Thx Eelen for the tutorial ^^. Personally I prefer using 1.5mm drill since the hole will be tighter as well.

You should be able to find them in hardware shops. Ima be posting gearbox mod for MS PRO later ^^.

You have the honour of being the 1st Welcome here.

I am working on a clear body as well. I can take pics step by step and post it up.

Gearbox Mod:



This post has been edited by 13lack.12ose: Mar 5 2009, 01:08 AM

12ose's Tutorial 1 (Part 1): Decorating Polycarbonate Cover using Spray/Masking Method:

A) Introduction:
Cars can have the same setting, same cover, but looks is what gives the car its soul and character. Now I will show you how to decorate polycarbonate bodies using Spray/ Masking Method.

B) Tools You will Need:


1. Cover of your choice
2. Tamiya Masking Tape (Highly recommended cause they do not peel off the paint)
3. Pen Knife
4. Files (1 Flat file for straight edges, 1 round file for wheel guard)
5. Scissors (Big for cutting long straight lines, Small for cutting curves/ trimming)
6. Polycarbonate Spray paints
7. Stickers and decals
8. Gundam Fine Tip Marker
9. Cutting Mat (or Hardback magazines if you do not have one like me )
10. Clean lint-free cloth (too shy to be in the picture )

C) Preparing your cover:
Since polycarbonate is very easy to work with, it is good to cut a little more so that your cover can sit lower on the chassis. Cut straight long lines using large scissors and use the small scissors for smaller/ shorter areas. Use penknife if necessary to shave off tiny bumps along the lines.


After cutting, sand the cut areas with a file in a diagonal direction for smoother and more uniform lines.

Clean the cover with soapy water to remove the mold-releasing agent and dirt after everything is done. Leave it to dry or use the cloth (new spectacle cloth can be used) to wipe the cover dry.

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Added on March 4, 2009, 11:06 pmD) Designing Motifs and Masking the cover:
Stick the masking tape onto the cutting mat. Using the marker, draw out the motifs that you want. I choose flames cause it is relatively easy to draw and looks really hot (no puns intended).

After designing your motifs, cut them out with the penknife.

Now take the headlight and windscreen stickers from your kit and paste them under the cover. Make sure all the edges are fully pressed down or the paint will run under the sticker. Then proceed to paste the motifs under the cover.


E)Painting the cover:
USE ONLY POLYCARBONATE PAINTS. Normal spray paints and acrylic will melt the polycarbonate and also will crack after it dries. Tamiya Polycarbonate paints are denoted by PS-number.

Shake the spray well before use (I shake for approx 30s, didn't count, but long enough for my mother to complain about the noise ). Hold it about 25-30cm from the cover and spray from left to right evenly. Do not spray a single thick coat. Many thin coats will not only dry faster, but produce a more even finish as well. I did 3 coats for each colour.


After spraying the body colour, gently remove the masking tape motifs and colour the flames.



Ditto to the windscreen.


Now remove the protective coating on the top of the polycarbonate....


Still a bit bland isn't it? In Part 2 we will
1. Use stickers and decals to decorate the body,
2. Panel lining the cover to give it volume as well as
3. Modifying the Cover mount to let the cover sit lower on the chassis.

Stay Tuned

This post has been edited by 13lack.12ose: Mar 4 2009, 11:18 PM

Haha faster make one so I can learn

12ose's Tutorial 1 (Part 2): Decorating Polycarbonate Cover using Spray/Masking Method:

F) Stickers and Decals:
I highly recommend stickers used for R/C since they are highly durable and will not peel off as easily as dress-up stickers. Except for the headlights and taillights, leave the normal stickers that comes with the kit back in the box, they are usually too thick and are made of paper.

Cut out the stickers you need using penknife, cutting away the excess stickers. Next put it on the body and see how you want to position it.


With a penknife holding onto the 1 corner of the sticker (so that you will not leave fingerprint under the sticker), apply the sticker onto the body.


Water slide decals are good too if you want that "painted on" look. I took mine from my Gundam kits though water slide decals that comes with the static display models would be a better choice.

G) Panel lining:
Yes you read that right . Even though we are not building a Gundam, panel lining at the right places of your car gives the car volume when viewed and highlights the details as well.

Take the Gundam marker and gently draw on to the grooves on the body, particularly the windscreen and doors. Also in my example, I did a light lining on the taillight. Before the ink dries gently rub off the ink with your fingers/tissue/cotton bud. Do 1 area at a time. This means inking 1 windscreen and rubbing the ink off before inking the next windscreen.

