I may need to resecure those pieces of vinyl tubing inside the frame. I didn't use tweezers, and now they feel a little bit loose. I have a slight thumbprint to buff out of the chrome as well.
I always appreciate a decal placed somewhere that will likely never show on the final kit. Just knowing it is there is like having a secret kept from the rest of the world.
I sure hope I have those angles right, or connecting the tubing is going to be really difficult. Who am I kididng, it's going to be difficult without pulling them off anyways.
I thought I was going to drive myself mad trying to get all those tubes attached. Had to use a white backdrop to get my aging eyes to see properly to do so.
The stand was a quick two-part assembly that needed a little sanding to reduce the seam. I went with XF85 Rubber Black for the wheels instead of XF1 Flat Black.
It's starting to look like a bike. An upside-down bike, but a bike nonetheless. In retrospect, I should have used the stand I just built to support it for this photo.
A look at the before and after. As much as I hate to admit it, Peter was right. It is worth the work to drill them out. 38 minutes per disc well spent. Don't mind the paint slop, the outer ring hasn't been painted yet.
Managed to improve the seam line on the seat cowling. Completely made a mess of it the first time and had to re-sand it all back down. It's at a point I can live with now without risking further messes.
I knew from the start that Tamiya made a bad design decision to expect the surface of the front fender to be covered with a pair of half-side decals. They were really stiff and not well-cut, so they fit poorly with a horrible seam.
Scrape them all off and break out the brush, I say. It still needs some touch-up and the colour isn't a perfect match, but it's way better than I was ever going to get with those decals.
Decals settled nicely into the gauges on the instrument panel. It set up slightly askew, but won't be as noticeable once the cowling goes on around it.
I was debating between painting the cowl white or keeping it clear. I opted for clear so that fewer details would end up hidden. Again Testors comes to the rescue, with far less clouding than I experience with Tamiya cement on my Mercedes.
In hindsight, those mirrors might have been a good item to try my first attempt at bare metal foil. As is, the chrome silver does a decent enough job. Here you can also see some of the seemingly unavoidable wrinkles in the decals.