BIG year for Tiny Trucks!

Wow. I can’t believe that I promised to write more back in September, and here it is January. I am a failure at writing, but a success at breathing in and out. Hooray!

Many trucks have happened, and many videos as well. Here’s all the latest in one post.

I was busy. Axial has taken notice of my vids and has started sending me stuff to evaluate and build. Then of course, make videos. Quite fun, and I’m happy to be associated with them for what I think is going to be a big year for tiny trucks. That’s a pretty good line, I think I’ll use that again.

We’re back! And making turks again.

Phew, it seemed like I was gone for a long time. Too long. I’m still building trucks, and still doing secret builds I’m not allowed to talk about. Currently, there’s been some neat things being built.

I did this little guy for a build-off on the SBG. Happy to say that it looks just like a Volkswagen Iltis. Good thing that’s what I was going for.

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It’s built on the Vaterra Kemora base and a completely scratch built body. I liked the strange lines of this guy. Got a video done as well:

 

Sadly, that little tumble at the end was much worse than it looked. It fell around six feet into a pile of rocks. Time for a rebuild!

Scale Builder’s Guild – Now a division of Cwalring Digest

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Well isn’t that swell? I just took ownership of the finest forum around for our tiny truck obsession. It’s easily the best place on the web for all your needs. Great members, helpful advice, tons of how-to’s, some of the best builder’s on the planet – all in a very easy to navigate forum. What more could you ask for?

As I learn the ins and outs of forum ownership, expect big changes over the coming months. My goal is to make it the #1 destination for our hobby.

America – Home of the Land.

I went to America this past weekend to play tiny trucks with a very good friend, Creepy Uncle Albert. Follow him on Facebook, he’s just great. Not at all creepy.

The scenery in this place is incredible. So varied, even over short distances between the terrain.

You’ll also notice we had a tea party. Wheeling is hard work. In a upcoming post, I’ll share some of my photography tricks for getting as much realism out of your tiny trucks as possible.

Enjoy!

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I made a Gelande II.

Here’s the latest from RC4WD, the Gelande II.

Mine’s been hopped up a few different ways from Sunday, but all in the cosmetic ways. It doesn’t matter, out of the box, this is a great kit. Works great, looks great. Such a huge improvement over the original Gelande. Seriously, a totally different truck.

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Take a look at the underpinnings. It’s a beautiful chassis. Some familiar things from the TF2.

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It comes with a four link rear, 3 link/panhard front setup, single speed transmission, realistic transfer case, the works. I set mine up with a Holmes Hobbies 35T motor I had lying around, a Sidewinder 2 and a Hitec waterproof servo. Plenty of go for me. Hey, check it out for yourself!

It might be August yet.

Oh darn. Time gets away from you when you’re having fun with tiny trucks.

Here’s the latest issue.

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Don’t worry about that other crummy magazine, this crummy magazine has all the best article related to the just happened East Coast Scale Championship. It was my first real competition with flags, gates, rocks, water and mud. I met a lot of very nice people who make tiny trucks and had a ridiculous amount of fun.

My trucks did okay. 10th place in Class 1 and 37th place in Class 2. Class 2 was a very tough go for my FJ45. The poor thing had a lot of strength, but in all the wrong places. It suffered the following injuries:

1. Broken front steering knuckle, causing me to have no steering for the final gate. Proved to be a challenging finish.

2. Water and sun caused some condensation to goof with the receiver, forcing me to take a timeout.

3. Holmes Hold held on too hard and I burned out my motor. Where’s there’s no smoke, there’s no fire. Although this time there was smoke. And bad electric smells.

4. After replacing my motor thanks a generous n00b, and having a hamburger/hotdog combo, I broke the small plastic driveshaft that ran from the motor to the transfer case. Broken, day over.

Class 1, nothing broken. Good, reliable Trail Finder 2 fully linked, and fully fun. Get one. They’re great.

I’ll be back for next year, all ready have my yurt reserved.

Painting severed heads.

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Here’s Mr. Ragin’ Ron, courtesy of James French and 10th Scalin’.

I decided to continue with this post as I really needed to get my miniature painting fix. The idea is to really thin down the paint with either water or thinner, so you can paint on really light coats. I’m personally starting to think that Tamiya doesn’t thin too well with water, as you can see there’s some cruddy chunks on Ron’s face. If anybody asks, it’s flecks of mud, which helps to explain his angry face. He’s a little shiny at this point too – I’ll need to dull him down a touch.

There will need to be a lot of touching up on his helmet – the silly putty didn’t get pressed into the edges of the face very well. No matter.

I’ll get out the Macro lens for the next series of photographs, showing the work on the eyeballs. Now where’s that 0000 brush?