Photos of my new SC10 body in progress, along with the final result.
Test fitting the new body, and marking for the body clip posts: SC10 Body B - measuring for mounting holes.
Masked and ready for paint: Body masked for the first stage of painting (main color)
Primary color applied. This silver does not adhere well, so I had to apply 4 main coats: First few coats of main color go on.
After the 4 main coats of silver, 2 rounds of spot touch-ups were required: After 4 main coats and 2 rounds of touchup. Main color is complete.
Next the detail colors were laid down. First the Competition Orange applies to fenders and sides. Next was the black layer for door stripes, and finally, a small layer of white for the detail stripe down the door stripe center. My experiment in using Sharpie pens to add some line detail to the body, mostly failed. I was able to apply the lines with acceptable results, but contact with the paint caused the lines to start bleed, making them puff-up, which is what you see in the photos. Big, soft Stay-Pufft like lines. It was a useful experiment. Nearly completed result after 3 more colors applied.
After completing all the layers and a little touch-up in corners, all the masks are removed to reveal the bare painted shell. Paint completed and all masks removed.
Finally, the end result, at least for now. A small amount of decals applies to give it some visual interest. The challenge here is to resist the urge to over-do the decals. I have piles of them, and the temptation to turn the thing into 3lb. rolling bill-board is sometimes bothersome. Final Result.
A few of you may have noticed that this is not a Team Associated body, in fact it’s manufactured by their main rival. I selected this body for several reasons:
The journey started in mid October. I was in Port Orchard, having a beer and pizza with some friends, when one of them suggested we drop by the R/C track in Bremerton afterward. I’d never heard of an indoor R/C track in the area. I used to have a couple of the early electric R/C cars back in the 70’s and 80’s. It was some pretty crude stuff, with speed controllers made of a large ceramic brick wound with resistant wire, and a big sweeping ‘arm’ that adjusted motor speed by moving across the big resistance block. Closer to the end, shorter the wire and faster it ran. You had to sand the arm often to remove the carbon burns, and the resistor brick didn’t last that long either.
Having been into electric R/C helicopters for over a year, I’m quite familiar with the advances in electronic speed controllers. Long gone are the days of that stupid rheostat ‘brick’. What would these modern R/C vehicles looks like and how would the perform? Curious I was. And fascinating it was.
That weekend, I took the kids to the track. We were there until they closed at nearly midnight. The next day I bought my daughter a Team Associated RTR (Ready-to-Run) 1/10th scale Short Course racing truck. And down the slope I slid.
Here is a video from Team Associated. You get an idea of how capable these little vehicles are, and it also includes video of the REAL Short Course racing trucks.
By mid November I’d bought a used truck for myself. Also a Team Associated SC10, but it was far from ready to run, but it was pretty close, all I needed was a radio system and batteries. Soon I was at the track a couple of days a week, practicing, watching and learning the ropes. Come December, I’d started racing in the Novice class.
I had a lot to learn, and a lot of stuff to repair on the truck. The best part about it was the upgraded NOVAK 13.5 power system (still qualifies for stock class), the ball differential and a big set of extra tires and wheels. In the first week I replaced the trashed Lexan shell with one I ‘custom’ painted for myself. SC10 Racing Bodies, New and Old.
Within a day, I had this little gem: My first SC10.
By the end of December, there were three, one for each of us. Team Associated R/C trucks
When January started, I was pretty consistently racing 2 nights a week at the track. I was addicted. I’d bought a set of high-C (high burst capacity) batteries, transitioning the original 20c batteries I’d purchased (about $60 each) to the kids. Soon I had a pretty good setup of 2 35C 3800mAh qualifier batteries and one 50C 5000mAh battery for the longer Main. I used to laugh a little inside at the massive kits these guys would show up at the track with. Rollers, piles of chargers, tools, tires, gear sets. But soon, my pit was starting to look more and more like the others. SC10 truck in the pits during Monday Races at Bremerton RC Raceway.
