first thing I noticed is that I really need use the throttle dampening and drag brake dampening on the servo. The starts and stops with this motor are instant! Glad I still have that programming plug. Tomorrow I'm cutting out and taping up the body for paint. I will also have dad pick me up some tire glue and the paint I need on his way home from work. Can't wait to get this thing outside!!!

DieHarder

I took your advice on putting it up front because it suited my wiring layout the best and after awhile, started making sense. It crawled so well on the test run. I'm blown away! Fantastic!

I have one issue though. The RC4WD wireless winch controller I bought to go with the 9.5cti winch doesn't stay bound. I follow all the binding steps and it works great! But then when I unplug the battery and plug it back in. My receiver binds normally, but the winch unbinds. I have to go through the binding process again on the winch to get it to work. Is this normal? It better not be! I'm planning on calling RC4WD about it tomorrow and seeing if they will ship me a new one. This is a real problem for me, especially after all the wiring of a BEC, connectors, and stuff to make it possible to have this thing function. Any ideas on what to try?

phmaximus

Ha ha awesome.... One step closer

fingers crossed u can the winch controller working right

DieHarder

I forgot to call RC4WD today about the winch controller. I will make sure to do it tomorrow...

Tonight I decided to start right in on cutting the body out. I used some of side scrap pieces to test out my skills. After about an hour and a half, I finally had it 'really close to being good enough' cut out. I can't believe how good I was at using those curved scissors! I did end up using my free harbor freight household scissors to carefully do the straight sections. I was impressed. Tomorrow I will do the finishing touches with a Dremel and sanding drum,

Tomorrow I will have all my paints. I cut two rectangular lexan pieces out of the scrap to paint up as some practice pieces. I'm going to try out the Great Planes masking tape on them. I'm still not sure weather I want a silver backing or black, so I'm going to paint one rectangular practice piece with a black backing and one with a silver backing. Then from there I will match it up to see what I like better.

I've officially decided that I am going to do the PS-15 metallic red. Any pointers for painting with metallic paint? Dad told me that painting metallic paint on vertical surfaces doesn't work well when you get too much on one coat. He said that all the metal pieces will sink to the bottom of the vertical surface if it's too thick of a coat. He also said that it doesn't spray as well with the metal pieces. I'm not sure if he came up with this or if it's past experience. Since I'm doing super light coats at a time, I shouldn't get any metal sagging, right? Does the metallic paint spray good? I've read some good reviews on it...

After I get the body painted (or while I'm waiting for paint to dry), I'm down to gluing the tires to the rims. I've done many sets for my Evader, but I didn't care to much about how good they looked as I did about how well they stayed attached. It's the opposite situation in this case. Any pointers for that?

Also, I am going to use a gray sharpie and color all the bolts on the imitation beadlock rims to make them look a bit more scale.

phmaximus

the curved scissors work a treat, nice one
just be careful with a dremel, they remove material very fast and its easy to go to far. unless u have a lot of experience using a dremel I would do it by hand for the mean time.

good idea to test the paint, also remember if u run out of lexan plastic coke and pepsi bottle work.

as for painting metallic, I treat it exactly the same as non metallic, I can say ive ever heard of what he was saying.... otherwise it would be very difficult to paint. I cant say ive heard of that in the automotive industry too, otherwise how do u pain the side?. if u were to paint a horizontal surface with a vertical gun or can the spray pattern would not be even, it would be heavier on the spot closer to the gun (ellipse with one darker side). and if u were to tilt the gun/can horizontal it would not spray properly and u would run the risk of the gun/can spitting not spraying.

good idea on the wheels, I did mine with a fine paintbrush and humbrol enamel, don't forget the front hub lock... I did mine bright red. lol

DieHarder

Painting the body is going so bad....

phmaximus

Oh no, what's wrong?

DieHarder

I got it done, but it has 11 coats of paint on it! Seven of those are the red because of so many mistakes and sag removals. The other four are two coats each of silver and black. Had some problems there too. Also, my tape around the outside leaked a little. I searched the internet all day yesterday and found that non-acetone nail polish remover works the best for not damaging the lexan. I started with that last night and got some of the bleeds removed. Of course as clumsy as I am, I knocked over the bottle of nail polish remover with the cap just set on top, spilling about a third of the bottle on my workbench, chair, and carpeted floor. I cleaned that up ASAP and because my workbench is in my room, I had to sleep downstairs on the couch so I wouldn't inhale the fumes all night. I did paint the body out in the garage with a respirator, so it's not like I'm not cautious. I just thought it would be easier to do this little paint removing stuff at my bench in the good light. I have some more paint to remove today, then I'm going to take some pics, and start applying decals. What a project this has been! Good news is, without the little paint bleeds, the body looks great somehow...

collector1231

My Feedback: (1)

I just use the "C Method". (C is the first letter of the last name of the genius at the track who invented it)
1. Mask body.
2. PSSCHSTPSSCHSHSCT
3. Aww....
Only 1 coat is needed!

