Thirsty

I've had to suspend working on this model due to life getting in the way! I've moved house and don't have the milling machine or lathe anymore. I will get back to it but probably not for while.

For anyone following this I've had to delay a bit due to ordering some lathe tools to allow me to make my bolts. They won't be here until late April so in the meantime I'll make a start soon on other areas like bodywork.

Centre stand in - used a piece of brass rod with a dab of superglue at each end to hold it in.

Couple more bits done today. Battery and rear brake master cylinder in.

Home made bolts mounted to the frame Battery components. Blue paint in the battery will evaporate and leave a blue tint hopefully. Couple of other bits ready to go

So I'm building a shed for my wife and her hobbies so not much time for mine I have managed to paint the frame and some other bits but I only took a photo of the frame. Will get more done today as it's a holiday here today.

So a slow start to this one but I've been busy in my other main hobby - been helping my friend with his ultralight aircraft. It's now flying so back to model building! I've got the frame glued together now just fixing seams etc before painting. I'll install the main stand after painting. Sanding and filling In my quest to make this model better than the last I need to do things like making individual plugs for the battery fluid access. Battery leads made up and ready to go.

Spent some time today making bolts. Got 9 made in half an hour - getting quicker! Using steel now as well as aluminium as I can get the shaft size down to .8mm with steel. Here's what I'm using to make them if anyone is interested.

Good job mate, very realistic.

More exercises in bolt making. Not happy with the above idea so have been experimenting with making bolts on my lathe/milling machine. Here is the result so far: Shaft is just over 1mm. Pretty happy with the result and it's repeatable. Takes about 5 mins to make one. I've started sanding seam lines on the frame so won't be long before some progress.

Thankyou and you are quite right - I am using what I have at the moment but am practicing making my own bolts. The chain adjuster was explained previously but I didn't have a bolt so was using 2 nuts to approximate a bolt and a nut - I should have filled in the end of the "bolt"!

Experiments in bolt making! Because it costs so much to buy miniature bolts I'm trying to make my own. Here are a couple of sizes I'm trying out: 1.6mm bullet head nails. 1.2mm bullet head nails Will be using these on the Katana so we'll see how we go.

Yes the quality of the kit is just as good as the cb1100.

It's cheap as chips for what you get. I paid $130ish aussie dollars - about 70ish pounds I think. It's a bargain as nobody seems to want this kit. The CB1100R goes for hundreds of dollars same as the CX. Don't know why.

OK so I've decided to do the Katana next. Going to try and make this better than the CB1100R. I've decided with my modelling generally I'm not going to try for 100% accuracy, just as close to 100% realistic as I can. many of these bikes will have been changed over the years and I'm not building brand new/restored bikes anyway so I think that's OK. Obligatory box art and shot of parts in box following.

Here's my most recent attempt at forced perspective. My FB friends now think I own a real CB1100R Unfortunately Photoshop has put a blur around the model - I used focus stacking to get everything in focus so not sure if I can fix that.

Thankyou sir. Look forward to more soon I hope.

Yeah the CX was a bit top heavy. The turbo is more so. Off boost it feels and goes like an overweight 250! On boost it feels a lot better. It's really in it's element touring on the open road sitting on 100-110 kph where it's just on boost. It's a really nice touring bike but a sports bike it aint Here's a photo of my CX500 I sold a few years ago.

Here's my current mount with a Tamiya 1/12 model '97 model with carbs and the best colour!

So what I was going for was a bolt with a locknut. I didn't have any bolts so I used a nut as the bolt head so what you're seeing is my attempt at making a bolt and a locknut out of 2 nuts if that makes sense?

I haven't built the CX500 yet, I'm "practicing" on these other Tamiya kits as the CX500 is the most important one to me to get right. Here's a photo of my bike.

Here are some shots without clothes Note I built this bike to be a used example that is not pristine. It has been resprayed but mechanically is all original. These fork air caps were scratch built out of aluminium. I didn't like the kit ones.

Thanks for the biker praise! I too am a biker currently with a cbr1100xx blackbird and a cx500 turbo. I did the chain adjuster from memory in that I recall on these older bikes there was a bolt that you turned to adjust the chain and a locknut.

Here you go - from my reference pics.

Thanks for the biker praise! I too am a biker currently with a cbr1100xx blackbird and a cx500 turbo. I did the chain adjuster from memory in that I recall on these older bikes there was a bolt that you turned to adjust the chain and a locknut.