Bengalensis

That's great news! I have been hoping for this ever since they did the ready made one. Will place an order as soon as it's out.

That's a real pity. I hope everything is OK, and that you can come back to it later.

The more I looked at it, the more I realised that not only did the seat belt need to be replaced, but I also had to modify the seat itself. After some work it now looks like this, which is at least closer to the real thing. My interest in modern race cars is a bit limited when it comes to what is under the skin, so I will leave the interior like this. The recesses for the rear lights had to be slightly enlarged to ensure they went down as they should. I decided to try a compromise with the mirrors. I added a thin edge of plastic strip around the face of the housing and the blended it with filler on the outside. That allows the mirror glass to go inside. When its time for final assembly the glasses can then be fitted at a slight angle inside as when they are adjusted on the real car.

The paint work and the detailing is exceptional, It's a real joy to follow this work.

More parts cleaned up. The mirrors will need more attention. They are very dominant on the car and need to look good. There are photo etched "glass" for them, but as usual those parts are slightly large and made to just sit on top of the flat resin face of the mirror housing, which just never looks good. I need to create recesses in the housings and either cut down the p/e-pieces or make some new glass. Not too sure about the moulded in seat belt. It could have worked fine if it was a bit better made, but I think I will grind/sand it all off and replace it with separate parts. It's not something I automatically give out plus points to for doing, but this just doesn't look good enough IMO. I really wanted to use them though. The kit brakes are a bit generic and also require a lot of clean up and preparation. The first bag of parts I took up from one of my spare part boxes contained a nice set of brakes that fitted really well and were no more generic than the kit parts, so that was an easy decision. Cleaning up wheel castings is never fun in my book, possibly rewarding, but all wheels are now done. I like resin tyres and I wish we got that in kits much more often.

Good to hear you're not givning up on it. In a few days time it's no longer ending up in the wall but rather get it's problem fixed. I'm sure you'll sort out a finish that will suit the bike wether you make a new one or repair the current.

This is in no way to detract from the nice work Mark has put in here, but Le Mans is always such an inspiration, so I played a little with some older B/W pictures.

Too bad to hear, but sometimes things nedd to be put aside when it's just f***ing up. But rather than box it up for an unknown time, why not just leave it aside a day or two and then come back and fix the problem. We all work differently of course, but for me a day or two usually makes me see the problem with very different eyes.

Oh they're usually around, mostly leaving my stuff alone, as long as I'm there... Sharp eyes. Yes a Bengal ideed. We have a bunch of them ruling the house. We had a small cattery breeding them, but quit a few years ago and all are now neutered snce a few years.

Another Le Mans classic. A wheathered post-race look sounds like a great idea!

Kawasaki 500 Mach III H1A 1971 Kit: Revell H-1500-0341, 1/12 scale, ©1971. All kit chrome removed to bare plastic. Various Alclad used for metal and chrome finishing. Some extra detailing and modifications from scratch. Tyres from Tamiya (don't know from which kit). Build thread here.

Possibly the best looking Ferrari ever IMO. Good to see one in here.

And so we're started. As usual with this type of kit the first thing is to clean up the main castings and fill some air bubbles and mould mismatchings. Nothing unexpected here and nothing overly problematic, just time consuming and a bit messy.

It was a sad day indeed in 1955, but it deserves some good models. It's nice to see more 1/43 builds. I have always loved those older and simple but good looking PM kits.

Easy choice, do it dirty as in the middle of the race or just finished. A nice and clean livery just makes the weahtered look even better. Few things are as beatiful and has as much story to tell as a dirty and even repaired Le Mans car just after finishing the hard race.

Nice subject, it's really good looking indeed. The kit also looks nice and the 50% of it I have built was as good as it looks. Why only 50%? I only built that much as I used those bits to create a GT1 version of the Ford GT90 as if it had raced at a late -90's Le Mans... I should have decals and some spares laying around if something is messing up.

This is also a nice choice. The # 61 car was my joy of the 2010 race, and it was a very sad moment when they had to pull aside with an engine fire. I actually have the # 61 as an ongoing, slowly, project, but I'm only using this Simil'R kit for some parts and many of the decals. I really should resume dedicated work on it. Will be good to follow this one. So, which car will it be, # 60 or # 61?

Great choice of subject. I have always liked this car with the headlights behind clear covers, replacing those flip lights. Looking forward to this one develop.

