RC tanks is hopefully my last hobby I pick up.
I build model trains first- Narrow guage either logging RR equipment or the Denver and Rio Grande Western from Colorado in the 1940s like the trains that are now at Knotts Berry Farm.
I also collect military radio gear and use it as a ham. I also have restored a couple military vehicles and still own a Willy's M38a1 and a Dodge M37 3/4 ton power wagon. Most of my life was focused on the trains. I wanted to get into RC tanks 5 or 6 years ago and convert my old DMD non option Sherman into a battle tank. I collected parts and sat it aside until last year when I jumped back on and converted it to an E8. I built a few other shermans also a Tamiya Sherman kit to refresh myself and get the hang of the Tamiya parts, then went to henglongs and now a mato metal chassis or two. I have several Nick Aguailar hulls sitting waiting and chassis lined up for them.
Oh I do RC boats too, which I have tended to let go of, I don't have the room to keep working on my HO scale battle ship any more after I tore it apart and gutted the shafts out of it. I only still operate my submarine and 1/16 landing craft.

I am spending the current time focusing on building the various shermans I want and then will go back to the trains. Im taking a break as I got a little neurotic with my modeling. The brass shay locomotive below is the first semi kit I soldered together. The other is one I have finished and painted with custom decals. These kits were made in the 60s and I have been updating the motor and gear box as I build them and am making larger boilers and cabs and such and now and holding waiting for a friend to do a run of special gear boxes for these and other similar engines.
I will include some various pictures which are worth a thousand words for yall.

As an additional thought to this thread and to this forum in general, I like the "big tent" reasoning. I enjoy the build threads as much as the non-builder ones, I am learning much about this hobby from this very place. I came in the door at square one, knowing nothing. To be honest, six or seven months ago, I didn't even know that r/c tanks existed. And to be further honest, had it not been for the movie "Fury", I may never have gotten into this. The entire subject of tanks intrigued me to know ends.

Of course, most of us could never own a real tank, so in my studies and searches, I discovered your world here.

I generally comment favorably on every thread that the builder's post, because I admire the skill and craftsmanship of their work. There are some brilliant modeler's out there. I do not possess the skill set, mind set, and patience to even begin to build on my own. I have thought, perhaps for tank #2, to get a kit and put it together, as opposed to the RTR tank I own now.

My point, its all good to this new hobbyist. I like seeing and reading the entire spectrum of this particular hobby. Lot of good and smart people here.

I am so jelly right now...

Some very interesting comments. Personally I am not building for myself as much as I used to, so have less to share. I will always take the time to post an idea and share it though.

i sometimes wonder where some of the guys are that we're around when I first started here. At one time this was the only tank forum(English speaking). We had a lot of great U.K. Modellers , but they split off and kind of went there own way.

I am certainly happy to see some of the old guard is still around, and posting. A lot of new guys too, which is a very good sign. Sharing success and failure is a good learning for everyone.

Cheers

Hi Everyone goes through a rough patch now and then(family problems health problems), time to take a step back and look at what your doing and why. This is a hobby and should be fun if you are not having fun your doing something wrong or the hobby is wrong for you. I have seen guys do some wonderful work on this forum and others they build for fun some of them go to meetings others may never have been to a meeting because of the distance to nearest meeting.
I have been though a patch stopped building Tanks just for battling but have built other models a LCM 6 a Dragon Wagon ,Sherman Dozer, even a DD Sherman (still needs work to finish) latest is a Bridgelayer ,have found it more challenging to do these had loads of head scratching but when they work it gives you a real buzz.


regards pete

Due to the fact I am new to rc tanks and due to the fact this topic has opened up a variety of posts I have a question about the word build or builder as some of you have used it. So just for my own clarity, is assembling a Tamiya tank per the manual considered a build, or does one need to scratch build a tank to be considered a builder? How about the guy who buys vendor offered aftermarket parts and glues them to his tank, is he a builder? I have enjoyed watching and learning from all of you, no matter what approach you have taken with your tanks. I do not have the skills to do what some of you have done, but some of you have inspired me to not be afraid to try new things.

Short answer? If you make changes to your tank, you're a builder. Sure there's a WIDE range of skill levels, but in the end we're all tankers and it doesn't really matter.

The whole point of us posting "Builds" is for help, and to inspire.

I would say anything other than a ready to run or a straight out of the box kit is a build. IF you buy a bunch of eto marketed schumo metal parts and begin to detail up your tank, your building.

Have fun, that's the point. As I say to lots of folk, if your not having fun, your doing something wrong, occasionally I fall into that and set it aside and come back later, hence my long delay on the M3 Lee project. It stopped being fun. I will go back to it eventually.

