No monumental advice, but dollar and liquidation stores are great for cheap small toys.

use RC$WD txt link mount bracket for shackles, they are longer than diaz shackles so consider them "extended length"

http://rc4wdstore.com/product_info.p...roducts_id=217

Something that I think would work pretty well for a winch spool is the spool inside of a roll of film. Just take the film off of it and it's almost ready to go. Could probably mount it up on a bumper and use a pulley going to a servo so that it acts more like an actual winch. Just an idea.

Winch fairlead.. I took a NEW stock clodbuster chrome front bumper ( that already has a molded fairlead on it), cut it out leaving a little material on both ends, drill 2 holes outside the actual fairlead, and bolt it onto whatever project you desire.

Here's a great way to make scale mud flaps...

Take an old bike tire and cut a strip as wide as you want it to be, then cut the loop apart. I used a knife razor blade and set it where i wanted to be cut. I then used a heavy tool to tap the top and it cut a strait clean line where i wanted it. This is the shape i wanted mine....

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/DSCN1068.jpg

Seeing as the rubber has a tenancy to curl i cut some pieces of metal to bolt to the bottom for weight...

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/DSCN1070.jpg

Used a wire brush to clean up to bare metal and painted...

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/DSCN1075.jpg

I just glued mine to the back side of my bumper....

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/DSCN1073.jpg

And here's the finished product. I used a leather punch to get nice round hole's, and used 4-40 hardware to mount.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/DSCN1076.jpg

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/DSCN1077.jpg

Looks great, and is actually flexible unlike any others i've ever seen built. Easy, cheap and looks/acts just like 1:1

Offset hpi stock car wheels...

you will need

Hpi stock car wheel

Stock tlt wheels ( or an extra set of hpi wheels )

tools:

Something to cut them with ( I prefer a jewlers saw )

CA or epoxy

And a pair of small side cutters

Sand paper and a flat surface





First you cut your hpi wheel inside the bead as shown, do the backside first and then the cut closest to the wheel face. The one closest to the face will still hang on from the little splines, a pair of side cutters will set them free (see bottom of picture)

also cut the bead off the back side of your tlt wheel, you have some room to play here, you can cut it right at the bead or a little farther in, depending on how much offset you want. (top right of picture)

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h2...e/DSC02727.jpg

discard the center of the HPI wheel, and the front of the tlt..

Take all your wheel peices and place them on a flat surface, and sand at the parts you will glue, to make sure they are flat

then assemble in order shown
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h2...e/DSC02728.jpg

when done you will have a wheel like this
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h2...e/DSC02724.jpg

on this truggy I cut the tlt wheel closer to the bead, for less offset, and a narrower wheel
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h2...e/DSC03544.jpg

on the blazer i used an extra set of hpi wheels to use the inside bead to create an all black wheel
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h2...c/DSC03554.jpg

dont have any pics, but i can post ideas, really neat stuff on here, scaling is really not new to me as a kid we were doing things like this to models 30yrs. ago, but you can take plastic round coat hangers &cut &heat them on an electric stove or your own heat source to make a rollbar, or rollcage, most of then are molded in white, or black, they can easily be drilled &screwwed together w/small screws, also old plastic quart oil juggs, or gallon antifreeze juggs, can be cut trimmed to make whatever you desire ,bedcovers, interior scale ,platform. etc. since they come in all colors black, red, yellow, blue, i could sit &dream up stuff all day, isnt it fun. hope this gives someone some ideas. thanks.

Almost hate to give this one away, kind of my little secret ;-)

The lenses from a 2 cell AA sized maglite are make the perfect light buckets/lenses. These fit my proline fj40 (and tamiya mini cooper if anyone is in to that) bodies exactly. seems to be the perfect 1/10th scale equivlent to a 7" round headlight. Also great for light bars, etc. Oh yea, you usually have to drill out the hole to fit 5mm LEDs.

You can get them at www.flashlightking.com The part #:108-038. They are a buck a piece.

They also sell smaller ones for the 2 cell AAA flashlights but i have not ordered any yet so i am not sure on the exact size of those. They also seem to be a little shallower, probably better for light bars and roof racks.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture066.jpg
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture072.jpg
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture070.jpg

the grease splash shields that are sold to cover frying pans have a mesh on them that closely match a 1/10 scale mesh for grills and other things. I used one to put a mesh grill in a street Jugg that I built a number of years ago.

Roll Bar/Cage Padding
 

I was looking around for some padding for my rig. I found some Nerf Sonic Micro Darts at WalMart. Cut the tip off. And make a little cut all the way across the dart to fit over your bars. Then I just put electrical tape around the roll bar to hold it in place.

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/6...rawler-053.jpg

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/6...rawler-055.jpg


http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/6...rawler-058.jpg

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/6...rawler-062.jpg

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/6...rawler-063.jpg


Padding cost is about 5 bucks for ten sticks. I needed 2.5 bags to do mine.

