Tamiya 1/12 Honda CBR400F

[rs2man]

Although another 1/12 Tamiya kit , this build differs from the CB750F I posted recently in pretty much all respects .  The 750 was a recently-bought kit & went together with no real issues .  The 400 , on the other hand , has been part-built in my stash for at least 30 years & I had a number of issues with it mainly as a result of the age of the decals .  The model is intended to be built in silver with red & blue trim as per the boxtop illustration , the trim being provided as decals

 

 

I painted it all silver & then applied the decals , which were very reluctant to leave the backing paper & equally reluctant to slide about on the model once applied .  Several doses of Mr Mark Softer left them wrinkled in places but not too bad , especially after I'd touched up a few gaps with paint .  However , a coat of Halfords clear gloss caused the decals on one side of the fairing to craze badly .  My first thought was just to get it finished & ensure the poor side was facing away from view but the more I looked at it the less satisfied I became , so  I contemplated throwing it in the bin but in the end I broke out the Revell paint stripper & took everything back to bare plastic .  Tamiya's decals include an extra set of logos for a red bike with white & yellow trim which you have to paint , but painting it in what must be the 3 worst colours from a coverage point of view really didn't fill me with joy so in the end I settled on an overall red paintjob .  The only slight issue with the decals this time was that the F3 logo on the fairing was printed in red & didn't really show up against the red paintwork when applied , so I removed the first decal , put it back on the backing paper & cut the offending section off before re-applying the rest .

 

 

 

The end result is somewhat different to what Tamiya , & Honda for that matter , intended but I'm happy with the way it looks . 

 

I seem to have been bitten by the motorcycle bug , since I'm now working on a Tamiya Ducati Mike Hailwood Replica .

[keefr22]

4 hours ago, rs2man said:

I seem to have been bitten by the motorcycle bug ,

 

And with all the really cool bike builds you guys keep posting I think it's starting to nibble at me too! 

 

That's a really neat clean build with a beautiful finish on the red - top job! I think it looks better with a plain paint job! 

 

I really must resist....!!

 

Keith

[Cooper645]

5 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

And with all the really cool bike builds you guys keep posting I think it's starting to nibble at me too

Couldn’t agree more with this comment. 
 

that’s a great end result you’ve achieved as well so congratulations. 

[gt6mkiii]

Looks great! I built this one in the blue and silver years ago when the decals would have been a lot fresher.

 

I like the non-factory finish. I think a lot of bikes would have been redone like this after riders had slid them along the pavement. A friend had a RZ500 that had been redone in black & purple!

 

Martin.

[rs2man]

Thanks guys . Glad you liked it