Hi There are thousands of Tamiya Tanks out in the world , Not one of them is the same as the next ,different paint job on all of them plus some will have built it and left parts off some will have added parts,some will have upgrades on , but none will be the same as yours ,if you line up all the Tamiya Tigers in the world you will be able to walk down and pick yours out, but a total stranger will think they are all the same.
So you have built a Tank ,even Heng Long tanks most of them are not as they came out of the box. If you have painted it and upgraded it its all part of the hobby,Getting it to work right is the hard part (Tamiya Tanks if you build it to instructions it should work) Heng Long if you upgrade its getting the upgrades to work together that can be a Dark Art. So if you buy a ready to run tank and just charge the battery and run it for fun its not a hobby its just a fun toy (some of them are very expensive toys ) .


regards pete

Pete Hi, I think you have given the definitive answer that describes the difference between the two, I would add that the builder in my opinion is the one most likely to stay the course.
shaun.

I am a collector /builder / operator. I'm not shy about it. My friend( posed with the 1:10 Puma elsewhere) asked me why I
d buy others' stuff 'when you can build your own'. To say 'I wanted it' just doesn't seem to do it justice. I'm a slow builder
under the best of circumstances no matter be it metal or plastic. So building everything I'd like isn't always an option.
Loot is also a limiter as to what I can purchase so building becomes a better choice; the problem there is I'll get so intensely
focused on a project that I'll burn out on it after a few months. Hence the diversity of project, mostly all tank related but I've also gotten my
hand back in on 'vintage' off road buggies. Specifically Kyosho Landjumps ( of which I literally and I mean LITERALLY) have a pile and
Playtron Viva Arizonas/Mercedes 500 buggies. I happen to think the Landjump was the best of breed ever, tough as shoe leather virtually
no plastic parts of any import save the mech box.



I've done RC boats, was a member of SFMYC for years and years, tried my hand at first generation helis, and the buggies but I've always focused
on RCT as the core of my interest. It's still nice to step away for a while now and again.

jerry

Well said!

Merry Christmas, John



PS Post your street delivery address so I can send a few DOA HL RX 18s, the very least I'll do for you!

I concur.

I can say that I have found most all of the build threads/youtube's to be most helpful in ideas and explanations. Not only helpful, but allowing me to expand an original purpose to something I will enjoy even more than I originally hoped for.

Guess you could say I am just following a trail explored by someone else, but I might have an original idea to mod the mod...like that'll happen lol.

Here is something I built last week. A scratchbuilt 1/43 scale McLaren M8. Chassis is made from a credit card, and lego. Point is, Ya I take a break from tanks as well.

Sweet.

I bought up a ton of Scalextric track when my boys were little, but they were too young to get the fine control so frustration ensued.

I may have to dig out the boxes one of these days. It doesn't get much simpler than that, nearly direct drive motor hooked to contacts. I can see some wild scratch builds of Autoblindas, Kubels, Humbers, etc. in my future.

Slot was huge when I was a kid, couldn't get enough of it. About 20 years ago, I stumbled upon a bar in Manhattan that was perfect...a pub with a huge slot car setup right in the center. So much fun to be drinking a yard of ale while sending you car flying off the track.

Slots have always intrigued me. Digital technology allows 6 cars to race on a two lane track . However you still need swtiches to change lanes. The new digital age allows fuel loads and tire wear to become part of the race, so you have to plan fuel stops etc. It is definitely benefiting from technology.

1/43 is small, but allows more track . I converted the analog Scaletrix race app called ARC to work in 1.43. Basically it turns your I pad into a lap counter and timer down to 1/1000 of a second, and gives you a limited fueling option. Ie you can run out of gas, but if you don't observe the pit now command it disqualifies you. The more advanced systems stop your car on the track or reduce power so you have to limp to the pit..

For the price of one tank I am building a 4 X 12 layout with pit lane as a test. I also have an Nscale Layout in my basement, that I haven't touched in 12 years and it takes up a 12X15 ft room. If I fall back in love with slot cars the train is on dangerous ground!!!!!!! I will build a Slot car layout with full scenery, maybe with an eye for a duel purpose with 1/72 scale IR tank battling as a possibility.

I think we have taken a lemon of a post and turned it into lemonade. So none of us are above getting frustrated in any one hobby, but it sure is nobody's fault.

When you're ready Dan I have around 200 1/32 scale cars I can sell you. Mostly NSR and Slot.it.

