We have lots of people who ask for contact information for the shop and website, either be at race events or even at the shop, I usually just scribble the URL and Phone on a paper, but now that we have some sponsored drivers, the need for business card was growing, so today i ordered some

Here is the design, on the back I left a space for the person who gives the card to put his or her name.

Looks good .. I think

Popularity: 37% [?]

I was one of the “very small” sponsors at the Neo08 .. we also advertise at the Neo-Buggy site .. so as such I got to send some banner to the event

Phil (Neo) told me I could send up to 3 meters by 2 meters, but by the life of me, I could not figure how it would be used, so instead I did 7 feet by 3 feet .. the normal size to go on the side fence of a track.

I was really pissed when I arrived at the Neo and saw 3 SIIM banners that where 3 meters by 2 meters on the back wall, towering above all others and very visible .. yep, i was kicing myself .. thats OK, now I know better and next year I will do them that big.

Anyway, looking at the Neo pics today I finally found some with our banner in the background .. yeah, I’m pathetic .. but I was proud of being able to advertise there

Our banners in the Background

See the nice SIIM banner above ours (being obscured by the crowd) .. thats what i’ll do next year

Popularity: 33% [?]

Yesterday we received the Banner we will use for the Neo08 race in Harper Adams.

RC NUT is a sponsor (a small one), so we get to put a banner on the track for the 4 day event, I got the banner from colourbanners.co.uk .. very reasonable prices .. and looks great

Popularity: 30% [?]

Last week a customer at RC NUT asked me if I would take this old Helicopter as a trade in for a M.A.S.H. Counter rotating Heli.

I offered him £50 for trade, today we settled for £60

And here it is, it’s a beast, size 60 I believe .. and it’s NITRO

I have no idea what is really worth, since it’s quite old, but with a little bit of TLC I will make it into a show piece at the shop, it’s so big that size alone will impress visitors.

Or perhaps i’ll just take it apart and rebuild it and see if it will fly again .. either way, I think it was a good deal …

Popularity: 43% [?]

On March of last year, Ash from BMM posted a howto on modifying the SMD box to work with the Losi 8IGHT-T

Since then, it’s been countless times that I have had to dig for it to help somebody on the various forums that ask how to do it, so I decided to just post it on my forum, this way I know how to find it in a Hurry .. this is Ash’s (Ashalak ) guide, not mine.

Firstly you need to remove your motors and starting assembly from underneath the starter box, this is easily done by removing the 3 screws as shown:

Once removed you will note that there is actually a second set of three holes on the underside of the starter motor assembly, you need to re-attach the starter motor assembly with the three alternative three mounting holes. This moves the motor assembly more into the centre line of the starter box which helps align the starter wheel much more accurately with the centrally mounted engine in the 8T.

Next we move on to adjusting the guides, first of all the front guide needs to be positioned all the way down toward the edge of the box, and then tighten up the two screws securing the bracket to the lid:

For the rear guide we need to completely remove it in order to remove some material from the underside, this is best achieved with either a very sharp hobby knife or my personal favourite method - The Dremel! The section which we need to remove is the small plastic lug on the underside of the guide, you need to remove this lug entirely ensuring that you make this area entirely flat in relation to the rest of the guide:

Finally you can re-attach the rear guide onto the starter box lid, however you are only required to mount the inner most securing lug on the underside of the lid. Don’t forget to put the nuts in on the underside of the guide for the mounting pegs as you will be required to remove the guide completely again to do so. With the rear guide secured with only one lug slide the guide all the way back and align the whole in the top guide, with the hole in the rear switch mechanism on the starter box. Rather than having an individual screw for securing the lid to the mounting switch, we need to use a slightly longer screw to mount through the rear hole in the guide and into the hole in the switch mechanism:

The final step is simply adjusting the front and rear mounting pegs on the guides in order to secure the chassis. You are also able to move the complete starter motor assembly forward or backwards in relation to the opening in the chassis, this is easily done be loosening off the three screws shown in the first step and positioning the wheel so that it is central with the flywheel opening. Here is what everything should look like when setup correctly:

Hope this helped!

it sure did

Popularity: 85% [?]

I sold a Fioroni Turbo Sliding Clutch to George about 4 - 5 days ago, upon receiving it, he reported that when he mounted it, the flywheel jammed to the engine and would not turn, and even worst, he now could not remove the flywheel nut, when he turned it, the shaft rotated with it and the flywheel remained in place.

Since George is a bit inexperienced, I suspected perhaps he forgot to put a collet in, I was further sure of that when he seems not to know what a collet is ..

To avoid damaging the engine, I asked him to send it to me and i’d take a look, well, it just arrived today…

Here is the beast, it’s quite a large engine, the Hong Nor RTR’s comes with them by default .. I can only imagine how insane a CR Buggy must be with one of those, anyway, back to the topic on hand.

You can definitely see how tight the flywheel is to the engine, I am at this point 99% sure the collet is missing (or is just way to small), I noticed George had done some superficial damage to the flywheel (some mole grips perhaps) .. I wanted to avoid doing further damage to it, so it was time to pull out the big gun … the piston locker

Now, I am ashamed to say so, but I actually never used one of them before, so I puled one off the shelf, it’s a good toll to have in my pitbox anyway ..

