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That is super meaty looking, well cool!

The smaller Clod one is marginally better but they are both kinda grim.

That’d be cool man, look forward to it👍

I haven’t looked properly into the Dumbo yet, I’d seen the initial release but haven’t seen folk talking much about it since. It does have the feature set I’m after if I remember correctly. I’ll have a look at it and Rx prices tonight. And yeah, DumboRC is a stupid name in fairness but it ALWAYS makes me smile when I hear it😂. It really doesn’t do them justice as from what I can gather the radios are bloody good. At the moment I’ve got 12 Rx in models and am constantly stealing them to put into the next model so I’m about 6 short at the moment I think. The biggest pull on the MT12 is it supports the Rx I have and then I can cherry pick from a large pool going forward. Life would be so much easier if I could cure my shinyitis and just make do with couple of cars. But where’s the fun in that?🤔🤷‍♂️

Holy [expletives deleted]!! I think I might have to give that a miss indeed, I wasn’t ever intending a fleet conversion but that’s bloody savage🫠. I’m actually a bit disappointed as I was warming up to delaying buying a new 3d printer to grab one. I can be a fickle thing at times so might manage to convince myself. The rate of price increases lately has been fierce, I bought a Kyosho USA-1 for £450 from MB Models in 2022 and I just saw Modelsport relist it for £589 the other week. Ideally a MT12 for the complicated models and a DX5 Rugged for one or two others might be the way forward. Think I’ll stew on this for a while yet.

@Stormbringer I’d heard the touchscreen is a fiddly thing and can fail, I guess that’s probably been addressed. Are the Rx civilized money? I’m a bit spoiled after my Flysky in that respect. Every bit of me is wary of it(£240 is a jump after £40 for the GT3c) but it’s just sooo awesome looking and there’s not many weatherproof models on the market which would be super handy.

Having had my GT3c since 2016 I am now feeling the want to upgrade it as I’m getting a bit tired of the cheap feel of it. Having hacked it and having most of my models rely on having at least 3 channels, most use 6 and 8 in one case I’m not really finding too many options out there. I would really love an asbo orange DX Rugged but with its history of issues and Horizon barrelling down the proprietary electronics route it’s not going to be an option as I hate that carp. And it’s not really a cheap thing. I have seen the Radiomaster MT12 and fancy the 4in1 version so I can hopefully use my current Rx’s so it’s not a case of buying heaps of new ones. Does anyone have one of these? Is it a good radio? Are there any faults with it? And are there any other models I’m overlooking? The main things I use on my flysky are 4WS/Crab etc, light switching and servo positioning for my clods tilt hood and bed.

@Stormbringer thats the best and worst part, and I'm constantly having more ideas than I have the time and money for😂 @wolfie1 thats a good shout, the kanthal should stay shiny but if it proves too stiff I'll find my lead free solder. So I sucked it up and spent a few hours over the last few days doing the wiring. swapped out the magnet wires that I had on the spotlights as It was already looking like a weak point. I grabbed the Gorilla tape and strapped up the leads and got the rear lights glued in. I'm really glad i did the rear clusters as they just look so much better than the standard ones. Chuffed thats over as I can actually drive the flipping thing now!!

Yeah, no worries, I’ll Pm you and get the file once I have my own stuff closer to being ready

Looking good. What’s the file that needs printed? I farm out a lot of my larger prints to a mate as his printer is much better tuned than mine. I’m planning throwing some stuff his way in a couple of weeks.

Probably not quite as expensive I wouldn’t imagine. 53 quid ya spent on that one(I’m not including the reamer etc as they are still there for the next one). I have a mate that does airbrush and he sings it from the roofs every single time I mention paint. I once showed him a short course body and he told me I’m better off with cans for the coverage size. He decants the Tamiya cans and gets a lot more for his money but I feel what I save in cash I’d spend in time, mixing, decanting, cleaning, and then there’s thinners and stuff for cleaning the brush. Liquid mask is cool stuff, I prefer tape as my scalpel skills aren’t up to it and I reckon I’d fill the shell with cut marks ready to snap on the first roll. This is not meant to be a dim view on it, just my straight opinion. I would like to try airbrushing sometime but that’s far in the future once I’m better as some of the things I’m learning and practicing at the moment.

I have thought a lot on the design but boxed myself in a lot with the layout. I’m convinced there’s a better design but it’s all I could muster to get it going. The 3 main things in my mind were To keep the catches angled in case of water so that they will have some change it’ll shake down. Body slides forward to protect the distributor on the V8 from getting bent. Finally that the top bracket holds the body-side part of the controller. I figure if it does perform ok then I can make it look like a fuel tank on the bottom and maybe put some covers on the sides to be like inner fenders. I really need to stop thinking of more stuff to do to this thing😂

There's definitely a chance it could, when the two parts are together there is not much gap at all so it would be limited. The gap between the two parts is 0.1mm or thereabouts. I've not sealed up the holes I'm running the cables through yet incase this doesn't really work as it's not a design I was really happy with but it does seem to work. I did think of closing the gap a bit with some aquarium sealant in the same way I did on sliding doors when I was making gecko enclosures years ago. Tape up one piece as a mask and then cover the other in sealant, join the two and remove tape when dry. It's a cool trick to get a tight fit on stuff and keeps tiny baby geckos inside the enclosures and not all over the house. Water ingress was another thought but with the V8 in there I don't plan on going "swimming" with it as I don't think the V8 would drain if it got wet inside.

So I have been chipping away at this and have nearly enough to post. I grabbed an AliExpress alloy fuel cell for a look. It's fine enough but the logo isn't the best, slightly rough threads but otherwise does the job. I swapped out the servo cable for some black cable I also rearranged the electronics and printed a bracket for a 10 pin pogo connector to save unplugging the connector for the light kit. It's not the most elegant but the lights stay on no matter how much I rattle the body and i can remove the body without knackering the light kit. I"m gonna run the bracket and see if it holds up before i do any tidying up on it. Now I'm left with a rats nest in the body to tidy up🤢. Gotta do some soldering on that as the front cables are all too short with the control box all the way at the back. I aslo grabbed some coloured hose to see if it was better for plug wires. It's not entirely to my taste but I have a roll of 22awg Kanthal wire that's got no purpose so I think I'll run that inside it to give shape to it and see what I think. It is a close colour match to the body.

The only thing I can think of is PS clear ans a primer and then use TS brown. Not exactly what you’re probably after though!