The last parts are now fitted. Handlebar, headlight and instruments with the cables hooked up. It's possibly time to fire her up for a ride... Rear light and license plate installed. This is the older registration system used in Sweden that was replaced in -72. Back then registration codes were unique for local districts, and a red plate was an interim registration meaning this is a new bike the owner recently took delivery of, or possibly the bike recently changed ownership over a district border. In a few weeks time it will get a white plate with a black number. E-reg places the bike in the district of Östergötland which is here, for those interested in geography . Plenty of good roads there. And somewhere in that area our driver has taken a break at a gas station, taking the opportunity to also fill some oil and get something quick to eat . I had to add some detail to the base, so I put a simple edge of grass on one side and scratched an oil tin can and the empty tray that the hot dog with mashed potatoes was served in. For those not familiar it's like a quick road/street side meal, a bit like fish and chips served in paper. Simple but delicious when you are hungry but really want to get on driving. I would have liked to put a pair of black gloves over the seat, but I had noting useful in 1/12 scale. I will see if I can find something suitable later. And when he takes off again this is the view most people will see, with the three pipes sending a clear message, if you missed the song when he passed... With this I will call it finished. It has been really inspiring and rewarding to build a bike model for a change, something I may never have tried without this Group Build. It will not be the last, but I'll probably stick to the older classics. I would like to thank the organizers of the GB and also say thanks for all support during the build. I will put some more pictures in the gallery.

It's the same for me, almost zero interest today, but I lost my interest 10 years later, after -97. I would certainly join, but only if it's not limited to "modern" cars. I have several nice 1/24 and 1/43 GP kits in my stash and I could certainly do with som extra motivation to get a build done.

Then you really deserve to get some good modelling time in again. I just looked through this build again, more thoroughly, and what a great work on that driver figure! He looks really committed and those period looking glasses are an excellent touch. Should make a great model in action on the track.

Some friends are good to have. I have two that are really good. They send me small letters with tools, parts or materials when I'm in need . So, first I got a bunch of photo etched saws in the mailbox. With one of them it was an easy job to saw off that bent handle from the shock absorber and straighten it. With minimal touch up everything looked fine. Well, at least regarding the handle. Another detail in this region became increasingly horrible looking the more we thought of it... At last the modified front fender was put back in place. It was a little tricky but worked out without any damage. The tank and seat were also put in place. Now, if you look close you can see a new front tire installed as well... And here is the big difference, a new rear tire. The verdict fell hard on the tires, especially the coarse patterned cross/trial looking rear tire. And that was a far harder verdict than on the kits spokes. Suddenly however, in the middle of all ongoing modifications, this other friend had sent two new sets of much better tires to my mailbox, that he said would be far more suitable and period looking. There was no way out of this. The best pair of them were the closest in dimension, but wouldn't fit straight on. They are of Tamiya origin and so have a notch in them that go over a bead on the rims. I could press and glue this notch shut and so make the tires a little narrower against the rim, which made them a very good fit. Then I had to "shorten" the rear tire about 3 mm. With all this done things looked much better, and I'm happy I did it. Looking at it now I'm surprised the old rear tire survived this far. But now the line had to be drawn, while it is still fun to build this thing. There are only a few parts left to fit and I'm not going to take more steps back to rework things.

Good to see more progress on this one. A good bit OT, but this one brings out a lot of memories, reminding me of the 1/4 scale RC-model of this bike that Kyosho (via Graupner in Europe) brought out in the late 70's. I did a lot of RC of all sorts back then, even competing high level in RC-boating. Anyway, Kyosho came with the first true two wheeled RC-bike then, a 1/6(?) scale road racing bike with electric motor. I got my hands on the first one that came to Sweden and it worked quite well! After some preparation and modifications, lowering the center of gravity and fitting the new hollow air filled tires that came out as accessories it even worked superb, and I great fun driving it a lot. Soon then Kyosho brought out this large YZ250 with a glow engine. I had to get one of course. But it was nothing short of a disaster. The engine was built into a complex scale like gearbox casing and was hopeless getting any reliability from, despite it being a well known quality OS engine inside. And for the short moments the engine worked the bike just kept falling over like a long tall card tower with about 58 weak links... They then released an electric version so I got the alternate parts and rebuilt mine to loose the engine problems and concentrate on the handling, but it was completely hopeless. A total mess. I never heard of anyone getting it to work, but maybe we did something wrong. The smaller road racer kept driving like charm though, and brought me much joy. Good days . Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get it out . Keep up the work, It gives me nice memories and will look great when finished.

Thanks for encouragement and tips Colin. I actually often use sanding paper, sometimes I paint it and sometimes I cheat by doing nothing to it... I used a greyish sanding paper here as well, and I'm doing a little bit more paint and dripping and a little other detail to add som life. I will have to develop myself in this area though, as a good base really lifts many models, without making a full blown diorama.

I hope you find the motivation to keep going with it. This is one I would like to see finished.