Hey guys came across this site the other day full of tips and tricks that we can use. It's based off of car modeling but some good stuff can be crossed over to trucks, check it out . . . .
http://www.briansmodelcars.com/tutorials/tutorial/56

Scale Winch Cable

Hobby Lobby Jewlers line.. its only 20lb test but it looks perfect!

Man talk about the mcguyver of the rc scale world! Any thing from nothing wow.


As far as nice custom scale bed toppers, a nice look is to take some cardboard and some egg crate foam type stuff and leather or vinal plaeather what ever. Is what you will do is take and cut the card board to the desiered size and shape then do the same with the foam stuff, make sure it isnt too thick and is of the same size and shape as the cardboard, then take that and glue it to the cardboard after you have done that take and cafully (make sure you dont bend the card board) and wrap the leather around that. ither garilla gluing it or stapleing it to the bare side of the cardbord and you have a leather or vinal or what ever you wish soft bed cover. NOTE: Balsa wood works great too!

:-( will have to get a picture a little later Photobucket is being retarded right now.


Stupi photobucket


http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x...der/Image1.jpg

A/N Fittings and scale braiding
 

After searching for over a month another 6 hrs

Finally found multi scale A/N fittings and braiding from .20mm to 2.5 mm "thumbsup"


Lots of motor , brake, fuel line parts
http://www.hiroboy.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=47

There is a shop in USA who actually makes this stuff but I could not find the larger size stuff on his site http://www.detailmaster.com/

these tips are great. Here are a few of mine. You can use black Rustoleum textured spray paint as a scale bed liner like line-x: http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...C/DSC_0196.jpg

I also made some fairly nice guages by cutting some very thin slices off of an aluminum tube. I then CA glued them to some white scrap sticker material (from the edge of a Summit Racing sticker). I then was able to peal the sticker backing off, attach the ring and sticker to my dash. I then drew on a needle, and some marks for a tach and speedo see below:
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...J/DSC_0285.jpg
also note the steering wheel made out of a servo horn, thanks rednekcrwlr!
I also use lots of cereal boxes to mock up body parts/pannels that then can be then cut out of styrene

Here's an idea for a cheap exhaust. Use an empty rifle shell casing (silver is better). I'm going to use a 30-06 casing on my Jeep for a diesel engine look. the black on the inside makes it look a lot like the real thing.

mount a mini servo behind your scaler dash to operate your NB or dyi steering wheel. with a few gears and a makeshift mount setup, you can get your wheel to turn nearly 1.5 times just like scale.

i currently have the servo mounted driectly to the steering wheel, but only get around 1/4 travel of the wheel. i ll be makeing a few changes to run a 4 or 5:1 gear assembly in rsv, so the steering wheel will move 5 times mroe than it currently does mounted directly to the servo.

i dont currently have any pics or a vid, but will get some and add to my post.


those HPI boots (driveshaft boots) arnt that good as driveshaft boots. they rip rather quickly on a baja. they WOULD make nice shifting boot if they were smaller the large end is about 7/8ths of an in opening, and the small end is around 5.5mm, so just smaller than a #2 pensil. nice looking, but to large though you could cut it down by splitting in half, and reglueing (shoogooing) it together in a smaller diameter.

plastruct makes diamond plate in 1/16. ask your lhs

I made some non-revolving revolver shackles to get some extra flex out of my suspension. I got all the parts at Lowes. I used #41 Roller Chain Links and #35 masterlinks. About $10 total for enough to do 4 leafs. Pretty self explainitory, you just put the Masterlink through the hole on the narrowed side of the Roller Link and then at the frame I used a 5/32 rubber spacer also from lowes on each side of the frame rail to center it. I mounted the Roller to the frame and the masterlink to the leafs. I used 1 of the 5/32 rubber spacers at the leaf to keep it centered. Pics are at http://s626.photobucket.com/albums/tt346/Baja_XJ/RC/
I still have about a half inch of travel in each shock that isnt being used because I just started the truck and the way I have my shocks mounted the bind before full travel either direction.

winch wire
 

at Walmart by the tool section they have picture hanging wire part#2832 by symmetry. looks real scale, holds 25lbs and a 25 foot roll is about $1.75

a little thing i learned, wire coathangars are great for small details that need to have some structure to them, they can be hard to work with, but wont break as easy as paper clips. and another little trick, for decals, draw them up in a photo editing software (like Paint,Photoshop, or Gimp), then print them out and apply them with clear tape, pretty cheap and wont like water too much, but is easy to reapply as needed.

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/k...4/DSC00943.jpg

I used black hockey tape for roll bar padding. It's a fabric tape that could work well for several scale applications. Maybe interior carpet, seat covers, etc.?

guitar string makes great cb antennas "thumbsup"

cheap handmade snorkel
 

I've hunted high and low for a snorkel solution, and I've seen another thread or two with other guys either looking for snorkels or posting up what they've found or made. This worked out good for me so I thought I'd post it here.

