ORIGINAL: Spockie-Tech

Yep, I have a #36 and a T-Rex. The 'Rex is 90% blinged out with nearly every metal bit you can get.. Just the tail-assembly is still plastic on that, and the #36 is mostly stock mechanics, with just metal mixing arms. All the Walkera Electronics are gone though.

I'd rather break a plastic blade grip, a mixing arm or something like that than have to disassemble the thing to replace main shafts. If you replace the plastic with metal, you will still bend the main and feathering shafts, the linkage rods that join the ball-joints, and the flybar..

If you are still early in your learning, I would reccomend a set of ABS-Plastic blades. As observed by someone else, they're not so good for 3D or inverted flight, since they flex more, but they're great at resisting damage and absorbing impacts by flexing. I crashed from 30feet up once (lost orientation when my figure 8 got too big in the wind) and the blades survived without a scrath. I've also mowed bushes in the front yard and done lots of other nasty things to them without trouble.

Also, since the plastic parts are so cheap from online retailers, and its usually the shipping that makes up a big part of the cost, I'd reccomend buying a few spares for the breakable plastic bits (and some spare shafts, flybars etc) all in one go so 1, you save on shipping, and 2. dont have to wait days or weeks for replacement parts when you crash 5 minutes into a beautiful day for flying putting you back out of the game.