Bengalensis
-
Posts
4,190 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
9
Content Type
Events
Profiles
Forums
Media Demo
Posts posted by Bengalensis
-
-
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.
-
Thanks, I'm happy with the shocks and springs now.
The exhaust joints you mention is there, moulded into the expansion chambers, but Revell have then extended the parts another 0,5 mm forward and put a new awkward glue joint there to the kit downpipes. Not the best solution no. However, I removed and refitted my three assembled exhausts a few times this moring and it seems to be fitting very well now. Will sand the filler later today and hope they are ready for paint. Just love the three-pipe look from behind
. -
The three exhaust pipes required some work with the joints between the halves, but they sanded out nicely. I may be stretching my luck a bit far now, but, I take the chance. I really want to assemble the three pipes completely at this stage, including the bends, so I can also fill and smooth the rather ugly joints between them and the pipes before any painting. I think they will all fit as they do now when it's time for final assembly. I hope...
-
Of course I couldn't find any suitable springs in the house. Here is my first attempt at winding something up. With some minor adjustments and painting it may do the job.
-
Looks like it could be an interesting journey with the final assembly
. I hope all goes well as the job you've put into preparing the parts deserves a really good finish. Looking forward. -
The instruments looked a bit crude and nothing like I see in reference pictures. I filed the down a bit and made a new rim to give the faces a recess. There are no decals for them, but I will make my own.
The rear springs doesn't look good at all. I will have to find, or make, some suitable metal springs and cut the shocks apart to make a new centre piece.
-
Engine taped together and test fitted. Looks rather large in that frame. I will paint the engine in parts to make it easier to get varying metal shades on the
different parts.Front fork and rear suspension test fitted. Somewhat to my surprise there are no real problems. It's certainly not up to modern kit standard, but with careful cleaning and preparation of the parts it goes together quite nicely. I'm enjoying this build so far. I added the small loop on the front fender strut, through which the speedo and brake cables are routed.
Tank and seat fit. It really starts to look like something.
-
Cleaning up the wheels was not fun at all, and they did have some ugly mould lines, but now they're done. I think they came out ok, a little more work may be needed. The joint line between the halves is not perfect, but very difficult to improve on. I'm not that keen on starting to work with filler and filing/sanding between each spoke, and I'm not sure how necessary it will be. I'll have to scratch my head on that for a while.
-
The thick toy like chrome was really stubborn to get rid of. The chrome itself went off easy, but the thick yellowish varnish underneath required four long treatments, and then there was still a few pools left. But they peeled of rather easy in the end with a little mechanical effort and no damage to the parts.
I didn't expect that much from this old kit, but once the thick chrome is gone the parts actually look quite good.
I have made some progress gluing half parts together and cleaning joints. I do some dry fitting as I go along to check the fit. We'll see how much problems I will encounter by joining the frame halves now, instead of fitting them around painted parts as the instructions want and having ugly seams to deal with. I think I will be able to get away with it.
Had to rebuild som details on the carbs as they just broke by looking at them. Glued engine parts are drying, waiting for further clean up and part fitting.
-
This is beatiful work! And I really appreciate the extra work involved in the RHD conversion, that's some serious modelling taking the extra trouble. Well done.
-
I got the Nissan DeltaWing 1/24 kit from P24 a couple weeks ago, so that is on as planned.
I may also, if I manage to work up enough inspiration on the DeltaWing build, squeeze in two 1/24 Alpine A220 from -68 and -69 based on the new P24 kit. The -69 version requires quite a lot of body modifications but is really beautiful. But we'll see, I haven't been up to speed in my race car modelling (which used to be my maine genre) the last year or two, so I wount promise those two.
-
Doesn't look pinkish on my screen, more red with a tone of orange, which I suppose is more like you want it? Difficult colour on screens though.
-
Wow, the scene with all it's wonderfully executed details just takes my breath away. Superb job, really impressive!
-
I found a suitable oil cap, but then discovered that it's location was too far forward on the tank. So a bit of rework and filler. The cover on the opposite side has a small knob at the bottom, I assume it's a threaded knob that you unscrew to open the cover, and it's represented by a huge moulded in blob.
So I thought I might improve on that as well, while I was at it. Found another useful piece in a scrap box and made a little flange for it. There is also a very visible tube on the oil tank which must be for checking the oil level. I had to do that as well. I hope to use something slightly thinner to replace the hose I have here when it's time for assembly.
Lot's of clean up work remaining.
-
What a nice period picture there, great atmosphere. And someone who actually used to ride this beast - and survived to tell the tales
. Thanks for sharing.I haves started to clean up the blue parts. Quite a few ejector pin marks to fill. The kit shows it's age here and there, but apart from replacing the vinyl tubing I will try to stay reasonably within the kits confinements and do the best I can with the parts. I think. I might need to be reminded. And having just written that I will have to raid all my scrap boxes to find a cap for the oil tank as the kit doesn't have one...
Will, you may very well find that many of Tamiyas plated parts are quite good. As Steve says the mould lines may of course be a problem, but Tamiya can do some good plating and in varying shine too, some have a nice satin finish where needed. The kit I have however is just full of very think super shiny US-car kit style chrome...
-
You are making good progress and showing a great ambition with your project, I like that. Keep it up.