I wanted something custom looking vs. a scale reproduction of a commercially available snorkel, so I pretty much had to make it myself. This was inspired by a couple 1:1 rigs I've seen that had similar hand-built snorkels that ended in standard filter elements. After looking for parts and the right tubing for a couple weeks, I've rounded up a cheap and easy solution.

Materials:
* Fram fuel filter #CG3388 (I found it at Tractor Supply for $1.50)
* length of black appliance cord
* length of 4-40 all-thread
* silver pinstripe tape

Remove the wire from the cord casing, and shove the all-thread inside in it's place. This gives the casing rigidity and it will hold it's shape. Make your bends with a standard tubing bender, and shape the casing to fit your rig.

Ream a hole in the body where you want the intake tube to exit. Mine leaves the body out of the cowling right behind the hood on the right side:

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/1355/snorkel1.jpg

Make the bends and route the tubing so it hugs the rack/rollcage/roofline:

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6071/snorkel2.jpg

And 90 it around the back so the element is out of the way. It sits high in the center as far away from water as possible:

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/383/snorkel3.jpg

Since these pics I've added thin strips of silver vinyl pinstripe tape at each "joint" (the 90 and the 45, and at the element) to simulate stainless steel clamp bands.

If you can find the filter element the rest is easy to round up. It took about 20 minutes to put together...

I dont know if it was said already, but if you want to make carpet, you can take a sock and turn it inside out and paint it black.

Not to take away from the sock idea,but you can go to any dollar store or craft store and by 12x12 pieces of thin felt in various colors that works perfect for scale mats or carpet

butterfly screw:mrgreen:

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...remote/1-1.jpg http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...remote/3-1.jpg

that one is 3mm screw

im sure its been done but have not seen it. I just printed a road map that i shrunk down and folded like a map i now have a scale road map of my region"thumbsup"

guitar string CB antenna

Making a CB antenna, you will need

http://img.skitch.com/20100207-kfyxw...y38pbstiqf.jpg

cut the guitar string (I believe it's a G) to desired length, and heat some small heatshrink on it then wrap the wire around the base of the string to make the coil bit, heat the thicker shrink over the coil and your done, I used the bottom of the string so I can use the eye for a mounting point.

http://img.skitch.com/20100207-jfsms...ywe3dn5wxf.jpg

http://img.skitch.com/20100207-m5bbf...hpxsqjhbk5.jpg

For that filter element just get a fuel filter for a 70s or 80s 4 barrel quadrajet carburator on a chevy truck. :)

Roof rack for D90
 

Hello all...Just wanted to add this. I found this drawer organizer basket laying around the storage area so I asked my boss if I could have it. It's made of metal with dividers on it. The dividers were not welded all the way so I just used plyers to take it off. I mounted it on my D90 and it's a perfect fit. My coworker told me they have this at staples of office depot for like 10 bucks to 13 bucks. Here it is on my D90.http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/100_7275.jpg
http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/100_7276.jpg
http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/100_7277.jpg
http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/100_7273.jpg

Changed my snorkel..
 

Here is another way to make a snorkel...

Items: Plastic straw ( the one kids use/7 eleven has it too)
Case of the lead refills for pencil ( Cut this to make the top snorkel part)
Just paint it black...Here is the finish product.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/100_7295.jpg

I made a gas tank out of a small compressed air cylinder that cyclists use to pump up their tyres. The black tube is the negative wire cut off an old motor. Not bad for 10 minutes work.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...acing/15-1.jpg

another great way to make carpet is to search for "Fuzzy Fur" its used in model car building.
any color you want and all you do is brush Elmer's glue to the area you want carpet on and shake out some Fuzzy Fur to that cover the glue.
I like to press it in a little to give it a worn look.

It's pretty much just a container of fine carpet fuzz.
Cheap too."thumbsup"

TImber Wolf Jeep
 

For the RC4WD timber wolf you need to purchase the HPI jeep body for the front grill / hood

I found using the top of the jeep (the roof) makes a perfect tub for the timber wolf or a custom chassis that is using the HPI width body.

http://i929.photobucket.com/albums/a...berWolf246.jpg

http://i929.photobucket.com/albums/a...berWolf248.jpg

tech deck sk8 board & antenna tube cb!

http://i950.photobucket.com/albums/a...NKEE/501-1.jpg
http://i950.photobucket.com/albums/a...YANKEE/502.jpg

Scale bench seat. 1 hard glasses case. Pop inner spring hinge out of the middle, glue or screw halves back together to make the seat shape. Take 1 glasses soft case and hot glue. Makes a cool looking retro seat cover. I wish I would've taken some progress pics... Hope its useful nonetheless!

http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/IMAG0222.jpg

These are cool

HUB Nuts DE racing
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...ima-SC-SCRT-10

for scale hub caps you can use vakve stem caps from a bike as

vynal shower curtain mud flaps!