Kiertomäntä

Regulations required space for two but the passenger seat was almost never able to seat anyone. Rather it was used for ECUs and other electronics. But in theory there was space for seat and passenger. GT1 and group C were both known for their... let's say intelligent interpretation of the rules.

"Involuntary bumblebee edition" GSX1300R was released right at end of last millennium to compete for title of world's fastest motorcycle. MY99 did achieve 312kph top speed which surpassed previous title holder Honda CBR1100XX Super Blackbird with significant margin (depending on the tester between 280 and 290kph). At this time rumours started to circulate that many european countries would ban importing extremely powerful bikes in fear of speed wars and illegal racing. Due to this big manufacturers came to informal gentlemens agreement that no bike would go faster than 300. Importing ban never realised but the the agreement is still voluntarily enforced though there have been some who go partially against this (MV Agusta F4R - "italians don't limit their products arbitrarily", Ducati 1199R - speedometer blanks out after 299, Kawasaki H2R - technically not road-legal etc...). Speed was not the only goal to be achieved rather than very powerful and potential superbike with thought that small imperfections would be forgiven when the performance is proven. Visual design was probably the most critiqued part of the bike when released, though the design was very much dictated by wind tunnel which in the end allowed enough streamlining to actually achieve that top speed. The name Hayabusa means peregrine falcon in Japanese (kanji in the side fairing), a bird that eats blackbirds (notice the Honda CBR). If I remember correctly, Hayabusa was also the first bike that accelerated faster than object freefalling in vacuum (2,83s 0-100kph) thus achieving more than 1g lateral acceleration. --- Model is Tamiya's production from very early 2000s with slight modifications. Colour scheme is the same that Suzuki offered originally but colours themselves I made up. Black is tamiya's metallic black (still with too little metallic effect I think) and yellow is Safrangelb 3-part colour from Porsche. Metals are defferent alclads, AK etc. This time I have to admit that colouring didn't work. To me this resembles to much a bumblebee and those grey metal shades are too close to each other, would have needed more contrast. It looked better in my head... Brake discs are modified from Yamaha R1's photoetch set, hoses are thinner than box originals, scratchbuilt few cable tensioners etc. some normal tinkering. Kawasaki ZZR1400 has been probably the most direct competitor to Hayabusa for last 20 years.

By this description I assume I'm younger than you so I don't have lost my dad yet but my grandad yes. It's been almost 10 years but I haven't gotten over it so only advice I can give for you is to not erase what he has done. Whatever quality it was you have/will build it together, do not erase it.

Since BMW recently published their take on the Most Wanted M3 GTR I remembered that Beemax announced about 5 years ago that they would be releasing a model of the factory team GTR. Spotmodel had it in "announced" for up to around middle of pandemic after which it kind of vanished from everywhere. Does anyone have any info of what happened? I doubt it would have been licensing problem since they have made many BMW models into kits. Spotmodel's old newsletter is the only source it having existed that I know, fifth row here: https://www.spotmodel.com/newsbanner.php?id=356

I was interested in SnøMotion's prints and here is the end result. Colour scheme seemed a bit better in my head now this looks a bit too much Subaru-esque for me but no can do. Compared to tamiya's original mouldings these are much sharper, can definately recommend. Painting is also much easier due to separate parts.

After Beemax published their new moulding of the E30 M3 the shortcomings of Fujimi has been really obvious. I had this same exact model put into the stash unfinished and as you said it does look like chopped from the factory. Proportions are a bit off but that is none of the modelers fault. It's refreshing to see this in yellow. And with every car it's always interesting to see its road- and track-going variant side-by-side.

Apparently Mazda was originally trying to capture this as "face" was sculptured to have different expresssions depending of light and and angle you were looking it from. Clarkson have said that to make car liked it has to be humane as in it has to have faults and it has to have character. I think this achieves the latter...

This project was interesting to follow. This is really easy too see someone replicating in 1:1 form. As for the flag, ship-builders put regular decals on normal tin foil found in kitchen. When decals have dried you can make wrinkles as you wish. Since you only have to paint it orange, could this work?

This is still in work, I haven't given up on it. However the reason this did got stuck was the brake discs. I wasn't happy with them so I have been trying to make those from 0,5mm steel plate for which I bought a lathe from a co-worker. Haven't been able to make satisfactory results yet and since I can't put either end of the bike together without those brake discs, we are stuck currently.

Actually saw your video before coming on this site. Looks just as good in the pictures and vice versa. One question about your polishing? After you sanded the clear coat with sandpaper I saw it still had some orange peel on it before you switched to polishing compounds. How long do you take for each step? One body panel, the whole body or however you want to think it. In my experience that orange peel won't vanish in just a few minutes by handpolishing.

Thank you (or curse you) very much for your few thoughts, with this you have nudged me 60:40 towards buying the kit eventhough I have done the Hasegawa years ago. Although I'm now imagining RB26'ing some other Nissan I haven't yet built...

Has anyone been able to compare this side-to-side with hasegawa for example? Intrigued but I'm not sure if it really is worth to add to the stash (I will build all of them, I swear).

This is great, I escpecially like the subtle CF to liven it up a bit. This is also one of the few really early Tamiya bike models which I haven't found for reasonable price. If only T would re-issue their old kits once in a century...

It's first airplane build in 10 years, I build motorcycles and cars regularly.

I know just about nothing about scale modeling an aircraft but since the last built old Finnish Dakota neared the 10-year mark I decided to try again. Because my knowledge is thinner than autumn's leaf I didn't research almost any building techiques or other aircraft-specific means to build, just wanted to have fun. So the result is built with car-modeling knowledge with glossy surfaces, shiny metals etc. Because I have nothing where this would fit other than hanged from the roof I decided it would not have landing gear down, which is fortunate as no-one can look at it very closely. Tail decal was ripped off along with the lacquer when removing the masking tape and since the decal sheet was someone's DIY project I had no idea about shades of blue and white to mix paint for touch ups, the end result doesn't look good up close. But hey, I had fun with this, that's all I wanted. And it collects all the dust in kitchen roof as I wanted (not). Feel free to roast in any shape or form, I still have the A350 with Finnair decals (although it might take the next 10 years again) so any tips are welcomed warmly.