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I used to use Zhanlida T-7000 but it’s tricky to get here now after toluene was restricted to industry only, it would hold up to a reasonable amount of abuse and would come off easy with some light heat. Shoo-goo is much the same kinda thing I think. I preferred it as cyano glues are a pain to remove. If it didn’t work I sometimes did have to suck it up and use them anyway though. Silicone might work🤔

@Gaz!

I was about the say insert “at least it’s not a jeep” comment here. They are/were but they seem to be losing momentum? Maybe it’s more of an indicator of the general market, or Axial on the whole at the moment, or maybe even Horizon’s way of running them. The amount of competition they are getting from every angle(both with various scales and with trucks/bouncers) is ramping up, Vanquish, Traxxas and Element are the big ones, FMS and Rlarrlo are getting bigger and then all the FTX/RGT stuff too, there’s some good options that are (possibly) a lot better value. On a quick look of ModelSport’s site (with order set to best selling), the top Rock Racer/Crawlers are all Traxxas, FTX or FMS with the first Axial in 12th and it’s on sale. The first 20 contains 2 Axial trucks and they are both 1/24s. The more pages you flick through it seems Axial don’t sell well anymore unless it’s the Scx Pro kit or a 1/24. That is just one site of many and can’t be a full picture but it is interesting. Changing days from the powerhouse brand it used to be.

I have always stripped them down as I don’t expect the plastic to stick to double sided tape afterwards, could be wrong but not game for finding out. For switches etc I don’t pull them apart or dip them, I just kinda cover any openings etc. As @Redback suggests, a paintbrush is likely the best weapon of choice. I’ve been using cocktail sticks and the like to drip a wee bit in but the paintbrush seems better sense.

Sometimes there’s stuff written on the armatures, Epic did that with some, I’ve got at least one somewhere so will take a pic if I can find it. The colours of the can and endbell can help too. Beyond that it’s sometimes endless googling to find something close and hope for the best (educated-ish) guess. Maybe even upload a pic and someone might recognise something….

Used both, I prefer AliExpress. Banggoods packaging left something to be desired(mainly being properly package and not kicked around before sending😂). Otherwise they were fine enough. Never dealt with returns etc there so no opinion on that. The lack of choice and at the time I found their site to be a bit rubbish for whittling down choices. I use AE more now, they’ve sorted any issues well and promptly, more choice, reasonable delivery times depending on what seller etc, have good discounts on when they have an event etc. I find AE has more unique items that are not available elsewhere. It’s a bit of a difficult thing to measure sometimes though as Banggood are their own outfit(aren’t they?) and AliExpress is a bit more like eBay when it’s a store front and AE are a logistics specialist.

(Expletive deleted)😂

Top shout @steephill, definitely PayPal! It goes through AliPay or whatever it’s called and I believe it’s got assurances like Paypal too so yer double covered.

It’s been a while so I’ve forgotten about intro deal stuff so found this on Reddit “The welcome deal is only on one item, and only on your first order. You can't use other discounts or promos or codes with it. Also note that if you try to buy multiple items, it will pick one item random and charge the others at regular price. So it is best to buy only one thing for your first order.” https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/18uoozp/welcome_deals/ I have been on AE for about a year, it was a bit of a mind melt to start with and I’ve got the hang of it now. I log in every day and get the free coins to give me a few pennies discount on things. I always shop on the app as it seems less head-melting than the site. They do events every 3 months or thereabouts and at any time there is something like the World Cup, Olympics, Chinese new year is one too I think. Big sales on some things. The Choice stuff is a bit like Prime on Amazon. Quicker and free postage with 3 “Choice Items” I stick mainly to sellers that are over a year old, are 90+% feedback and have a decent amount of sales and it’s been a pretty safe bet. I found it’s best to buy small orders until you get the hang of things and then branch out. I’ve had to deal with a couple of bad orders and the system has been 100% fair, I got an order missing a shock so we agreed on an appropriate discount. That’s about all I can think of just now to help ya with traversing the site.

Creality aren’t bad, they just require some tuning. My mate has two and they do very well and he’s not modded them, just spent some time tinkering with the speeds and slicer. One is a K1 max and Iltye other is some kind of Ender, he rates them but knows they need tweaking to get the best from them. Bambu is definitely better if you don’t want the tuning to do, I know a guy with the A1(maybe) and he just raves about it and was glad he didn’t have much if any tuning to do. He is probably going to order another soon I think.

That price puts it up against this https://www.modelsport.co.uk/product/kyosho-ultima-sb-dirt-master-2wd-110-ep-kit-1348869 I like my Tamiya stuff but I’d buy the Kyosho.

That trophy truck you did was ridiculous, loved it. I’m sure you’ll get this one sussed out👍

That has a real race-weapon look to it and an interesting setup, very cool.