DieHarder

haha, good one Collector! But seriously dude, my last name doesn't start with a "C". lol

phmaximus

Oh wow that sucks... That's why I stopped using masking tape... And spilling the nail polish remover... Bugger!
I guess now u know why I try to convince people to use liquid mask...

DieHarder

The masking tape wasn't the biggest problem though. It worked great for the fender flares, I couldn't be happier on the crisp lines. It was when I masked off the beat up edge of the body because axial's outside liquid mask was peeling. I went all the way around the body with it. It worked ok for the first three or four coats, then it started peeling. I repaired it a couple times, but not good enough. The reason it has so many coats, is because dumb me lost track of the spraying distance on two separate occasions. This created way too much paint even though I was attempting to go light. Like dad said, "you can't plan experience".

I ended up using one and three quarter cans of Tamiya metallic red because I ran out a little more than half way through. Anyhow, I got all the paint bleeds off with the non-acetone nail polish remover and applied a few major decals last night. I'm about half way done with applying decals. I need to decide where some are gonna go. I have pics but they are on my phone and I gotta go. Will post them tonight.

DieHarder

Forgot to mention that I wiped off two really thick coats and re-did them, so it's not a full 11 coats. More like 10 because I didn't wipe them nearly clean.

phmaximus

Sounds killer,,, I bet ur itching to get out on the trails with it?

DieHarder

I'm really happy with it, other than the Traxxas T-Maxx foam body washers. That's the one thing that didn't work out. They are too big to do anything. I found some HPI ones on eBay, but I will have to glue them on. No body washers isn't going to stop me from my first run though! I have some spots including the neighbor's property that I'm going to try it out on. I was hoping to get out there tomorrow, but there is still rain in the forecast. It might be Sunday when I actually get to plop it in the mud...

RC4WD shipped my a brand new wireless winch controller and it works great! Totally free and no issues! I was very happy with their customer service too.

DieHarder

Ok. I took some pics with mom's Canon Rebel T3. I'm no photographer, so it's not the greatest pics. Starting with the rims/tires and wiring:

DieHarder

Next the body by itself. The photos don't do a really good job of showing the true color of the red. The body is actually a little darker than what is shown. It's a really rich, deep, red. I love it! Not too bright and not to gloomy.

I used Testors Stop Light Metallic Red to paint the roll cage grab bars and the raised section on the windshield mount. They came out very nice! The Axial symbol in the center of the chain steering wheel I did red too. I also did silver on the "PIAA" light bucket grates. And no, all decals are not to cover up mistakes. The body looked very good before the decals, I just wanted it to look a little more competition-like. I wanted to put a Holmes Hobbies decal on the hood, but the sticker I had had a white background and it would have look awful against the red. I'm looking to see what other decals would be a good center piece. Behind the headlight sticker is clear for doing future LEDs and I have the clear light buckets that glue on the back side.

DieHarder

Here is the final look of the machine. I'm very pleased with it! The body came out way better than I ever imagined! I can now say I've built my first kit! I really want to go and try it out on some areas in our backyard, but it's on and off raining and everything is super muddy out there. I don't want to get it all caked with dirt just yet. Tomorrow doesn't look too bad, so that might be the big trail test. I've been trying out by crawling over about 50 bar bell weights in our mechanical room. It works, but the slippery plastic of the weights makes it quite difficult. Also, I modified the blue aluminum Hi-Tec servo horn to work and I'm using that. Happy so far! just need some foam washers soon...

DieHarder

Thank you so much, BKoz559, Maj_Overdrive, and Phmaximus! It wouldn't have turned out nearly as good without your guy's guidance and advice! I'm very happy with it and can't wait to get crawling! Hats off to you!

DieHarder

First video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub5vi0gqRlY

DieHarder

The build continues...

Part 2: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-r...-part-2-a.html