Tamiya VFR 750R

Sam wrote:You guys are up late....wait....I'm the one up late.
I have such a love/hate with my airbrush,  I have yet to use my new one. It's been about six years since I last used one.

It's an Iwata Neo

I HATE CLEANING THEM !!!

It's an Iwata Neo

I HATE CLEANING THEM !!!



That’s it?

Is this because of the cleaner you were using not chewing through the paint?
Or the fact that you have to clean everything out to use a different colour?

It's the making sure that it clean enough for the next use. I know it doesn't make sense, because I have no problem cleaning my spray guns when I paint full size projects.

Takes ages to strip it down all the way and clean it the best  you can, then the next day you goto use it and the needles stuck so more cleaning.
When I goto turn my compressor on in the morning and test the trigger of the ab it’s always stuck.
However, I’ll take the inconvenience for the super flat paint you get.
Also with rattle cans or paint brush I can’t paint upto a masked line, no matter how safe I think the masking is, it always bleeds. With an airbrush I rarely get bleed underneath the tape.
I find rattle cans way too thick even when warmed up and haven’t worked out a way to not get brush strokes so I kinda have no choice but to use it.

Today I’ve done hardly anything today played with the exhaust but that needs more playing with some more chrome.I’ve painted the colours and some semigloss black on the dials and that’s about all.
Because the lights are dark I thought semigloss black would work but they were too dark so I want with metallic grey base and some dabs of paint over the top. Looks way better I think

I’d like to make some lenses for it but I think that’s above my skill level.

And I did a bit of the tubing within ready to hide it with the next part

It looks great Ash

I agree about the finish you get with the airbrush. Far superior to anything else.

Cheers Sam

Finished the radiator last night, used some thin wire for the fake clamps.



Just need to finish the exhaust and I think once fitted it’ll be on its wheels

Such fine detail Ash, excellent, but I doubt I could do the same.
I’m enjoying this thread.....and I’m sure it will help when I start my R1 Yamaha.

Cheers Ron,

Scratch building is all about the details and that’s what you do.

Your R1 is the first I built, and I’d do another but the standard version.
Hopefully Sam will get a bike box out of his cupboard soon.

I couldn’t help it, I did some painting.

Printed 4 sheet out and placed some masking tape over the specific decal, cut it out and removed the masking tape, worked ok on 1 side then wouldn’t come off without ripping the paper so I stuck it on, then ever so carefully masked upto the line, moved to masking tape/paper and painted.








Got a tiny bit of bleed underneath and some on the side, maybe able to cover the side bit we shall see and the underside can stay as is, I don’t have bikes upside down in my shelf so all good.

Cheers

I'm liking this thread too Ash. You are doing a great job.

Nice idea on the masking tape instead of decals on compound curves. Need to remember that one.

On the 'bleed'.... did you forget to clear coat before colour coat??

Thanks Al,

I considered the clear but as I’m going to be using zero paints diamond stuff I didn’t want the tamiya clear to kill the overall shine so I taped up and went for it. Had a feeling it would bleed at the bottom and the top part isn’t actually connected to anything to no idea what happened there. I’ll use clear on the next piece which is the entire front end.
I want to try and use those gold stripes on the decal sheet over the paint joints.

Bikes on its wheel. Chrome exhaust isn’t the best, paint rubs off. I can fix some of it but not all, forks have rubbed off too after all that messing around the other day

Purrrrdy....

It's really coming together.

Cheers dude.

Think I’m gonna try repainting the top half of forks again with the chrome, if I can do it without disassembling them, fantastic but if I can’t tape it properly then I won’t even try.
I saw something cool earlier for fluid bottles that I haven’t seen before and I’ve got 1 to do which goes on the frame somewhere so I’ll try it on that. Side by side colours are on the horizon, if I fail terribly and make a mess I’ll strip it back and start again but using the decals.

Redid the chrome but it’s so sensitive you could fart in another room and it will make ripples on the surface.




But this meant I could get it on its wheels.
Needed some sort of tubing to kelp the rigidity of the forks, they sway a little through screw hole, be ok when it’s put away I won’t notice.





Bit to do with the touch ups and theres a cable I forgot about so that maybe interesting to feed it through the frame.

I’ve been thinking on what you said Al about the clear. I’m using Tamiya paint so it won’t make a difference to the finish because I’m painting over it .anyway, only scary bit will be the end where blue goes to white, I can cover any mess up along the way with the other colours, starting tomorrow.


Gulp!

It's all looking terrific Ash BUT... the chain needs a wash methinks.

You cab buy washes in various colours from 'The Detailer' but all you really need is and empty and clean Tamiya paint jar, add a little matt black paint followed by some clean thinners in a ratio (I guess) of about 1:30??

Keep at it bud.

It's coming along fine. It's so hard to make them perfect. It seems no matter what I do some imperfection finds its way in. Especially when painting. No matter what I do to make it as dust free as possible some tiny speck of fiber in the air manages to find it's way onto the paint sometimes.

I’ll have another go, the smoke didn’t do so great,
It’s nerve racking potentially destroying your work because you haven’t a clue what you’re doing.

Cheers Mike, my excuse for dicky paintwork is where I spray it’s not the cleanest or the best. Full of spiders and ivy draping down from the naffed roof. I’ve come to accept that I’ll never get a perfect model and when it’s on display you can’t see them anyway

Yeah, I've had times where I had to strip the paint and spray it again. If it's minimal polishing it out will do.

I’d rather not strip paint because I’ve not had much luck with it. Bikes are easier, not much to sand back, cars are a pain

Today I had a little go with the red paint, came out fine no problems, no bleed beautiful.
But then I found a problem, I put the fairings on to match up the line and they don’t fit, lower part sticks out where the upper part screws onto the frame, scratched the red a lot but no problem can sort that out, this I don’t know how too

I've had trouble with the fairings properly fitting all together too on some of these bike kits. That's why I display some of them with the fairings off, plus it shows the bike detail anyway.

I was wondering if I could make something to push them back out.

I’ll have a think about it

You'll sort it out, I have faith.