imster

Nice job Shaun, your CF work is outstanding! Tell me, for your dashboard you used a textured paint?

Never use CA (superglue) unless you are working with resin or metal parts. Grab some plastic cement, its also handy to have some Tamiya extra thin cement which you can use by holding parts together and taking the little brush that comes with the glue and dabbing it where the joints are, capilary action will suck the glue through to where the pastic parts meet and theoretically you will have zero glue marks. If you use CA for plastics there is chances the plastics will turn white and more importantly the joints become very brittle because CA glue joints tend to be brittle. When you use cement the glue kinda melts the two parts together to create a stronger bond and because of the nature of cement there is more flexibility in the joints too.

You are using only superglue for the whole model? Dont be afraid of the 2K messing up your airbrush. Be more cautious with fumes and ensuring you have a good respirator and protection. As for your airbrush, as long as you are diligent in cleaning your airbrush you will not have any problems with cleaning etc just be sure to clean the brush thoroughly after use. 20 minutes is plenty of time to get the clear on with a few coats. I would suggest next time to put one coat of clear down over the colour coat, then decals, then you final coats of clear. Your build is looking good and I look forward to seeing it when its complete

PE bolt is basically the metal miniature bolts you can get Like this:

Thanks F1 Insider Hopefully after this build is done you might become a model bike fan!! Thanks akramatt! the VFR750 is a beautiful bike, I'm sure you will enjoy building it! my process for washes is a little different from what you have described mainyl because I use lacquer paints rather than acrylics. So my process is to do an acrylic wash (1 part acrylic semigloss black, 1 part dishwater soap, and 10 parts water) directly on top of the lacquer painted part, I try to stay away from using any clears on parts because it takes away the natural sheen that I need for the part to look authentic. With the method you described, you are correct. As for clearcoats? its hard to say but in my experience I've found 2K clear is a great robust clearcoat to use and as far as I know enamels will not damage or "burn through" the clearcoat and ruin the finish. I hope this helps! I am sure that some others going through this WIP might be able to chime in and offer advice for washes too Thanks KP, always appreciate your positive comments mate Thanks Keith! Thanks BillyD! Thanks Borez, No worries about the questions! Ask as much as you can as I'm sure it will help others too! I usually make 2 different type of hose clips, the easier type is simply cutting thin strips of Bare Metal Foil (Aluminum finish) and wrapping it around the hose area that I want to clip to go. The second type is a little more tricky but gives a greater effect than the BMF method. I use a very thin gauge wire (depending on application it will be something like 0.25mm upto 0.40mm) and wrap it around the pipe twice (keeping tension on the wire), the area of the pipe which will not be seen is where I cross over the wires and tie them up. After that I simply use a PE bolt to depict the screw that used to tighten the clamp. Because of the tension that was placed on the wire there is no need for glue, just make sure when you tie them up you keep then tension through it all. As for the chain, I built it using a Top Studio chain set. Its pretty time consuming and also can be tricky the first few times you build it but the effect afterwards makes it all worth it!

Yes I'm pretty sure it will take Plastickoat lacquer off as it eats through any lacquer paints I use and also through 2K clear as well. Thanks for your kind comments mate As for 2 strokes, I never had the pleasure of riding one but I can imagine the amount of fun I could have had on one! I would also love to ride an RC30 as well, and yes I agree a very beautiful bike which I think Tamiya produces a model kit for

Nice choice!!! Subbed and popcorn ready! I cant wait to see more progress

This build is coming along nicely mate! As for paint stripping, I found using IPA much better than brake fluid and less hazardous as well, just dip it in IPA overnight and the paint will literally fall off.

Just caught up on this, really high standard of work Shaun, keep it up dude

Yes I forgot to say to everyone Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! More progress finally!! I finished the exhaust cans and attached the exhaust assemblies to the frame. I also installed the radiator, the fitment on the radiator is pretty poor and in hindsight I should have cut all the various radiator pipes and connected them independently of the engine and the radiator itself. I had a large gap with one of the radiator hoses and I ended up fashioning a small piece of tube plastic to "fill in" the gap between the hose and the radiator Anyways on with the pictures! Next up will be the steering damper and front forks assembly, I am getting close to the end on this build and cant wait to finish it!

Shaun, Have a look at the Gravity Colours Mclaren Chrome paint set, I've heard good things about it. Also I have converted over from Alclad chrome to Spastix chrome, Spastix is awesome!

Looks good Ash! Great to see more motorcycle builds here

Hey all, just a quick update. I havent gone missing! I've just had some family over from the UK and coupled with the festive holidays I've had absolutely 0 bench time. I have had a few of my family members fly out earlier today but I still have some here until February, in the meantime I should hopefully get a little benchtime to be able to make some more progress on this build! Thanks for watching!

Wow! Excellent work especially considering this is your 2nd ever build! I have this one in my stash so I look forward to seeing your progress and also if you had any problems along the way (fit issues, things to look out for when building, etc) Keep up the wonderful work mate!

Looks good and welcome back to modelling after such a long time! Put a WIP of your C9 if you can

This is inspirational work Caterhamnut! I am so tempted to get a few of these after seeing this build

beautiful work!! I think I have seen this build on another forum?

Its good you are not going to superdetail this one as it gives you a good break from it all and to be honest doing an OOB build is challenging as the work you do needs to be clean because there isnt so much extra detail to take viewers eyes off the imperfections of the build

Thanks all, I'm glad you are all here keeping an eye on things, dont be afraid to question anything I am doing as it will only help me become a better modeller The jig is made by my friend Marcomoto, he is a member on a few forums but not sure if he is here. If you want his details lemme know and I will PM them over to you

Sorry to hear about your woes on this one, just finish it up and move on mate, dont worry about the finish as its just going to wind you up and possibly make you less enthusiastic about building models.

Thanks guys Heres a quick photo to show the reference as it may look like I havent really captured how an exhaust should look like and to be honest I have rarely seen a motorcycle exhaust in these colour tones

that colour coat looks great! Perfect finish! I agree with you about the whole experience thing, as the experience increases your skills develop and things become much easier, then you move on to getting things perfect. I even look at my old Ducati Panigale build and see how much I have progressed since then and that was built about 8 months ago

Apologies for the lack of updates, I have some family over visiting from the UK so my building time has been somewhat limited. I managed to complete the exhaust, I am very pleased with how they came out! Overall it was about an hour of painting with various subtle shades to recreate the different metal tints on the 1:1 version, I was erring towards being subtle with it as I didnt want it to look patchy. I decided to also make the side facing out on both exhausts more copper/bronze and the interior darker and with light shades of red, yellow and violet. Before painting I added weld lines near where the exhaust will eventually attach itself to the frame. I also had to add some more plastic to the end where the exhaust silencers meet because when I mocked it all up there were gaps there. Exhaust springs were added after the paint work was done, I chose to do it this way rather than painting after putting them on because I wanted to have them stand out to a certain extent, I also added some tinting to it to take the edge off the silver. Inner side of the exhaust (the paint on the right hand side one looks chipped, it was actually me testing something and that part will not be seen as it sits at the bottom facing the engine): Outer side of the exhaust: I'll try to stick up a few pics of how the exhausts look once I have the cans installed and on the frame too as the cans are 90% complete Thanks for looking!

Nice lookin kit! Are these kits pretty rare?

looks like a pretty cool kit, nice clean work so far Pat