Thloftus’ Beast II build

[FREEDOM83]

Originally Posted by Thloftus

Enjoy the CrossRC kit - I’d like to give one a try sometime. They look fantastic! How’s the build quality?
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Now i´m building VS4-10 , and the next one will be an SSD Trail King , but when i buy an 6x6 truck it will be an Cross RC .

[Thloftus]

Originally Posted by FREEDOM83

Now i´m building VS4-10 , and the next one will be an SSD Trail King , but when i buy an 6x6 truck it will be an Cross RC .

Post it when you do!


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[Thloftus]

I finished wiring up the ESC, the steering and shift servos, and the motor. The Sidewinder 4 has a foxed 5 V BEC that I’m using for the receiver and the shift servo. I have the ProModler DS470BLHV on a Castle 10 A BEC and a RX bypass adapter with the BEC set to 8 A where the servo has > 450 oz-in of torque and a transit time < 0.12 sec. it can be run up to 8.4 V, but I decided to leave some margin. I added a JST plug to the battery wires for future expansion.

Here’s how it looks after some clean up. This build has a lot of wires! It’s only going to get worse as I add lights and the sound kit, lol!




We fired it up and spun the wheels. No smoke or other nonsense aside from having programmed the Sidewinder 4 for the wrong polarity, which was easy to fix. I also fine tuned the end points for the shift servo. And the body still fits without conflicts with the electronics! Hooray! It’s a little tight once everything is in there ...The ProModler servo is impressive at throwing the front wheels around on the bench. I can’t wait to see how it performs on the trails! There’s no shortage of speed in second gear and fantastic low seed control in first with the HH Revolver. I’m happy with how the build is coming together so far.

Onward to finishing the body!

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[Thloftus]

We made some more progress over the past couple weeks - some of it a few weekends back, but I haven’t done a good job keeping up with the build thread.

The next step was to complete the roof, which is done now. The hinges for the lid on the back side are interesting. So many small parts! And the metal for the c-clips that hold the hinge pins in place is soft. Seems unlikely you could get them off again. The latch for the roof is clever and works well. I’m keeping the roof removable and have magnets on the way to hold it in place. Here’s how it looks now. The seams line up reasonably well. I had to do some filing on the driver’s side, but the rest fit together with no issues.






Made some decent progress on the tool boxes too, with one complete


And another part way


Probably back to the bed next.


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[AK KRAWLER]

That rig looks AWESOME!!!

[Thloftus]

Originally Posted by AK KRAWLER

That rig looks AWESOME!!!

Thank you! It’s been a lot of fun!


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[Thloftus]

Few more steps forward over the past week. I worked at the dining room table - hence the towel ‘pit mat’ in the pictures below. Wife gets crabby otherwise and harmony is important these days, lol!

I decided to focus on the bed cleats next. There at 58 of them according to other threads. I wasn’t brave enough to count them myself for fear of psyching myself out. I sanded each one after cutting it off the sprue to ensure a flush fit for each against the side of the bed. They’re tiny buggers and hard to handle, but you can hold the cleat in needle nose pliers and sand away without marring the cleat - good thing since the sanding would be nearly impossible otherwise.

Here’s how one side looks with the cleats installed. Pretty cool plus feels like a sort of RC right of passage, lol!


And some close-ups for effect. Feel like I need to get as much mileage as possible out of all the hours spent on sanding and fit-checking. The cleats are neat and feel strong enough to use for real.



Back is done too. Looks very similar to the sides, but feels like a bridge crossed anyway, lol!


I also attached the wheel well covers. The lack of guides on the body makes these parts (and others) tricky. It’s a good idea to use masking tape or similar to set the part placement so you can add the glue and press the parts together without a lot of fussing. This kit has definitely inspired the most ‘next step planning’ that I’ve ever done on an RC! The covers aren’t perfect, but I’m happy with the results overall



I also braved the front window bezels. The lack of guides on the parts and the bendiness of the bezels and the front face of the cab makes attaching these two parts extra tricky. Deep breaths and focus on patience, lol! I’m happy with the result - not perfect, but decent given the difficulty ...


And played around with the interior some more. Thinking I’ll use the dash that came with the Tamiya Scania parts tree with the seats. It fits well and looks nice - I need a driver next so make sure there’s enough room for legs!





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[Thloftus]

Magnetic roof attachment!

I’m borrowing this one from a few other builds. Really liked the idea of a removable top for adding a electronics to the engine bay (smoker and sound system in my case) and keeping easy access to the crew compartment.

