Tamiya chairman Shunsaku Tamiya dies at 90 | Hacker News Reader

Tamiya chairman Shunsaku Tamiya dies at 90

dailyexpress.com.my

36 pointsmbrd13 comments

I’ve found scale modeling to be a very rewarding (and screen-free) hobby since Covid times, and I’ve built more Tamiya kits than any other manufacturer.

I’ve heard that Mr Tamiya was very hands-on in choosing their topics for kits so it will be interesting to see how things change. But what a company he built!

Edit: here is the official Tamiya announcement https://www.tamiya.com/english/pressrelease/20250722/index.h...

I have also found scale model building to be a deeply relaxing hobby, and Tamiya kits are definitely some of the most rewarding and pleasant to build. They also make superb tools and paints which I would hate to be without.

I've been a modeler since very very young. I took a break during college while getting my CS degree, but was drawn back into it when I learned that there were local clubs (IPMS/USA chapters) where I could meet other like-minded people and learn how to up my game. I've been balancing this non-screen hobby with being a professional dev for about 35 years, now. It's a fantastic way to relax and take my mind off of code.

Tamiya was a big part of my childhood. It was also part of my young adult years when I worked as a “mechanic” in a hobby shop.

Their assembly manuals have always been top notch. Giving me hours of entertainment even after assembling the model. It was a great introduction to systems design.

I’ve been wanting to get a re-release of the original grasshopper. It’s too cool to pass up.

Be sure to use NiCad batteries and a mechanical speed controller for the true retro experience!

My best friend had a Hornet. I was so jealous.

I hated those mechanical speed controllers. Burned so many that would pick them up for two at a time.

After the Grasshopper, I went for the Big Wig. I guess I had a fetish for all wheel drive systems long before I had a driver's license.

But you know you had a serious problem when you started ordering sealed ball bearing kits to replace the teflon bushings in the drive-train. That's where my adolescent paper route income went, instead of drinks or drugs...

I find it a little sad that hobby stores seem to have disappeared from the landscape. As a kid I remember most towns usually had numerous hobby stores, and nowadays they're either gone, or something super generic like Michaels which isn't too different from walmart or target.

That said, I'm surprised once in a while, like Yodobashi camera in Japan, or some other specialty stores in akihabara etc which feature lots of this.

any other must-see stores?

My first hobby grade RC car was a $20 second-hand Tamiya Boomerang from one of my friends down the street.

It was a bunch of plastic and nothing competitive but I must have rebuilt it a dozen times just for fun. Then at some point I got a Motown Missile 48,000 RPM motor for it. It was a battery connector melting ballast resistor glowing riot. But eventually my parents got tired of taking me to the hobby shop for replacement spur gears... next xmas I got a rc10 graphite and never really looked back at Tamiya anything.

But it was a great low-cost introduction to how cars work and the hobby in general, super fun times.

RIP

I've got their R/C Flakpanzer Gepard in a box somewhere. It was great fun to build and run, except maybe the part where you had to assemble the tracks piece by piece.

Of course the old NiCad battery is long since dead. And R/C frequencies have changed since then, so the controller and receiver are probably useless. But from time to time I wonder about what it would take to modernize and revive it.

https://tamiyabase.com/tamiya-models/56003

I'll never forget my Tamiya Grasshopper (it was the most affordable of their RC kits). I spent more time upgrading and tweaking the thing than I did driving it, but I loved every minute of it.

My first RC was almost the Grasshopper but I ended up with a Nissan King Cab instead. Great memories!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamiya_Corporation

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