The places setup in shops and that bar were 1/24, but you're right, 1/43 is nice compromise for home. Besides N gauge, the HO slot cars were the rage when I was kid. I remember getting a kickbutt Formula 1 from a coupon off a cereal box.

I didn't realize technology was reaching into that hobby, kinda wish I still didn't. Now I'll have to go explore another field I don't have time or space for. That and Z gauge, since trains are limited to the Lionel Harry Potter set under the tree.

Wait are the Carrera and Scalextric cars 1/32 or 1/43? I can't remember...

By the way Dan, I picked up a 123 electronic board on your recommendation.

Nowhere near the TBS of course in sound quality or functionality, but serviceable enough to put in a 1/125 destroyer. I set up the channels to get general quarters, the whoop whoop siren, a series of firing depth charges and a series of exploding charges under water. I was going to use the Benedini 6 W amp, but the sound broke up badly even though I was going through a properly rated Visation. On their software, there's an option for using an amp and I guess I could play around with volumes to make the amp work, but for now it's loud enough, especially considering the sealed hull as a speaker box and there's no tracks a gearboxes to fight for noise.

I have a light and sound kit for the Lost in Space B9 Robot and he used a 123 board to sample something like 17 sound bites to fire randomly off of one switch. I'm going to adda second board for ambient Robot sounds when I build it. I was going to RC it using drive belts for treads, but there's a lot to work out and with all the fiber optics, etc in the kit, I'll never finish it if I have to spend months making it roll.

You need 12 volts for decent sound. If you get an amp and use an inverter to boost the voltage to 12 it will sound good. There is nothing wrong with those 123 cards. They do static sounds as good as any card out there and they only cost $18 One of those hooked up to a BARC will give you a great cannon sound hit sound and death sound. All you will be missing is the engine sound.

Re Slot cars.

Both Scalextrix and Carrera do 1/43 scale, Many aimed at kids though and you have to be a builder if you want classic detailed cars. The smaller size means a better Scenery to track ratio, and as I am an old Model railroader I want a race track that looks like a scale race track in pictures. I want room for run off areas, pit lane etc.

1/32 is the most popular and that is where the technology of these things is focused. In 1/43 I have to do a lot of my own electronics to mimic what is happening in 1/32. Honestly I have been spending a lot of hobby time on these cars lately only tanking when I have orders to get out the door.

Tanker 10

I have a lot of slot cars. I still have a collection of 1/24 scale Cox cars with the Mag chassis's from the 60's and a whole bunch of 1/32 scale cars. Before I got into tanks I has a routed wood 3 lane 1/24 scale track. I was into slot cars big time and have been since I was a kind in the mid 60's. I needed room in the basement and I got rid of that track. I have since reclaimed some space so the slot cars are getting another shot. I am enjoying 1/43 scale because it forces you to scratch build cars. I am on a mission to build every model of 1/24 scale Cox slot car and do it in 1/43 scale. I am sure you can appreciate how far slots cars have come. The detail on all of the releases now are unbelievable. They are truly scale models that move now. So much more then the old days of Eldon and Strombecker.

I had the same set up Dan. 3 lane routed with 4" spacing between the slots. I held races twice a week for many years. I too started in with slot cars in 1961 and continued until I discovered rc tanks.

Tanks are very enticing. They pulled me away from a lot of different things.

I remember those Kyosho's back around the mid-eighties. The rich neighborhood kid down the street had a Vanning but hardly took it out as it was quite finicky when it would choose to run. He of course had a Frog when I was lucky to save up all summer for my Hornet. It made me smile to no end when I used to crush him in drag races, those Hornets were rockets. I had quite a collection of classic Tamiya buggies and got up to around 25 different models when I sold them all off to fund my tanks. I only kept my Frog that I got from that kid so many years ago, my original gold pan RC10 I bought in 1988 and a reissue Hornet...

Ive got a bunch of huge Tyco electric trucking sets. Sort of like slot cars. Had lots of fun with them. I like things that operate. Still have them all up in moms garage in the original boxes too. We bought so much, some of the sets weren't even opened, there wasn't room in the house for all of them.

Why do this? "Hobbies generate positive feelings and boost creativity, which increases happiness, reduces stress and enhances work performance."

I too had fun with slot cars back in the day, Cox Kits and Tyco HO Slot Cars come to mind plus building the classic Tamiya rc buggies, which I still build.

I enjoy modeling IR RC Tanks, fun days with family children, assembling neat skateboards and old car restoration are all part of my hobby interests. I have been a small scale plastic kit modeler since I was in 3rd grade. Into rc tanks for just over a decade and have been fooling around with old car restoration for a bunch of decades as well as skateboards.






John