The first step is getting some magnets. I spent a while looking at options and settled on 6 mm OD x 3 mm thick nickel coated ferrites.

https://www.amazon.com/GBYMIUY-Refri.../dp/B07873ZCY4

These are plenty strong and hold the roof well. Some of the builds I looked at used stronger rare earth magnets, but I’d actually be worried about prying the lid off if the magnets were any stronger.

The next step is getting some Styrene building materials. I used Plastruct 0.25” square rod to match the footprint for the magnets



You can tell I forgot to take pictures in the beginning - hence the short rod. It was nice out so I decided to work in the backyard.

Also picked up a Kerf saw and Miter box. It works great for small pieces. I’m hoping to use it for the wood truck bed also. We’ll see how long it stays sharp - but then, it didn’t cost much either. The seller I used is sold out now, but it’s easy to find elsewhere. The description is: Olson Saw 35-241 Fine Kerf Saw 35-550 42 tpi with Aluminum Thin Slot Miter Box. The file in the picture was separate.


A few minutes of sawing and sanding later and I had a handful of magnet mounts


For installing the magnets, it’s easy to get tripped up aligning the magnets (since one is attached to the lid and the other is attached to the body) and inadvertently getting the polarity backwards so the magnets repel rather than attract each other. I also wanted the magnets to sit flush against each other when the lid was installed.

To get around all that, I first used CN glue to bond the magnet to the mount, then added the mating magnet so I could see how to make the top of the mount + magnet stack flush with the roof, then (plastic weld) bonded the mount to the body, and finally, used CN to bond the top magnet to the roof. For the last step, I put a thin spacer between the magnets, applied CN to the top magnet, and then attached to roof and pressed it all together. Overall, this approach made it easy to line everything up, keep the polarity straight, and get everything bonded together. Here’s how it looks in the end. I’m happy with how it turned out




I also took the plunge and assembled the spare. It was less work than I remember for the others, but then it’s only 1 vs 6, lol! The beadlock has more of a matte finish than the wheels that came with the kit. I like it - may try to achieve something similar with the others.


Onward! I may even start painting soon ...


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[Thloftus]

We focused on the wooden bed next. It’s more of a laminate, but close enough, lol! I haven’t done this kind of thing before and honestly, had mixed expectations for the outcome. One bonus for a build thread is you’re free to exclude anything that dings your apparent skills, haha!

The first step is getting some wood. I decided to use 1/16” thick basswood and made a spreadsheet to figure out the width. Basswood is easy to find and comes in a large variety of dimensions that are well matched to RC models. For the spreadsheet, I looked at things like the required number of boards, any leftover gaps, the board width if scaled up to 1:1, etc. In the end, I settled on 3/8” thickness. Scaled up to full size, this is around 5 1/4” ~ 6” which should look reasonable. It’s also only 20 boards which seemed likely to fit within the spare time I have to work on kits!

The mini mitre saw I used for the magnet mounts worked perfectly with the basswood; clean cuts and it was easy to line up the boards for equal lengths. I made each one slightly too long (maybe a mm or so) and then sanded to fit. The whole process went much faster than I expected. Here’s how it looked at the end


Almost done ... except for the spacers on each side, D’oh! The spacers are leftover boards installed on their side (3/16” worth of gap total), which unfortunately doesn’t look super awesome. So much for spreadsheets, lol! But no fear, basswood actually comes in 3/32” width by 1/16” thick strips - one on each side and blamo, no gaps!

Thanks to the magic of television, or in my case delinquency updating the build thread + ordering the magic 3/32” gap fillers and cutting them to length, here’s the ‘final’ product. The 3/32” boards are the thin ones on the left / right sides of the bed.



I’m excited with how it turned out. The boards fit together tightly, but not so much that they want to jump out. I may or may not need to glue them down, but probably will do this anyway.

The next step is to weather the wood and glue it down. I’m going to paint the bed and weather the boards first. For the weathering, we’re trying the steel wool + vinegar ‘stain’ method. Hoping that turns out well!


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[Thloftus]

More fun with magnets!

This one is going to be short. I made the steel wool and vinegar solution to weather the wood, but some yard varmint knocked it over and so I had to start over. It should be ready again by this weekend hopefully.

In the meantime ... I decided to attach the tool boxes with more of the magnets that I used to attach the roof. The stack height for two magnets was almost a perfect match to the height of the mounting plates on the boxes. Plus I’m not a fan of the mounting plates themselves, which seem prone to easily breaking off, especially since the boxes are exposed under the truck.

