07/13/04 - It seems that everyday I do something to further my collection or VintageRCWeb. That being said I thought I should document my insanity and to top it all off, let the whole world read it so that my bad decision can serve as a warning to others!
A lot has happened in the past 6 months. I've built my collection from nothing to 5 buggies. I have two more that should arrive this week. I'm waiting for my Optima Mid and a Marui hunter. (birthday gifts from my wife) I'm also learning a great deal about creating reproduction decals. My decal section has more on that.
07/14/04 - Today was one of the days that make this hobby really fun. My Optima Mid showed up! I'm still waiting for the Marui Hunter maybe it will be here this week too. Every time I get a new project in I try to get a page for that buggy built that night. Today I started the Optima Mid page. I also found a NIB set of Optima rims on eBay for 9 bucks! I love the "Buy It Now" sellers!
07/18/04 - For the last 3 days I've been working feverishly on something that Vintage RC Web was in dire need of, content. Thanks to Jay Crews with RCModeler Magazine, I now have almost all of the promotional art that I need. These ads are very hard to come by and Jay was kind enough to take the time to help me out. In the early days of r/c off road, RCM was the only magazine in town. I spent the weekend thumbing through each back issue looking for anything that was related to vintage off road r/c. Scanning all these ads and articles was quite a task! I was waiting for scanner to give up the ghost. I'll be putting up a page for these ads and cropping images for the car pages.
07/19/04 - Another great day for my growing collection. Today my latest addition showed up at the door. A Marui Hunter that is in new built condition. There are only a few parts on this one, that I can even tell are used. It looks like I'll be up late getting the Hunter's web page finished with links and all.
07/22/04 - Well it's been a few days of some very tedious work but it was all worth it. I've now scanned, sized, cropped and edited all the ads I could scan in. I remember when I first started looking on the Internet for actual manufacture photos I found very few. Now I have so many I think my site is going to burst! I'm starting to realize that the site is taking just as much time as buggy restorations. not to mention my bandwidth. If this site ever gets a great deal of traffic I might be in trouble.
07/27/04 - It's been a few days, I've been so busy with the site and the collection I thought I'd post when I got to a stopping point. The first big landmark was getting the ads page finished. What a chore that was. The big news was my new Kyosho Gallop. My local hobby shop took in a Gallop in rough shape to get it running and the owner wouldn't pay for the work. It was offered to me for the cost of the new parts. Needless to say I almost broke my arm going for my wallet. It looks all original, only missing the driver doll but for that price who can complain.
07/29/04 - A few days ago I received my new Futaba 2PL radio and gear for two buggies. Today I thought it was about time to get the Turbo Scorpion off the shelf for a test drive. After putting some expendable tires and rims on it we were out the door. Took a couple of batteries to work the bugs out but now I'm ready for the dirt.
08/09/04 - A lot has gone on in the last few days. I've been helping my wife find a new car. A BMW X5 was the winner. Now that we are all done with that bit I can get back to the web site. I posted the first images of my Marui Hunter, my Kyosho Gallop and my latest addition the Kyosho Tomahawk. I also updated the Kyosho Optima page.
08/11/04 - Looks like my links page finally has some content. I have tried to stay away from all the corporate sites that are so easy to find. I'm also trying to work on a new car page every night. I suppose with all the pages I have left to finish they might all be done before winter.
08/18/04 - I think I have finally figured out the process for reproducing decals from a scan. It looks like each set will take about 15 hours of work. I'll post a how to once I have this down to a science.
08/27/04 - I wanted to talk a little bit about the original Kyosho Optima. I had always wondered why most of the Optimas out there are not painted like the factory picture on the box. I now know why. It's a HUGE pain in the butt! I took twice as long to paint this one and it's only close to the factory look. Kyosho used pin stripes everywhere on this buggy. I've never been so glad to have paint job done in my life. I just need to finish the decals and this one will be done.
09/09/04 - It looks as though I have finally found somthing that I can't seem to do. My Ultima Body was painted very well but it was not the proper color so I thought I would just strip the paint like all the others and start over. Not so, the magic break fluid didn't even budge this stuff. By the looks of it, the paint is the Pactra lexan paint. The only thing that even came close was laquer thinner. The problem is, as we all know, this thinner eats the body within seconds. I don't think I will ever get the paint off. I will be trying the oven cleaner next. The good news is I have an uncut body and wing in case this is a disaster.
09/16/04 - It's been a week and I for the first time have to say... It was a disaster!!! The Ultima body is all but destroyed. I used everything I could think of to remove the Pactra lacquer paint from the lexan to no avail. First the brake fluid, just sat on the paint for hours. The fluid did manage to eat some of the exposed lexan on the other side. Next, oven cleaner. I used Easy Off left on for hours. The colors of the paint wouldn't even rub off on a cotton ball. Next I used nail polish remover without asitone, nothing. After that I used Pactra thinner this did start to remove the paint but it was eating at the lexan and making it foggy, then it started to soften the material. Before totally ruining the entire body I tried steel wool this worked much faster than any of the other methods but it scratched the body so badly, polishing would take hours not to mention the fact that it's almost impossible to use steel wool on the small spaces (helmet, head rest.) Thankfully I have that new body to use.
10/11/04 - I've have been working on something this month that has taken my web site time. My Land Rover Discovery. I haven't fixed anything on it for the past year so there was like 25 things that were broken or not working. I've had to put a lot of work into it. I guess it's been like restoring a giant r/c in a way. Lots of really dirty bits and broken plastic parts. I'm happy to say it's now finished. I can get back to my real hobby!
11/05/04 - Well after all the work, the decal page is full of great decal images. I have spent hours of sizing, cropping and scanning. It has all been worth it. I hope that even if a person can't just take these files to a print shop and come away with repro decals, people will be able to see what the originals looked like. I do want talk a little bit about people that sell these scans for profit and promise that you can use these to print perfect copies. This is simply not true. You can make your own perfect reproductions using these files, but it takes hours of work. I'll be posting the procedure in my How To section very soon.
03/24/05 - It looks like I haven't had much time for the blog section of the site but I figured a quick word every now and then wouldn't kill me. As I write this I'm sitting next to a pool at a resort in Mexico. I thought it was worth an entry because I worked for two hours last night to hack an Internet connection just so I could work on the site. Wow I guess I am insane. I finished the restoration of the Fox just before we left for the airport. I will be posting pictures when I get back. Ole!
