Bengalensis

What a relief, with the stand lowered to about a scale 20 mm clearance at the rear the model look so much better I think. Now I can continue fitting parts around that area. I made a thinner oil level tube and fitted it to the tank. Then I "filled" it with some oil. There are ups and downs... this looks a bit nasty, why is the front fender in this state then? Well, it turned out that Revell ensured that the front fender could only be mounted in one direction. Unfortunately they chose the wrong direction... The overhang from the struts should be longer at the back than the front, not the other way around. Then it should be about twice the difference to what Revell actually did. So, after some consideration the fender had to come off again to be cut off in the front and elongated at the rear. It has been going quite well. After two coats of gloss black enamel yesterday, with sanding between them to remove that last trace of the rework, the Alclad chrome was sprayed this morning. Now I just have to wrestle it in place again, which will be tricky. Wish me luck. I want to thank Chris/"stringbag" for being sharp eyed enough to spot this (myself I had totally missed it) and for sending me the question about it before it was definitely far too late to fix. With this little mishap I had to install some more parts to keep the spirit up, which will of course make it more risky to mess with refitting the front fender, but I just had to see it with the blue side covers and the exhaust fitted. I've said it before, but the three-pipe look is so nice, just love it. "There is so much power here now that we hardly know how to fit it!"

More good choice here, and that livery is never wrong. Actually it's only in rescent years when the 956's (and 962's) have become historic that I have started to appreciate them much more, for what they are really worth.

That car and engine is just mind blowing, and a proper gearbox at that, what a lovely sound. Very nice driver too. I really hope we will see one in this group build. So let me provide some more inspiration, on board another but older classic we just have to see in the build as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XtDsU9LUsOs

Now we*re talking! This is awesome, glad to see this choice of subject. What an effort to race a beast like this for 24 hours on two drivers. The model should look fantastic when built. Black wheels only make it better IMO. A good friend of mine built it a number of years ago, but using the old Skale Kraft "kit" as base. This was just before P24 came out. It's finished as a pre(?) race version in a darker maroon red with black wheels and looks very impressive. I think there was a debate over what red colour the race car really had, might be worth looking into. Lookning forward to see this one develop. Edit: Looking back at model pictures I remember wrong about my friend's model, he didn't paint it as dark as my memory thought, it's a brighter more "italian" red. I don't remember what the result of the paint debate was, I'll have to ask him again.

Another great classic that needs to be taken care of in a build like this. Good choice.

Lovely. As you said in the chat we can't really have a Le Mans build without a 917K, it just wouldn't be right. Good to see it's taken care of.

It's fantastic, really well done. The visor is lovely and really ads to the scene, but the details of the suit stands out even more for me. Very well done. Great tribute to a great man from a great time when mankind did awesome achievements.

Thanks Dennis, that is exactly the information I need. When I measure and scale I have about 2-2½ inches at the back wheel, but I think it looks way too high on the model. I will now cut and remake, looking for max 1 scale inch to make the model appear more right.

Here is my contribution for the Le Mans group build, the fantastic Nissan DeltaWing of Highcroft Racing from last years race, 2012. I'm not that much into modern racing cars, strongly preferring the classics of yesterday, both for their looks, technical construction and drivers, but once in a while something turns up even today that just can't be ignored. Like this one. Borrowed this photo from the Le Mans site http://www.24h-lemans.com For me this was the definite high point of last years race, seeing this weird machine running strongly within the LMP2-window with about 50% of every resource. Sadly it was pushed of the track around the 7th hour at the restart after a safety car period, and could never make it back to the pits for repairs, despite heroic efforts by its Japanese driver. The model is the newly released 1/24 resin kit by Profil 24. Not that many parts, but neither would it be necessary with more as far as I can see. The shape and proportions looks good, at least after the basic checks I have done so far. So now it's just the wait for the start.

As I have been working on the bike I have come to the conclusion that the model must have a base of some sort. I think models usually benefit a lot from a good base, but I never really enjoy building bases much. Unfortunate fact, but I don't know how to change that. Anyway, I drew up an ellipse for a test and it seemed suitable, so I cut a piece of plastic with some simple surface on it. I will paint the edge black and possibly add a little more life to the surface. Still not sure what to do with the stand... I made the two brake cables with rubber boots at the ends. They are simple, but at least they look like something. I also realised that it was a dumb idea to have the clutch cable black. The reference bike I saw that on have of course had a newer replacement cable fitted. So of it came again to be repainted grey before being reattached.

Good choice. PM's kits are always an inspiration and joy both to open the box of and to build. They have always been so ever since the good old days with the more simple kits when they were Provence Moulage in the blue/white boxes. Nearly every monthly news letter (printed on paper and arriving with the post man...) had a new "must have" kit.

Now it's getting a bit busy around the engine. Cables for clutch, throttles and tacho installed. I had missed to create a location point for the clutch cable, but luckily I could put it in place and glue it anyway. The tacho cable has a spring-like protective cover around the bottom of it, so I winded some thin wire to create that. And finally the front fork mated to the frame. Now it really starts to look like something. And here is possibly another problem showing... I think the stand may be too high? There is about 4,5 mm between the ground and rear wheel, or 6 mm at the front, whichever wheel one puts on the ground, equaling +5 or +7 cm in real life. It looks to me though as no wheel is much off the ground at all when the various reference bikes I have on photos are parked on the central stand? But then again, 5-7 cm is perhaps not much in real life? What do you think? And should it weigh down at the rear or the front?