Here’s the bed with the boxes installed


And with one of the boxes removed to show the magnets. I used a three-point mount for each box


The mounting is solid, with no worries about the boxes falling off. It’s also somewhat compliant, which should reduce chances for breakage.

Onward!


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[Thloftus]

Made a few more steps toward the finish line this weekend. I was planning to add the metal rails for the bed after painting everything else, but decided this probably would not to turn out well and instead added them now. I’m planning to mask them off during painting to keep the stock black color. Here’s how they look after installation. Lots of sanding for the Styrene bits that hold them in. Thankful I got a decent set of diamond files to make this easier. Definitely recommend patience for this kit.



I also weathered the wood slats for the bed. The first step was making a test piece to compare the results with and without a pre-coat of black tea. Here’s the results. The bottom third on the left-hand-side is without any “stain.” The next third to the right is the vinegar + steel wool alone while the right-most third was painted with black tea first to increase the tannins and this the weathering effect.


The family consensus was to skip the tea (too black) and go instead with the vinegar + steel wool solution alone. In total it had soaked for around a week. The solution itself is somewhat nasty with green bits and other funk floating in the fluid. I used a brush to apply it from its ‘creation’ mason jar. No idea what to do with the leftovers now that we’re done. Yum.

Here’s the wood before


And here it is a few hours after once everything dried



I’m happy with how it turned out. Looks weathered and crappy, lol!

I also painted the cab with primer and sanded the bed and tool boxes in preparation for primer. I’m hoping for more painting progress this week if the weather cooperates. Seemingly endless rainy days here, lol!


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[Thloftus]

It’s been a while since the last post. Work got in the way and it’s been a rainy Pacific Northwest summer so far, which complicated painting. But onward now!

I decided to try the salt technique for weathering the body. There are several tutorials on the forum and YouTube, so I won’t bore you with another one here. Plus I’ve never done this before so you shouldn’t listen to me anyway, lol!

After priming the body, I painted it with Tamiya TS-33, Dull Red and Tamiya TS-62, NATO Brown.



I applied the dull red first and then used light coats of NATO brown to make the red less ‘bright’ and hopefully more rusty. The bed then looked like



We picked up some coarse salt and I ground it a bit with a paint brush handle in a bowl to create a variety of salt grain sizes. I then misted the body with water (few $ spray bottles off the internet) and applied the salt. I tried to pile it up in places where rust would likely grow on the body. At this point the bed looked like




Next up was applying Tamiya TS-2, dark green paint. One thing I didn’t appreciate until this step is the shadowing due to the salt means you need to use a lot more paint to cover the same surface. Getting even and complete coverage required around 4 cans for the bed and cab in my case (versus maybe 1.5 to 2 otherwise). The Beast II body has a lot of surface area, so other hard bodies will require less, but it’s something to keep in mind. At the end of this stage, we had the following. You can see the salt if you zoom the photos.




I let the paint dry for a few days and then started knocking the salt off with a toothbrush to expose the underlying “rust.” Oh man, make sure you’re feeling patient for this part. The salt was fairly well bonded (in my case) which meant several hours with the toothbrush plus some initial fears that the salt wasn’t coming off and I’d ruined the body, lol. Spraying the body with water helped - but wow, I had no idea how long it would take.

In the end, I’m happy with how it turned out. Here’s some photos of the bed. I’m still working on the cab.




I also picked up some Vallejo black wash and plan to add that next. Hopefully quicker turn on updates than this one, lol!

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[Rick Tomsett]

so hows it coming along ? this is a good read

[Thloftus]

Originally Posted by Rick Tomsett

so hows it coming along ? this is a good read

Thank you for asking! I’ll try to post more going forward.


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[Thloftus]

I didn’t realize how much time had gone by, mostly due to family time and deadlines at work. The weather has been fantastic here for the last few weeks and we (in the Seattle area) have to take advantage while it lasts. I’m hoping the Pacific Northwest rains will come a little late this year, but the odds are low.

I pulled the tape off the bed rails and was pleasantly surprised to find they had rusted, possibly due to the salt water I inadvertently created while cleaning off the paint-salt or maybe just due to keeping them wrapped in tape for a couple months in our damp weather. Either way, I like the way they turned out. Hard to beat real rust



Next up was painting the roof and the boxes that sit under the bed. I followed the same procedure as last time, with the small addition of some black paint for the rust undercoat.



