RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

Thanks Lowgear, I wasn't aware or around (in RC circles) for that.
Yeah, I can see them selling all their reject or unapproved for sale stuff that they never decided to proceed with. Better to sell it and make a little money off of it than to send it to the scrap yard for the aluminum. Maybe these "not sold as a retail item" chassis are all samples provided to them by their anodize finish house so that they could look at different colors for consideration into possibly making something for future sale, that just never panned out.
It could be that, but they were not actually sold as a normal retail item by Associated (ie. no part number and no known inventory), just sold to get rid of shelved stored stuff they never had any intention of producing and therefore would not be any different than what others have done in anodizing their own colors.
Still it would be cool to know if in fact they did come from Associated. We'll see what Curtis has to say. I emailed him this morning with pictures.

When I worked for Composite Craft, we had tons and tons of graphite items for RC cars developed, made and tested, that did not make it to a final product stage. Not even prototype, just items made that never cut it to be produced for sale. Most all of these things we just threw out. The one I remember the most was a custom made land-sailing car. It had 4 wheels/tires, and a composite frame with a sail and mast and worked entirely off of the wind. It was cool to get it up on two wheels in the large test area we ran them. We made two of them and the owner and I would run them from time to time. It was about 3.5-4 feet wide, 3 feet long and when on the asphalt, the main sale and mast were approx. 38 to 40 " high.

From Curtis :
"Yes we did have the red and blue colored anodized chassis. This was about the same time we had the powder coated neon green, neon red and blue chassis.
The anodized red color did not come out very well, that's why it looks kind of
copper color.
We had a very difficult time with the anodizing as the colors were not very consistent from batch to batch. We eventually settled with the black anodized chassis as it was easy to have a consistent black color. We eventually discontinued the other colors and stayed with the black color. "

So today I learned something new once more! That AE did try out other anodizing colors but due to the inconsistant colors they discontinued them. It is as he says after-all!

I am seraching like mad, is there a thread that has all the colors in one to see?

thanks for that ruffy

Thanks for the verification, Ruffy. All the ano on my chassis is good, but the red one is a rather odd shade of red in places. I'll have to put a few more pics up to share.

Ruffy, I know you've seen the inconsistency he speaks of first hand since you've seen nearly every car I've built recently. The biggest contributing factor for that is the material, not the solution. I've had countless chassis sets done in several colors and they are all just a little bit different. I can understand and relate to AE's desire to shy away from the rainbow of ano. People tend to get a little bent out of shape about the issues that sometimes accompany the colors. The heartache isn't worth the hassle. The hard black is very consistent. Black is black and if it comes from my supplier, it's VERY hard. I'm sure Jake's broken mill bits would support that claim.

I will definately agree the JHarris hard black is indeed HARD. I ruined a 7/16 end mill on the first chassis I milled for him. I learned quickly that if not careful a $15 end mill can be destroyed. The AE hard black is soft butter compared to what I found with the JHarris ano, LOL.

Ruffy wrote:From Curtis :
"Yes we did have the red and blue colored anodized chassis. This was about the same time we had the powder coated neon green, neon red and blue chassis.
The anodized red color did not come out very well, that's why it looks kind of
copper color.
We had a very difficult time with the anodizing as the colors were not very consistent from batch to batch. We eventually settled with the black anodized chassis as it was easy to have a consistent black color. We eventually discontinued the other colors and stayed with the black color. "

So today I learned something new once more! That AE did try out other anodizing colors but due to the inconsistant colors they discontinued them. It is as he says after-all!

That just reminded me of this picture. They are Alex's of inetrc.com.

Lowgear wrote:

Ruffy wrote:From Curtis :
"Yes we did have the red and blue colored anodized chassis. This was about the same time we had the powder coated neon green, neon red and blue chassis.
The anodized red color did not come out very well, that's why it looks kind of
copper color.
We had a very difficult time with the anodizing as the colors were not very consistent from batch to batch. We eventually settled with the black anodized chassis as it was easy to have a consistent black color. We eventually discontinued the other colors and stayed with the black color. "

So today I learned something new once more! That AE did try out other anodizing colors but due to the inconsistant colors they discontinued them. It is as he says after-all!

That just reminded me of this picture. They are Alex's of inetrc.com.

inetrc.jpg

i remember this pic from alex and should have known he would have the good stuff now with the latest info from curtis it clears up what is original and what is not. very cool and i bet the search will be on now for ano chassis's

Very cool, looks to be missing hot pink and green?

When I bought this car 2+ years ago, the owner said it was factory anodized and he had also bought it used, from a team driver. I have no way to know if that's the truth, but I like how it looks .

Jeff I agree 100% with you,
and Jake you are spot on also with your statement.


My only interests personally still lie in the gold and black anodized colors for me. The blue powder coated one I got from Associated (posted earlier here) I thought it would be nice to have for a different looking car, which in-fact I did build and run for a few months. Luckily I had a chassis protector on the underside and the tracks were soft clay, and the chassis did not suffer any damage at all. But I remember taking everything off of it and returning to the trusty old gold-pan as that was my favorite of the two.

Ruffy wrote:The one I remember the most was a custom made land-sailing car. It had 4 wheels/tires, and a composite frame with a sail and mast and worked entirely off of the wind. It was cool to get it up on two wheels in the large test area we ran them. We made two of them and the owner and I would run them from time to time. It was about 3.5-4 feet wide, 3 feet long and when on the asphalt, the main sale and mast were approx. 38 to 40 " high.

I remember this thread, but kinda missed this part. I found it searching "sail car". I know you probably don't, but do you have any pics? It's real windy here today and it just kinda crossed my mind. I'm getting ready to do a broader internet search, but as always started here.

My wife is watching the royal wedding on dvr( ) and my nieces are staying the night, so there's 3 girls under 10 running wild. Me and my laptop are just trying to lay low...

Edit: 5 seconds later (I love the internet! ) Promising link if anyone else is interested.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1095518