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Ahh yes! Very astute Marc (no pun intended!! )

Without further hesitation............. The SECOND most popular 4wd off road RC vehicle ever Tamiya made with the word Blazing in it.................................. LMAO!!







The Blazing Star!!!!!!!

Nice find, Jim!

Yeahhh. Another df on road. Congrats jim

Thanks guys! This is one that I forgot existed. It is in queue and should be a fun build. 

PS:  Part of me wishes that I had found a Blazing Blazer! Ok, maybe more than just a little. 🤣

The blazer is very fun to. 😉 Especially with 2 men inside

jord001 wrote:

Jonny, nothing in particular but an all in one and bench top size though. I was watching an Axminster but also looked at Clarke, Proxon, Unimat and even those Chinese made ones. I do prefer old lathes as they bullet proof but usually they have the motor mounted separately with large strange bracketry or its own bench so they will be too big (i don't actually have the space but would make some)
Hoping to find one on ebay that no one has seen so will get it cheapish (very small budget) actually no budget for a lathe but I'd like one at some point  


 

 I’m not sure there is ever a lathe that’s 100% right, but there sure are a lot of “wrong” choices out there. 


The Cooltool 6-1 (monkey copy of the “Unimat” “Classic”) I had was a nasty joke, I can’t really believe the real thing, or “metal” versions of it would really be much better.  


I really like my Unimat SL for it’s portability, even with the plinth/drawer thing I made to hold spare chucks & tooling, you can still lift it with one hand & you don’t have to commit full time bench space to it. It’s very limited in capacity, stiffness & power though, it won’t do everything I want to do for 1:10 scale. You also have to budget for a modern motor for it. Being able to use it indoors, sitting down (Ill-advised for steel, TBH ) is a massive plus for me.  


My Boxford lathe is nothing like the AUD/BUD/CUD models people usually think of when they hear that name, but despite the mass, bench space (& yes, bracketry ) it will do things only slightly bigger than the Unimat SL. What it will do is make them more quickly, repeatably, more reliably & accurately.
Although it was “free”, by the time I’d recommissioned/repaired it & got a bit of tooling, financially it would have made more sense to buy one of the current Chinese Mini lathe variants – but despite coming up on its 70th birthday (really), I bet it would still be going long after one of those gives up. I would replace it – not that I’m likely to have the money to do so, especially considering I could easily spend as much as the lathe again on tooling – but it would have to be with something old, stylish & capable, something like a Myford Super 7. While I’m dreaming, I’d also like a Colchester Bantam Mk.1, and a concrete floored, well lit, warm, brick-built building to keep it in   



The Clarke lathes I’m sure are made in the same factory as all the generic Chinese mini lathes, although whether the components, materials & heat treatments on them is better IDK. It might just be the yellow (or blue) paint & the badge (sticker) justifying the cost. I used a Sealey branded one (same but different sticker & red paint) very briefly, TBH it could do the job but felt very cheap compared to anything made in the previous century. I’m thinking the Draper (grey/white) lathes would be the same. 

Before getting the Boxford, I spent a lot of time looking at the 7x14” (principally at amadeal.co.uk), &  probably would have bough one eventually. 2-3 years ago the options were a lot more clear, but now there are innumerably more “brands” & sellers.  



I’m guessing (re your space/budget comments) you were looking at a Axminster Model Engineer / C0 – it’s, umm, very “functional” looking, but I like the swing dimension & the cast iron bed, but I’m thinking it’s very marginal on portability. Potentially a very good option though   



Proxxon – and I must preface this by saying I’m also completely immune to whatever Glamour Saab used to use, before Apple got a hold of it – are the gold standard for some people, but I just can’t see it. At best they look ok, but any regular or serious use soon reveals just how plastic and short-lived their tools are. Their smallest/cheapest lathe (the FD 150/E) looks to have all those hallmarks, though it looks portable. The PD 400 looks a lot better – but at 5 times the cost is a poor buy IMO.  



TL;DR – Unimat SL, (some) 7x14” mini lathes & Axminster

My dad used his unimat during more than 40 years professionaly. He only had to replace the motor because it was really dead. And his unimat is still alive. 

That proxon is very small isnt it and yes the next one up is super expensive. I'm glad you think the same about the 6 in 1 unimat copy too. Whatever I get will be in the garage so no worries about the metal swarf getting everywhere. Unless by some miracle an ML7 pops up at the right price I'll probably end up with either one of those £450 chinese things or a 50+ years old machine and to be honest it will probably be working in another 50 years whereas the others will be long worn out. I only intend to use it for any RC bits, parts for my vintage airbrushes and maybe small things for my Vintage bikes. Thanks for your input on whats good and bad, I'll keep looking and attempting to save enough to get something. Plenty of time anyway.

I've had a couple of things arrive over the last few days, Lots of servo's well 10 to be exact, 8 x 15kg ones as they were such a good price £24 and a couple of 20kg ones along with the balls for ball ends and a 60amp brushless esc for when my motor arrives.  

 

I also went a bit mad and brought some 1.9" tyres for the crawler i will eventually build. Again quite a good price and next day delivery. 

 

Also managed to win another vintage airbrush off eBay. I don't have one of these so I was quite pleased, and its in really nice condition. I shouldn't have any problems getting it going if there are any issues.

 

This wasn't brought by the mail man but from my wife. Contact lense cases! She doesn't need them any more since getting her eyes done and whilst looking for something she found these in the cupboard and decided to throw them away, but not before I get to them.  Light buckets and lenses for ages just got to empty them out and dry them. 

 

I love to see my trick put to profit... Looking forward to see what you will do with those contact lens cases