ASK Cubby, 05.22.2014, Version- Look What the Mailman Dragged In

“Closed Cell inserts for Bashing

Hi Cubby,
I really like the ProLine Trenchers for bashing, but less so after they filled with sand.
I made a few holes in the tires to let the sand out, but that’s not very good for the foams. I noticed the pre-mounted Trencher 2.8’s have standard white foam.
And there I thought that Closed Cell foams were the thing to have for bashing since they don’t take up water.
Seems silly that even though these are premium “bashing” tires (35 euros per set) they don’t come with Closed cell inserts.
Boiling tires off rims just to replace inserts is rather contrived. Can’t BSRC poke ProLine for shipping Bashing pre-mounts (Trencher, Masher, Big Joe, Badlands) with closed cell inserts?
Thanks for great website.
Cheers,
Seth M.”

Cubby- Yo yo to the yo yo Seth. Congrats on making the big time, feel free to hit up Brian for some sic BSRC stickers.

Ummmmmm…. after briefly, very briefly, scanning over your email here is what I have to say.

1. You mention something about closed cell foams not “taking up water”. I can see you’ve never driven closed cell foams in water before have you? “Regular” foams soak up a ton of water, closed cell foams also soak up water, just to a lesser extent. Regardless the type of foam that you are using, you need to give each tire several good squeezes to get rid of as much water as possible after river running.

2. There is a good reason why foam that doesn’t absorb water is not used in rc tires. That style of foam would not absorb water, nor would they absorb all those bumps/lumps/divots that you drive over. They would drive like an ATV tire with 25 psi of air in it, not pretty.

3. I can tell you first hand that the Pro-Line crew is all over the issues that bashers have with tires (like water retention, pizza cutting, etc). However, none of those issues are easily solved while still keeping the price of the end product in check. Willing to pay $200 for a pair of tires/inserts? If so, I’m pretty sure they could fix all the ills you have. Want to keep prices where they are? Give the PL crew some time to come up with proper, yet cost effective solutions.

Thanks for the props Seth, go fast, turn right, sweep what’s left up with a broom.

“Shoot out suggestions

Hi Cubby!

Your guy’s shootouts are great! They really inform me on what batteries, radios, SCT’s, etc. to buy. But one thing I noticed was that, well, they weren’t really budget minded. They sort of were with your 2nd radio shoot out, but that was a $200 budget- some rtr’s are cheaper than that. So I was wondering, would you guys do a budget shoot out? And I mean a heavy budget, like $50 max (maybe less) for lipos and $75 for radios or something. Heck, see who can build the best car from a slash roller for under $150 or something. I want you guys to do this because there are a lot of kid hobbyists out there like me, who have to save for 4 months just to buy a battery. And I’m certain that you could probably find $40 gear that works as well as $100 gear. Why not try hobby king stuff? I know I just keep going on and on and I may sound crazy, but I am serious! Try cheap stuff! It may surprise you, it may steer you away from it! I really think it would be cool.

Oh, and why not a 2wd sct shoot out?

Thanks
Alec S.”

Cubby- Hey now Alec, if I remember correctly your email said something about you being from South Africa. If you didn’t already know, I am so all about zef style.

So… why no super-blow-out-uber-cheap shootouts? It’s because we haven’t gotten around to them. There are like a hundred great shootouts we would like to do, but each one takes a mountain of time, and we simply don’t have enough time in the day.

However… you bring up a great point, one that we, and many people in the industry, forget about far too often. There are a whole lot of hobbyists who are on super tight budgets and simply will not, or can not, crank out big bucks for rc gear. Being in the industry most things are “free”, or trades, and when they are not we typically have the cash sitting around to just buy whatever we want, but that is far from the case for many hobbyists. I’ll see what I can do about a super low buck shootout just for you Alec.

And… why not try Hobby King gear? Because years ago we made a stand. We could take Hobby King money, or we could refuse it, and we decided we would rather not be supported by them. Yes, as crazy as it might sound to some people, we actually refused advertising dollars because of our personal beliefs. We are not fans of what they (HK) have been doing to the rc industry, therefore we will not take advertising from them. Yes, we have reviewed some of their products here and there, but that was as a service to our readers to show them roughly where HK product was stacking up. IMO, while HK might be crazy cheap, you can still find “name brand” gear at roughly the same pricing when on sale/disco’ed/eBay/etc.

And that is all she wrote for this weeks ASK Cubby. Don’t be shy, hit me up with your emails at Cubby at BigSquidRC.com. Most likely I will never read your email, or even if I do it is incredibly unlikely it will ever see the light of day on our front page, but if it does you will get a free sticker pack. Oh and, for that one lucky person that wins “Letter of the Month” they get hooked up with a brand spank’n new BSRC t-shirt.

YOUR Cub Reporter