Examples:




H) Mounting the Body:
The normal mount that comes with a MS PRO kit is VERY HEAVY and sits too high on the chasis. I did a mod by using only the front "hook", removing the excess studs. Use a 4mm screw (can be found on Super-1 kits) to secure the front "hook" and the cover. The rear mount I used comes from Manta Ray Mk III. The rear mount is specially designed to sit nicely onto the chassis so the cover will not wobble.


If the cover comes into contact with the wheels, use a small pair of scissors or a curved scissors to trim away the wheel guard on the body. A spacing of 1mm between the cover and the tyres would suffice.

I)Results:
Enjoy the pics




This post has been edited by 13lack.12ose: Mar 5 2009, 01:31 PM

@FatalMIND: My Pleasure. Just remember to post your TRF Jr up when you're done

@Lost4Love: The motor you use depends on your car setting actually.

But to keep things simple, for PRO motors, Rev Tuned is better for straights, Torque Tuned for cornering, and Atomic Tuned for best combination of these two.

Currently the fastest PRO motor is Hyper Dash Pro.

Never liked Rev-Tuned b4. Remembered running it for a few times and the terminal inside broke. Anyway I find Rev Tuned to be slow as well.

I like the Avante. The roller setting is good as well.

OT abit, how do u post small pictures? All the pictures I posted so big >.<

Eelen this sunday there'll be a race @ Tampines.

I'll be going down see see look look. If the track is viable I do not mind giving it a few tries. Wouldn't wanna risk scratching my cover like the 1st one

Location is @ Blk 419 Tampines St 41. 50 cts a ticket, $1.50 per pair of batts.

Now making Polycarbonate Plates for my FRP and wheels

haha thx David but I am not sure if my method of breaking in motor is good. Consists of only running the motor without load with weak batts and then letting the motor to cool and use strong batts to run the motor without load. I deemed the motor completed breaking in if I do not see any sparks inside the motor. As to cleaning the motor I am not sure how to do it.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge on this can teach us

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Added on March 5, 2009, 4:23 pmGearbox Mod continued




Guess what they are used for

This post has been edited by 13lack.12ose: Mar 5 2009, 04:23 PM

The 2nd pic you see are "vibration absorbers" when the gears are spinning, so the gears can turn more smoothly

I will be testing the effects of slighted mass damper placement. I am inclined to believe that tilting the mass damper back will be more beneficial compared to a perpendicular one.

Nice Ride! Modding Black Saber onto SFM chassis! Welcome aboard fm saber and susunooblike! Glad to see more and more people coming back.

Finalised my mass damper setting under the cover as well

There are 3 effects achievable with this damper. See if you can figure them out

This post has been edited by 13lack.12ose: Mar 5 2009, 11:30 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

Thx for the update. Will be testing my car this saturday to see if the effects are present. Perhaps we can discuss more then.

620 ball bearings means the outer diameter is 6mm, and the hole diameter is 2mm. They are better than usual ball bearings cuz there is no unnecessary lateral movement between the inner and outer ball bearing casing, making your car more stable and faster.

Mass dampers are used to absorb shock when the car lands. Though if you set it right, it can be used to alter the CG of the car during a jump.

The Steering system is a dead weight. Because there is no mechanism to ensure the wheels will turn towards the right direction and it cannot keep the car running straight @ straight sections.

There are a few places in SG that still have Bergkaiser. It's a very beautiful car. I like it as well. Though slight modification have to be made to fit the cover onto other chassis.

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Added on March 6, 2009, 12:43 pmI have been using Sliding Dampers since I first started competing. The black one works like a sliding damper. It's made from reinforced plastic so it does not bend as easily as the earlier ones.

I install the sliding damper at the rear so as to achieve a turning effect during turns.

This post has been edited by 13lack.12ose: Mar 6 2009, 12:43 PM

Will slow down the car in a corner if you put the sliding damper in front. Put in the rear and it will achieve a faster cornering.

If put the damper in front, car will change direction towards the wall, thus generating resistance and slowing the car down.

However if put in the rear, the car will change direction away from the wall, reducing the forward resistance of the car pushing on the track wall.

It is the same concept as to narrow/wide roller width front, wide/ narrow roller width rear.

However only use the chrome spring. The black spring is too soft.

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Added on March 6, 2009, 1:01 pmhaha smoking the cover I have never heard about the method. I tried searching @ google before the tutorial but the only thing I found was powder painting.

Perhaps you might want to add a bit more info on what is smoking the poly-cover?

This post has been edited by 13lack.12ose: Mar 6 2009, 01:02 PM