Good work on the shape issues, now it really starts to look like what it's supposed to look like. Any thoughts on colour choice yet? About the rear underbody, any chance you could modify the chassi instead? I always prefer any compromises in the chassi rather than the body, perhaps as I'm thinking more like curbside builds. But even if I do a chassi and engine I would rather have the body first class.

Thanks, encouraging words to hear from a previous owner and rider. The rear suspension installed. That was a bit fiddly. Everything fits with a bit of wobble and not necessarily perfectly lined up... So it required a fair bit of tweaking, distance piece insertion and binding with thread to make everything sit straight and lined up while the glue dried for a while. Luckily it worked and nothing sprung back when everything was released. The handle on top of the left shock absorber is moulded in one piece with the shock, but at the wrong angle. It's like Revell made the shocks to sit much more straight down to a lower location point where they also do fit, but which is wrong. I totally missed that in my dry fitting, stupidly, as that is precisely why I do a lot of dry building... Now the handle is slightly bent. I will wait a little and see if I may cut it off from the shock to rectify, or possibly make a new. The front fork was also a bit vague in parts fit, but it was easy enough to line everything up. The old decals worked perfectly! I cut them close to get rid of the excessive carrier film and just put them on. They behaved just like any modern quality decal, much to my surprise I must say.

There are a few issues when using filler, and they are often more notable when filling something like a hole in styrene plastic. I'm quite sure this is what you have experienced. First the filler will shrink a bit over time, especially when it's fresh, it isn't perfectly stable just because it's hard and sandable. This is a much larger problem if it's a 1-part filler you used, but it's also the case with 2-part filler but to a much lesser degree. The key is to wait a bit longer before sanding and also to use a sandable primer/surfacer to get a second chance. And it's the same with the primer, the longer you wait, the more stable and durable the result will be. Unfortunately there is also a second issue when working with styrene plastic, and that's the slight reaction the plastic can show to different paints, and fillers, and this will be very notable around filled holes, or if you have sanded off some moulded in surface detail. Again the key solution is primer and giving it extra time to settle before sanding. Now that you have a paint coat on and see these problems, the chance is good that if you give it a light sanding to remove the problem, the remaining paint will act like a barrier and also be more stable (both the underlying filler and the paint will have cured longer) and the new paint coat will not show the same problem. Give it try. It's all a learning experience.

Working with photos of the real gauges as base I came up with these decals after some work. The photo isn't the best perhaps. A good clear coat should finish them of quite well. Engine starting to come together. I made three 90° spark plug caps for the ignition wires and then the wiring loom itself. This is as far as the engine could be assembled before it had to go into the assembled frame. So the engine went into the frame as was fully assembled. With ignition wiring, fuel hoses and an oil hose connected this is what it looks. So far everything fits as intended. I'm quite excited... We have had a few sunny days now, and the decals in the window have responded fantastically well. They were really badly yellowed, but now they look as good as I could possibly hope for. I have taken a high resolution scan of the sheet with a ruler beside, in case I will have to draw new ones despite the good result.

That's a much more suitable exhaust system than the kit original. Looking like good progress.

I just don't know what I would do without my Alps/OKI MD5000... The "blue candy" is done. I'm very happy with the result, which the photo sadly doesn't show too well. Now I have to wait a little to see how the decals will become.

Yes I forgot about the spoon, it's a good surface to judge paint on. I sprayed a scrap door, it's Alclad "highly polished aluminium" directly on grey primer and then a couple coats of simple Tamiya clear blue. It has a deeper brighter shine from the base coat than this picture show and I was surprised how much it looked like I want it to. This is what I will use. Paint work is going slowly forward. Soon it's just detail painting with brush left and some foiling. Need to print a white Kawasaki decal for the back of the seat. The wheels of course have their limitations, but I will not give up before some more work.

I'm still as impressed as I was a month ago. Lovely to be able to follow this.

That came out really nice. Used in daily life but taken care of. Very good taste. I hope you can fix the roof rack as it will make it look even better.

That livery looks really nice. Everytime i see it I get flashes of the Williams F1 cars from late -80's/early -90's, and that's a good thing to me. Will it be mainly painted, or is it all decals?

Yesterday everything got it's first coat of paint sprayed. Not sure how I will tackle the main blue colour yet. It's not a solid blue nor some grainy metallic blue. I have seen it referred to as "blue candy" and it may be something like that over a silver base. I'm thinking of trying some Alclad aluminium shade and a clear blue on top. I will spray some scrap body or something to see. I have the kit decals taped to window to see if the yellowing will be reduced enough for them to be used. This works sometimes and sometimes not. Needs more sun than today though...

No, I'm not sure I wount respoke... The wheels are certainly the week point right now. Not just yet sure how week, might need to paint them up to find out. 10 years ago I would already have respoked them with joy and be done. 3-4 years ago I may have started but found it not that fun in the middle of it, may or may not be finished. Today I'm not sure. But it has been much more fun working on a bike model than I expected, so we'll see what happens.

I discovered that there was a part missing in the kit, a part that Revell actually never made, despite making location points (albeit skewed) for it and having it hinted in some instruction drawings. There should be a crossmember in the middle of the frame, also acting as upper rear engine mount. It will probably not be seen much, but after looking at pictures of real bikes undergoing restoration I decided to scratch it and give it proper locating points. I have to leave it separate until final assembly to get the engine in. If you look close you can also see I've cut the frame apart at the right rearmost corner. I actually had to lengthen that part about 1 mm to make everything square and even... ok, the kit is about 42 years old, ©1971 it says. The finished exhaust system. These are the parts that required most sanding in the whole kit. I drew up the base for my registration plate decal so I could cut a piece of thin plastic to correct size. With this done I have to think seriously about starting the paint work.