Honda NSR500 (1984)

[Eagle50]

Wow! With your skills and the added Top Studio parts, this is fast becoming a museum piece. Most parts shown are indistinguishable from 1:1 scale..!

Cheers, Chris

[billgtp]

Attention to detail is great. Nice work

[imster]

Thank you very much all for the kind comments

Moving along and gaining pace! I need to get this build done soon, and still so much to do!!!

I completed the front brake calipers, I added the brake bleeders, brake line cable links, bolts and the line that runs between the two sides of the calipers (with blue anodised bolts)

I forgot to dust off the parts before the pics so apologies for all the dust!

[SteveNoble]

Beautiful bit of work you're doing here, really top drawer stuff

[imster]

Thank you very much Steve
Not long left to do before I can call this build finished!

So I have 99% completed the front end!

The brake calipers were completed and the brake cables were made from braided metal wire wrapped with spiral tubing, this combination is great but it makes the whole thing very stiff and not great for curves etc, so I heated it slightly and bent it to keep the shape. As a result of this stiffness I changed the connector on the caliper to a 45 degree one rather than 90 degree to make the stress on the parts easier.

The electronic box that sits underneath the speedo was pretty heavily modified and very fiddly to work with! in hindsight I should have cut off the front frame section from where the steering tube is so it would have allowed me to work on the speedo and electronics box much easier. Nevertheless I managed to complete it and I am quite happy with how it came out. As for reference pics, I couldnt find very much showing the wiring routing so some logical thinking was used to try to figure out the wiring paths.

The speedo was completed with use of reference pics, the back end was modified a fair bit to what the reference pics showed, on the front end I used epoxy to mimic glass on top of the dials, it came out well but possibly next time I will use more epoxy to give it more of a deeper glass look.

The grips and handle section were heavily modified. On the right hand side the way Tamiya have routed all the wiring is wrong in some parts and simplistic in other parts. I first cut off the throttle cable housing and turned it 90 degrees so that one side is on top of the brake lever and the other side is below the brake lever as shown in my reference pics. I then got rid of the Tamiya brake fluid resevoir connector and made the correct part out of 0.8mm solder wire. On the left hand side I got rid of the kit clutch adjuster and replaced it with turned metal parts, I also added the adjuster lock and changed the push button next to the grip, to a metal turned button. I gave a little varnish to the brake levers on both sides to add some shine as the reference shows that the brake levers are shinier than the rest of the handle controls. I also added lots of PE and bolts to add to the realism.

To finish off the front end I will be painting the middle sections of the blue bolts on the front forks a bright silver rather than the black that they are in the pics.

Really sorry about the dusty pics once again, sometimes I get carried away and only realise once the pics are on the computer that they are full of dust!








Next up will be to attach the gas tank and then just the finishing touches!

Thanks for watching!

[pgarat]

Hi,

Wonderful build!

Pascal

[harveyb258]

Stunning work as always Imster!! I'm loving all the detail!

Cheers, H

[jaws]

I even like the jig to hold the bike. Very cool setup for sure and something that is almost a must when working on these bikes.
Very nice progress! Love the bike for sure.

[imster]

Thanks very much guys!



Well its finally finished!! It took a lot longer than expected because of a little holiday halfway through when a few of my family came to enjoy the great Australian summer

I still need to finalise how I will display the cowlings, currently erring towards having it hanging above the bike like at the Honda Museum, once I do that I will update this with some more pics.

I hope you all enjoyed this WIP, probably didnt go through a lot of the detail work and how I did some of the components, mainly due to limited time on the bench. I am very pleased with the outcome and I can really recommend this kit to modellers who enjoy a little challenge.

Here is the link to the final pics:
http://www.f1m.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=26464

Some things to keep in mind when building this kit:
- Do not use the blue decals for the cowlings, they are difficult to work with and you will not achieve a good finish on it like if it were painted, the correct colour which is pretty much an exact match to the decals is Tamiya TS-15.
- I found on my kit that the exhaust ends where they join with the cans were a little short, luckily I mocked it all up and was able to fix that problem.
- I found also on my kit that there was a large gap on the right hand side of the bike on the lower section of the radiator where it connects to the pipe, if you look closely on my photos you will see I wedged a some black painted styrene to fill the gap as I didnt mock this part up and it was too late to fix it properly at that point
- If you want to ensure that the main parts of the bike are true to the real bike then you need to adjust the throttle cables section on the right hand side grip, they need to be turned 90 degrees to mimick the 1:1 version
- Do not use the Top Studio Shift Linkage for the Honda NSR500 (TD23037) it is incorrect for this NSR500 version and is probably designed for the later versions.
- The Top Studio NSR500 Clutch Set (TD23147) is also incorrect but if you look at my build you can see that it can be modified to work .
- The Top Studio Steering Damper (TD23148) is incorrect as well but once again if you look at my build you will see I used some parts on my build.

I think that covers it all, I guess all thats left is for me to thank all of you for your comments, suggestions, and support!

[jaydar]

I have commented before on this build but have to say again it is a great build.

Can you post a picture of just the jig your friend made? perhaps take from the top to show the layout?

thanks,

Joe.