R/C racing is challenging. It’s one thing to race well while sitting in the driver seat, feeling the vehicle move around, literally using your gut feelings about how the vehicle is handling. It’s entirely another thing to understand those dynamics, from 50′ away, using only your eyes. However like with most things, you start to train your brain to perceive and understand the subtle messages the little vehicle is sending. And when you understand that, and you start to hone your skills, it starts to be come amazingly fun. Then, the competitive streak kicks in. And you just don’t want to get around the track once without crashing, you want to WIN!
But to win, you need to at least be playing on a level field with your competitors. As I wandered around the pits, checking out my competitor’s vehicles one thing became quite clear. There was one model of truck the really fast guys were running. The Team Associated Factory Team SC10. The writing was on the wall. I had to upgrade.
Now, when we first started this adventure, the attractive, glossy Factory Team kits on the shelf in the store got my immediate attention. And so did the price. The Ready-to-Run Trucks (pre-built, just add battery) were $290. The Factory Team kit was only $250. So I of course inquired. The Factory Team kit was full of up-line parts, like Titanium suspension components, updated performance threaded shocks, and a heavy dose of Aluminum fasteners (instead of carbon steel) and carbon fiber. But, it had not motor, not ESC, no radio, no servo. To totally kit out the Factory Team would require another $110 for a basic radio, $50 for a good metal-gear servo, $250 for a motor and ESC. Add that to the price of the kit (which you have to build mind you), and you’re talking $660. That’s a lot more than the $290 for the same basic chassis, a pre-pained shell ($50), r2.4GHz radio ($100) and motor and ESC system ($140 – don’t ask how I know that). So, the RTR was what I bought (the RTR SC10 belongs to my daughter and the RTR truck to The Boy), and for a while, it was plenty awesome.
But racing is most fun when you think you can win. Because of this, mid-January I stopped thinking about it, and pulled the trigger on a brand new truck kit, the SC10 Factory Team. SC10 Factory Team.
Thankfully, I’d taken the old truck apart and put it back together again many times repairing things, so I knew what I needed to do, to put it all together. But, wow.. I didn’t expect it would take me about 2 days to get it done! From assembling the titanium turn buckles, to installing all those little fasteners, radio, motor, servo, BUILDING the 4 shocks (and all that includes such as working the air out of the shocks, time consuming), setting up the transmission, selecting gearing, gluing up the tires. It’s a lot of little work!
If I’d bought a kit for my daughter, stead of the Ready-To-Run, I think we’d been far too paranoid to break it, and would not have had nearly as much fun.
First time on the track, I ran the WORST race so far. I was horrible. It was horrible. I could not get the truck to jump, I could not get it to turn, I was really, REALLY thinking I’d made a $300 mistake (bought a pair of Panther front tires at the same time, stock fronts are worthless). It was frustrating. But, the great group of people that work and volunteer at Bremerton Radio Control Raceway were amazingly helpful. Eventually, I was running consistently enough to get a #1 position in qualifying. Running the #1 plate for qualifing.
On Wednesday night, 26-JAN-2011, I finally won my first A Main race! Still running in Novice class, it was not a track roasting run, but I did dominate the race, leading almost all of the 13 laps. And my average lap times would have put me in the middle of the pack for Stock Short Course, racing with the regulars (and my regulars, I mean the guys I see there every night).
So, it looks like my lazy, hazy dayz in the Novice class are starting to come to an end. One more Novice Main win and they will bump me to the ‘Big Boys’. I’m going to need to keep stepping up my game if I plan to compete there! If all goes well, I should have only 2 more Novice races in the next week (Monday and Wednesday night).
On the heels of the 4 hour Enduro race just 2 days before, turnout was pretty light for a Monday night. In fact, there really wasn’t enough depth in each field to run the normal Novice, Stock and Open class for each vehicle type. So, instead of being able to race in Novice class, I was pitted with the Stock and Open truck racers that have been doing this for a long time. It was going to be a learning experience!