I would like to give a little tip. I'm not sure if you sprayed the body parts laying on that piece of cardboard? It looks a bit like that, but I'm not sure. Anyway, if you did, try to temporarily mount parts to something like a bottle (for the body) and similar solutions, so that you can handle and manouver the parts easier during painting, as it will make it far easier to spray from different angles and reach all areas.
-
I get them from E2046: http://www.e2046.com/figure.php
Takes a lot of searching, or rather surfing, in their vast range to find what I want though, but they have been very reliable and delivered really good quality castings. I have a couple others in my stach and some more on pre-order.
-
Hello all,
I too would like to make a late entry to the group. Would have joined earlier if I had found the kit I wanted to build, but that wasn't as easy as I thought. I realise there may be a slight risk of not finishing in time, as I seem to be going in and out of some sort of modelling blockage right now (winter is doing me no good, even more so this year...) but I take a chance that a group build might be a cure for me.
So, I will build an old Kawasaki Triple, the 500 Mach III, from the old Revell 1/12 kit. I'm not that much of a bike person really, but I do like some of them and especially a bit older machines, when they were still quite simple and basic looking constructions. This high revving two stroke three cylinder made an impression on me as a kid as one of the fastest things there was.
Here is a nice example I have saved as a reference: http://michaelsmotorcycles.com/1971Kawasaki500A.html
It's ages since I built a bike kit last, and this very kit must have been the last I did, in the mid to late -70's. In my memory it was the later 750, but I'm sure it was this kit so my memory is probably failing, it was the 500. As I now wanted one again I was expecting ebay to be full of them, or at least giving a descent choice, but only incomplete half builds showed up for quite a while. At last I found an untouched kit a week or so ago, although at more of a collectors price, but never mind. I got it this friday and haven't had time to more than check it over quickly. Here it is, complete with yellow aged instruction paper and almost rock hard black vinyl tubing.
The vinyl tubing was going to be replaced anyway with various other more original looking materials, but luckily the tires are still in great condition. The decals are slightly yellowed and I'm also not sure if they may crack to pieces. We'll see how I handle that, worst case is that I have draw up my own decals, maybe also painting some of the decoration. But if I just get that far it won't be a problem what ever. The chrome is of course too much and too thick, so the first thing will be to strip both sprues completely. I'll use Alclad to repaint everything. So of to buy some new oven cleaner tomorrow. -
Here's another of those resin figures I'm working on, just finished. She's called Touma Kazusa, a manga character I haven't bothered to learn too much about as I mainly just like building the figures. She's also 1/6 scale, well maybe, if we accept her being 192 cm tall as the figure is 32 cm.Anyway, the sculptor had disgraced the poor lady with a saxophone, of all instruments, hanging over her shoulder. I thought that was a really bad move, so I just had to give her dignity back. An MG42 machine gun seemed a much better idea, far more suitable for her. Dragons 1/6 kit coming to the rescue.
Be gentle to her, she may not take no for an answer...
Ooops...
-
Looking good and I note the comments on the docking fit and stand with interest as I have the same kit in my stach to do. Actually I have both this and Apollo 11 & 17 to do, I really like the feel of these Dragon kits.
I was also interested in the paint question regarding the vinyl Souyz parts. I recently had some difficulties with the vinyl cartridge belt in Dragons 1/6 MG42 gun, when it eventually dried it didn't adhere well at all, but I will try acrylics instead on the Souyz.
-
That interior is turning out awesome! Following with great interest.
-
Very nicely done indeed! I have a couple of similar-sized figure kits to do, and I'm terrified about trying to paint the eyes. Any tips you can share on that?
Well, to this date I have only painted eyes like this on two figures (finished another just the other day) albeit with a descent result, so I'm a bit unsure if I'm really in a position to advise on eye painting
, but here goes...I prime the head in a white primer, then I mask the eye balls with Tamiya tape and spray the skin tones. After removing the mask I cut two circular pieces of masking tape in the size I want the iris to be. I play around with them a little to try out a placement of the iris I'm happy with. Try to think how much of the iris would really be seen for real in the pose and look the figure has. I also had a bit of practise by drawing a larger eye in similar shape on paper and painted that first, to get an idea of colours and work method.
Then I take a sharp pen and draw a faint line on the eye ball along the iris tape and then remove the tape. Now I can sketch an inner line for the pupil size. Then I use an enamel (I want a bit longer drying time) in the base colour I want the iris (greenish for Ignis here) and carefully paint it. Directly after that I take another colour (yellow in this case) and paint some thin strikes round the iris, like from the centre and out, that will allow smear and blend a bit with the green. You may then want a very thin blackish line around the periphery of the iris.
Then it's black for the pupil and a white dot for some light reflection, usually placed between 10 and 2 o'clock, but consider how you want light and reflection to hit the eye. I have also done a few faint white strikes in the iris at the same angle as the white dot.
I have given my girls a black liner around the eye, how prominent that should be depends of course. The last thing I do is to give the whole eye ball a good coat of gloss varnish to give the eye a wet look.
A lot of text for that, but it was not as difficult as I had feared. Go on and try. The worst that can happen is to strip some paint and start again.
-
Now that was fast, I didn't expect it would be that quick.
Remember to show us your build
.
.
. I hope all goes well as the job you've put into preparing the parts deserves a really good finish. Looking forward.
. Thanks for sharing.
, but here goes...
Kawasaki 500 Mach III
in Motocycle Group Build
Posted
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...