Thunder Tiger Challenger restoration

[Lowgear]

Yet another good idea I hadn't thought of. I actually bought some rubber faced vise jaw pads last year for another R/C project I can use, and have a number of files at my disposal. I might give it a shot.

[RC10th]

The file is a good method but it takes a steady hand and a certain "feel" to get right, a non square frame rail would bother you just as much.

I tend to like the sandpaper on a piece of glass or steel plate. If the paper moves around too much a little contact keeps it down.

[Lowgear]

I also bought a new sanding block last year, and have boxes of assorted grits of sandpaper. I'll probably try that first to feel it out to get an idea of how long it'll take. If I feel as if it's too daunting of a task with the sandpaper, I'll switch over to filing. I don't know when I'll have the chance to work on them though, as I only have sporadic opportunities with this particular build since it's not something I can sit at my hobby table to work on from start to finish like with a more normal R/C.

Until then, I'll probably be making a post about the gearboxes restoration.

[coxbros1]

any updates?

[Lowgear]

Well yes and no.

After 10 months of absolutely obsessing over it, I became completely frustrated and burnt out. I boxed it all up, and put it aside at the end of September. The hope was to focus on completing another project, and then go back to it.

There's some good news though in that I ended up finding/buying another one that appears to be new never run in the original box! It cost a mint on top of the ton of money I already spent for the restoration of this one, but I feel it was ultimately worth it. While in the process of refinishing the parts, and scrutinizing every insignificant detail to microscopic levels, I had an epiphany. No matter how perfect the refinishing came out, the parts were never going to resemble how they looked from the factory again. I was spending more money on the restoration than a brand new one could be bought for. I think it was the mismatched frame rails that finally pushed me over the edge. There was also some custom rear side plates I was trying to get from Germany that the pandemic put a hold to.

So now I have a factory fresh example to work with once I get back to it. I'll be using a couple pieces from the one I was restoring that's missing on the new one, or that I like better. What I've come to find is that the same parts for these can have slight variances in design for no reason whatsoever. For example, the cage on the new one I bought is different from the cage on the old one. The old one is built better so I'll be using that.