This week I was prepared with plenty of battery power, a dialed in rear differential, upgraded toolbox and new carrier box too. My pit space was a lot more organized than last time. SC10 being prepped for the first race.
We ran 2 heats and a main event for “Truck” and “Buggy”. I held my own in the first two heats, finishing near mid-field, and certainly not last. I’d learned quite a bit in my first race the week prior, and it was paying off.
At the end of the first two heats, I have qualified 6th in a field of 10. Not amazing, but better than I had expected, considering I was not racing all Novice racers, and not all stock trucks (some of them were a lot faster on the long straight than my 13.5 powered sled).
We ran a 10 minute main event. It was chaos. Lots of vehicle contact, more a lot of rollovers. We kept the track marshals very busy. About 15 laps or so into the race I was starting to find my pace, and able to get all the way around the track without a running across the edges, without crashing out (without being crashed out by others) and hitting a pretty good rhythm on the double-double and double-triple jump sections.
To my pleasant surprise, I managed to cut a couple of very fast laps, that got the attention of the race caller and timer. What I noticed on the runs I did really well on, despite a sea of surging Lexan, if I put all the other vehicles out of my mind, not looking at relative speed to the other races, or where they were lining up their trucks, basically running like I was the only person on the track, I was much smoother and much faster. Sure, a couple of times I got pitted around by another truck, and I did t-bone another racer on who was much slower on the long straight, but, nobody got broken, and neither of us had to be recovered. It’s not going to be a strategy that will work 100% of the time, but I found that greater concentration on the line that is best for MY truck, my tires, my drivetrain and skill, I do much better.
In the end, the 6 1/2 hours I spent at the track testing, tuning and finally racing was so much fun, I was smiling for hours and hours afterward. And one of the test parts of all this, the 6 1/2 hours of entertainment, and friendship, cost me a grand total of $9.37. That’s a pretty good value, don’t you think?
SC10 ready for action. But not so pretty any longer.
Partially, because it as so absurd. And partially because the sound of my Real Estate agents voice, when I told him what I saw, while looking out my front door:
A wall of green. Oh, this CAN'T be good.
While cooking breakfast for my kids, one blustery morning, I was startled by what sounded like a lunatic kicking in my front door. As I rounded the corner, I saw that the door was in fact, now, wide open, and.. there was this very powerful sent of… of… evergreen. A few milliseconds later, steeled for confrontation with whatever insane manic was now in my house, I realized, I was not facing a mortal man, but a 120′ giant, lying, outside my front door.
What *is* that smell?
Now, I’d had a few odd things happen while I was trying to sell this (wonderful, honestly wonderful) house. This provided me with much entertainment as I casually mentioned these things to my astounded, horrified and otherwise good sport of a Real Estate agent. Like the time the Coroner was at the house, big black city Medical Examiners van parked right in front of the house. Hey, it looked like the dog has dug up human knee, very cleanly butchered, so I called in an expert. They removed, the remains and that was that. So when I called to ask what the next step was, if say, a 100′ tree fell across the property, he proceeded to chuckle, and tell me about the next planned Open House. It took a few minutes to convince him that I did, in fact, have said tree, on said front lawn, and he might want to come out and see if this could be possible issue in the sale of the house.
Fortunately, the damage was relatively minor, a section of the fence was modified
Hemlock, nature's little fence guillotine
My little cargo trailer took a little bit of a beating as well:
All is not lost. The tree is also nature’s way of meeting neighbors:
Neighbor Sara drops by to 'help'.
At least potential buyers could see a little bit of the house, even if they couldn’t get to it (and yes, a number of people came to see the house that morning).
This is the estate's security barrier.
Humans, so full of hubris. Here’s a little reminder from Mother Nature that she doesn’t give a flying sack of crap about us, she’s gonna do whatever she damn well pleases. Fences? Nature does not recognize fences.
