Menu      

HOME
Site Map
Awards page


Model main
Show Photo's menu

BUILD GUIDES
Sturm IV
King Tiger
Harley Davidson
Tiger I
Peterbilt truck
Corvair trike
Dragonfire trike
Starfury
'57 Chevy
Cormorant oil rig


Venator Star destroyer

Building a 1/6 Harley Davidson

Part1 :- Frame & engine build

Introduction

I knew the bike was going to be big by the size of the box & I was not wrong when I looked inside.  All the parts were well packaged & in bags & the metal parts & screws were well protected. The instruction book is well detailed with diagrams & part numbers & it is a good job as there are no english translations for the notes, but I managed to work out what they were saying.

After my intitial pleasure I began to notice that all was not well. with closer look at the sprues I could see some very serious problems to come.

Some of the "chroming" had not worked on one of the sprues & faded to its natural black plastic colour, some of the other chrome parts were scratched & some other coated parts had either a lot of "flash" or very obvious mould lines. I had a long think about what to do & my wife could see, on my face, the problem I would have trying to use chrome parts as they were, it was her idea to do a "Custom" paint job on the bike (thanks dear you always help me see the bright side).  This would allow me to remove all the seam lines & scratches & give a personal touch. A quick walk to a local autoshop (Halfords) & with my Sarah's help we chose a metallic red for the main parts (fuel tank,"fenders"& fairing),  & a dark copper & a pale gold scheme for the old chromed parts married to a black frame.

FRAME ASSEMBLY:- Parts 1,2 & 3

There were shaded parts on this section that the instructions said were needed to be removed. FOLLOW the picture below as some of the areas marked to be removed will be needed to fix the rear foot rests. The only problem I had had was with part No. N8.  This had a nasty seam line & the matt coating was stratched so out came the sanding sticks & I decided to paint it the same colour as the frame.

The chain in section 3 was painted in Tamiya metallic grey & given a black ink wash to bring out the link detail. I then sprayed the frame in gloss black & the completed suspension arm in satin black. I did not fit parts F7 & F8 as these were to be painted in the custom colours later.  To continue with the paint scheme I highlighted the part No. L28 in gold.

ENGINE ASSEMBLY:- Parts 4 to 7

As the engine covers (Part No. L4 & L16) were going to be re-painted I built these up & put them aside & did not fit them to the part E23 & E18.  I built the cyclinder cases & then attached E23 & E18 to these. None of the bolt detail or spark plugs were added to the cases as this will go on after the parts have been sprayed. The crank case minus the cover & oil pump was assembled & I sanded the seam lines ready for spraying.  The crank case was done in Tamiya metallic grey, the cyclinder head in Tamiya Crome silver & the rocker covers & case cover in the "Halfords" Sovereign Gold (As mentioned in the introduction).

The push rods were also sparyed in the gold & the engine assembled.  All of the bolt details were painted in  to help follow the theme & some of the other bolt heads were highlighted in purple.

COMING NEXT:-

Part 2 will be continuing the bike construction.Click here for next page