There are two approaches to building a radio powered model of a vehicle such as a boat, car, plane, or helicopter. The first is to buy a kit that contains everything that you need. If you buy this, all you need to do is snap everything together, or glue it into place. This is a great place to start for anyone who is interested in radio controlled hobbies. However, after you make this first project, you will probably want to move on to the more advanced method of construction. This involves finding very precise plans for a radio controlled project, and creating it from scratch. You will use wood, power tools, and glue to get your miniature vehicle looking as close to the real thing as possible.
Throughout the course of building a radio controlled project from scratch, you will almost certainly find yourself lacking certain items. Whether your exacto-knife breaks or you accidentally set your wood on fire, you should always have a vendor that you can fall back on for your supplies. There are many different choices for people who you can buy components from, both local and long-distance. Usually hobbyists will end up finding certain people who they are comfortable buying from, but here you will find some of the main ones that you should investigate before you decide on a single one.
Local hobby stores will almost always have some form of whatever you want. If you just need a quick substitute for some item that you lost or broke, then craft stores will have what you need. You can find knives, some kinds of wood, paint, model glue, and various other small items. However, most of the time you won’t be able to find products that are specifically geared towards radio controlled hobbies. You will have to decide for yourself whether you can make do, but more often than not you will want to hold off and buy specialized items that will allow for the ultimate in precision.
To find tools that are specifically used for radio controlled hobbies, you should look online for specialty stores. There are many web pages that sell (or even just point you towards) items that are perfect for the project that you are working on. Usually they will have user reviews so that you can see what kind of response the items get from radio controlled hobbyists who use the item for the same thing that you need it for. Before you buy from a certain site, you should search on the internet for experiences that people have had with it. How fast is their shipping? Do their customers ever receive broken items? These things are rarely problems, but you should still be sure before you order.
EBay has quite a few tools and parts that can be useful in the making of a radio controlled project. If you know exactly what you are looking for, you can usually find it for less than any other site. However, if you want to look around for something and find out about the best items to use, eBay is probably not the best choice since it doesn’t provide user reviews and recommendations for the items. This is why it is a good idea to do your research on a site that is geared towards radio controlled hobbies, and then find the same items on eBay after you have decided which ones will work best for you.
If you buy high quality parts for your remote controlled project, you will probably not have to buy them again. If you buy cheap and low quality parts, they will break very soon and you will end up buying them over and over again (which will ultimately be more expensive than if you had bought the nice parts to begin with). So do the research, and find out about the best tools and parts to suit your needs.