Here’s with the salt and green paint applied


And 2 weeks later after cleaning off the salt, Presto, one small step closer to completion! The boards for the wooden bed swelled slightly, so I had to sand the ends some and will need to glue them in place - they pop out otherwise which meant 4 tries + some cursing to get the pictures ... but I like the way they turned out. The entry cover on the roof turned out really well. The ring is from salt that melted in a drop of water.








I also picked up Arya Stark as a driver. I’m trying to go for a Mud / Snow Runner theme. She looks the part, I like her expression, and she fits the cab. I’ll be focusing on the interior and sound system next.




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[Dakillswitch]

Any updates?

[Thloftus]

I didn’t expect to be away this long. Somehow 2021 got away from me between family and (mostly) work. Hopefully 2022 is more normal on a lot of ways and I’ll have more free time.

Next on the list was glueing the wooden floor for the bed. The planks swelled after the weathering and some of them developed twists and other issues. So glue was in order to keep everyone in place.

First up though, I needed to install the rear mud flaps in a way that wouldn’t impact the wooden bed. The directions called for button head screws in the floor of the bed, but this would have bulged the wooden planks. So I got some flat head screws and went to town with a drill bit so they could sit flush. Here’s the final product from the bed side.




And from the mud flap side



This worked reasonably well and the screws were certainly flush or a little below the surface once tight. I next glued the planks in place with rubber cement. It held them well enough and it was easy to clean up the excess. Here’s the final product. I’m happy with how it turned out.




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[Thloftus]

Setting a new personal record for posts. Hopefully I can stay closer to this level or at least more often than once a year …

I’ve been going back through all the steps for the body that I haven’t finished yet, mostly due to needing to finish the body paint first. Next up are the tail lights. These go together fairly fast after the required (in my case) hour spent looking for parts. Painting the bracket that holds the optional LEDs in place took a couple days due to the crazy cold weather we’re having this year. Anyway, once together they look great. The metal housings are awesome and the light lenses are a nice touch.


I was also lucky enough to pick up one of the RC4WD light kits for the Beast 2 before they were discontinued. Looking on the web today, it seems the Beast 2 kit itself is also discontinued. I’m sad to see that happen. But on the other hand, man there are a lot of tiny parts that all need paint and eyes sharper than mine, lol. Building this thing is light a right of passage, lol


And here they are installed on the bed. Please pardon the mess in the background - proud of myself for getting this much done. I’ll try harder in the future. The wiring is a mess. I ordered some 1/4” loom to hopefully clean it up.



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[Thloftus]

Short update this time. I actually completed this a while back but then forgot to post it. The truck doesn’t look complete (to me) without the spare tire. Or maybe I just like the extra detail and another opportunity to assemble beadlock wheels with a thousand tiny screws. Anyway, here it is with the spare tire installed. I also painted and installed the gas cap. Grateful it was still in one of the parts bags as I hadn’t separated it out previously and didn’t realize it was missing. More painting of tiny parts!



Apologies again for the messy work bench. I’ll make another (maybe empty?) promise about getting it done soon. I can’t find the door handles. A store in the UK is selling the relevant parts trees but it’s like $25+ for the trees and shipping. Might need to go homemade on the handles instead.

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[Thloftus]

Few more steps forward over the past week. The front windows and wipers are installed now. I initially missed some of the protective plastic on one and couldn’t figure out why it looked so different than the other one. Doh! Easy to fix at least. There’s not much of an edge holding the windows in. I used rubber cement so it’s easy to fix if necessary. Also installed the front grills. Starting to look more complete!


I also got the seats installed. They’re from a Tamils Scania semi truck interior. They’re a great fit for the Beast II as others have pointed out. It was super difficult to find any when I bought them way back in June 2020. Can’t believe it has taken me this long to get them installed. Better now than never, lol


The seats go nicely with Arya also. I’m planning to leave the side windows off partially so her arm can stick out the side but also as they fit even more poorly than the front windows and don’t actually look super great on the truck.


Small progress on the dash too. I’ve played around with a lot of ideas since starting the build 2+ years ago, including building a dash from scratch. But I have limited skills with scratch building and the Scania dash (from the same parts tree as the seats) is almost a perfect fit so I’m most likely going in that direction. Just need to cut the tabs off either end and cap it on the passenger side. Cutting the tab off the driver side should shift it enough to line up the steering wheel placement almost perfectly.