For those who dont know, this is how it works, you screw it into your glowplug socket, the protrusion on it will sit nicely on top of your piston head, preventing it from traveling upwards, therefore locking the piston and allowing you to tight or un-tight a flywheel with no need to use any mole grips or anything else on the flywheel itself, or in this case, since the flywheel had no grip, be able to remove the nut .. period.

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy having the piston locker makes the whole ordeal ..

And voila .. once the flywheel was out .. the problem was quite visible .. indeed there was no collet

A whopping £2.99 later, and a nice new Hong Nor Collet (or taper cone as some call it) was in place

And there you have it, the flywheel is safely tight in place, and a nice gap shows between it and the engine, it turns just as it should … the whole repair costed exactly £2.99 and took 15 minutes … no sign of any damage to the engine, and the scrapes George did on the flywheel are just cosmetic .. in a few weeks of using it with the starter box, you wont seem them anymore

What did I learn from this ordeal ?, stop busting your behind with zip ties on the top of the piston or mole grips on the flywheel, definitely get a piston or crankshaft locker .. well worth it.

Popularity: 38% [?]

I was checking today the stats for the RC NUT website, and man was I happy, according to the chart we keep on growing the number of visitors that visit per day (uniques) .. thats great news, as it means more and more people are aware of the site, we opened in September.

the Graphs really says it all ..

Technorati Tags: RC NUT

Popularity: 18% [?]

A few weeks back I was browsing Maxbashing and I saw this for sale

It’s part of a Mini-LST project, basically a bunch of after market parts put together to build a whole truck from the ground up .. but never finished it seems

So I bought it, it’s now my winter project, I will continue with the theme of using all after market parts (hop-ups) and build a BLING brushless truck
more pics will follow as I build it up

Technorati Tags: MLST, RC, RC Nut, Team Losi

Popularity: 35% [?]

Today I took a 2 Hour drive to visit The Hobby Co .. the distributors of Tamiya, Italeri, Carson, and a few others, they invited us over for a little bit of relations mending .. to show they are a “nice company” and the bad experience we had with the rep should not put us off … O-K

Paul (Racing buddy) came along with me, we where quite excited to check out the distributor’s place and see what great toys they might have, and of course, what products I should consider for the shop.

I must say, their building was quite nice, but not a single indication that it’s them, no signs, no name at the door, nothing .. I guess they dont want people knocking at the door and asking for repairs

Overall it was a pleasant experience, I was trilled to check the Tamiya 1/14th Big Rig trucks, they where quite impressive, and there where a few other bits and bops that looked “nice” .. but in general, I was not trilled… there was really nothing new, neither there was any one product I felt the need to pull the credit card out for.

So .. we will of course stock the Tamiya plastic models and paints, and some of their on road electric cars, not sure if we will bother with any of the Carson RC line, they also sell Ninco slot cars .. it looked interesting, perhaps something to consider in the future .. but for now, it’s Just Tamiya and Italeri.

Popularity: 24% [?]

A few weeks back, we opened the RC NUT shop in Sandbach

Ever since, it’s been quite an experience, especially when it comes to dealing with Agents.

Today got the cake, I got an email from the Agent for “The Hobby Company” that really upset me, I had asked him to put a list of plastic models and paint for me, as he knows better than myself what is selling, worth about £500 plus another £280 or so worth of paint (hey, it’s an £800 order for him visiting me for 20 minutes, and these are very cheap products too, so it’s a nice size order).

I got the list this morning, and I was quite happy with it, so I sent him an email back saying “looks good, will buy in a few weeks (just got done paying a large order to Ripmax)”

And the guy goes mental, sends me an email all pissed off that I told him I would buy it in October (I still might) and that he came over because I said i was going to put an order etc etc etc .. all bitchy and acting as if I had done something wrong or wasted his time, I meet the man ONCE, have since sent him one email (that I NEVER got a reply to), thats it ….

Who the F*** does this guy thinks he is ? I am the customer, not him, he needs to kiss my ass to gain my business, not act as if it’s my privilege to be able to buy from his company, Models Shops go out of business in this country by the dozen per year, so we are very careful, we have a proper business plan, and buy all stock cash, so we dont get into loans and a big overhead .. makes sense .. no ?.

But that seems to be a common problem, like another rep called me a few days back saying “Hi, I am from company X, I am in the vicinity .. mind if I pop in and show you our products ?” now, bare in mind, I never called these people, so I said yes, he came in about 2 hours later, after his presentation, I told him thanks, and informed him I would reviewed his catalogs and if i decided to buy something I’d call

He was all surprised by this, the man actually EXPECTED an order .. now, I dont know him, or his products, I need to research .. do these Agents actually think peer pressure will make you buy ? .. well, it seems YES .. so what is this ? .. are the other Model Shop owners all sucked into buying anything every time these guys some by ?

To be honest, I dont even need them to come by, once the account is set, I do my own orders, I dont need some fancy suit to come in and tell me they think I should buy this months overstock special .. the one that did not sold before and now they trying to flog .. nor I need somebody pressuring me to buy more than I need … yes, I know it’s their job, and they get paid on commission, but sorry .. I got no patience for such behavior.

It’s just, that once again, doing business in the UK continues to surprise me…

Technorati Tags: RC NUT

Popularity: 19% [?]