Thloftus’ Beast II build

[Thloftus]

This next update is short although the work itself took a while. I still haven’t been able to find the door handles in the remaining parts bags and couldn’t bring myself to pay the $30+ to order replacements; the only place I found with the relevant trees is in the UK so ouch for the shipping & who knows when it would arrive.

But don’t despair, i bought some aluminum wire a while back for the interior I haven’t finished yet and some of it was the perfect size for the door handle mounting holes! So I bent up a few parts and after painting (this is the part that took so long, mostly due to winter weather) they almost look legit or at least close enough to work. I used Tamiya PS black initially thinking it would hold up better since the aluminum wire is super bendy but it turned out too shiny. Ao on with the TS matte black. Hopefully it holds up!




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[Thloftus]

Few more steps forward on the dash this weekend. It’s been fun to finally bring together and “finish” steps I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I bought some of these parts two years ago, lol. Different world that far back.

I trimmed the two end of the dash with a kerf saw and added a new side plate for the passenger side. The cuts turned out great. The side plate is not the best, but probably good enough especially once everything is painted.



I decided to add a couple rails to the top of the dash and drilled some holes for the rails next. Working with plastic is fun. Can just turn the drill bits in your fingers.



I made the rails next from the same aluminum rod that I used for the door handles. I’ll clean up the ends once the rails are installed and glued in place.



The steering wheel is from an Axial parts tree, AX 80037

https://www.amainhobbies.com/axial-i...SABEgKJzPD_BwE

The tree has a bunch of other parts like shifters, racks, other miscellaneous stuff for the interior. It does come with a steering column so I made one from an unused part of the tree. The diameter for the parts of the tree you’d normally throw away was close to perfect. Glued in to the dash fairly easily after I test fit and set the angle with tape.

Here’s all of it together (pre-painting). I like the way it looks. The space in the cab is a little small, but looks like we’re headed in the right direction.



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[Thloftus]

Few more steps forward this weekend. I painted the dash flat black. I kept the rails raw aluminum so they would stand out. Here’s how it looks in the cab.




Next up was adding some gauges. I bought a sticker set off eBay around a year ago. It’s nominally for model airplanes but has a few gauges that work for a truck also. I was excited to see when I opened the package that it also came with some molded plastic parts for the stickers. It was apparently part of a modeling set from someone’s father who took great care in their work (according yo the note that came with the set). I’m happy to give them a home here




I cut out a few stickers and mounted them up. I couldn’t get the backing off and instead used plastic cement to bond them in place. Here’s how the dash looks with the gauges installed




I’m excited with how it turned out. Awesome to have the molded plastic parts in addition to the decals. Here’s the dash installed in the truck again




It’s a little hard to see the gauges from the outside, but no worries that would be true for any dash in this truck.

The last step for this weekend was mounting the shifters from the Axial parts tree along with the gun rack. Turns out that it’s a great holder for Arya’s sword also, lol





I like the way it’s all coming together. The interior may actually be done for now which means I can return to finishing the bed and adding the sound system. More to come …


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[Thloftus]

Another longer than expected break between posts. I would apologize but that’s probably getting pointless. Or I could say it was worth the wait. That one is maybe debatable and I’ll let you be the judge. The real truth is work keeps derailing my plans for spending time in the truck.

This latest update took a few hours to complete, but the post itself is likely short. After 2+ years if wait I installed the ESS-Dual sound system. Thankfully shelf time doesn’t seem to have impacted it’s performance. It’s completely awesome to have truck sounds (pictures don’t do it justice, lol) and there are a lot of options. The software interface to download and install various sounds is easy to use. I had some confusion calibrating the sounds box - full throttle, neutral, reverse - but that may have been me. I mounted the sound system behind the cab. I’m currently powering it off a separate battery. There was space and it made for less holes to drill for passing wires through to the ESC and drive battery. There’s no shortage of volume. I did check the smoke kit will still fit no problem.



I also finished up the light kit. It’s fairly easy to install and has nice breaks for separating the bed from the cab. I cleaned up the wires under the bed with some loom. This all worked out after some fiddling given the tight space. I’m picking up a more slender battery to make more space. The lights are awesome. Happy I was able to get them before they were discontinued. They look super cool in person.




The cab is now attached, with screws even, to the chassis. Less exciting but no less important than the rest, lol. I was happy to see it all fits together.


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[cooper_xl]

looking good!

[Thloftus]

Originally Posted by cooper_xl

looking good!

Thank you, it’s a sweet kit!


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[Thloftus]

Quick update on another addition to the cab - red LED’s!






Hobbyking has inexpensive, board-mounted LEDs that are pre-wired with servo connectors. I picked up a blue one recently as part of discharging a puffy LiPo. It was super bring and gave me the idea to add some to the Beast. They’re ‘hidden’ under the floor in the pockets for the driver / passenger legs. Basically gives the diffuse lighting effect I was hoping to achieve. You can find the LEDs here:

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/3-led-st...ucts_analytics


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[Thloftus]

I finally cleaned up some of the wire routing. It’s not perfect, but is at least more contained. Here’s the space under the cab. The loom helped contain the wires, especially the extra long leads for the red LEDs in the cab


Some additional clean up around the ESC and receiver. I switched to a 6 channel Futaba receiver to handle all the leads for the lights. Channels were “browning out” on the 4 channel from all the y splitters.


And here’s the truck as it stands today. Hard to believe this has been an almost 3 year journey!






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[Druxus]

Nice looking build you have got there. When I first seen this thread up at the top I thought someone necro-posted, but nope. Good job on keeping at it!

[Thloftus]

Originally Posted by Druxus

Nice looking build you have got there. When I first seen this thread up at the top I thought someone necro-posted, but nope. Good job on keeping at it!

Thank you! It's been a lot of fun and you're right that it's taken much longer than initially expected ... such a great experience to build these trucks!