As a big Rossi fan, I really felt the need to do this model. At the time I purchased a number of different versions of the bike so I could have a nice collection of five cylinder Honda RCV211s. I decided to use a bit of after market photo etch to improve things a little. As is typical with modern Tamiya motorcycle kits, every part is perfectly molded, and not a bit of flash to be seen. It also comes with a nice bag of screws, vinyl tube and a spring for the rear shock.

The first thing I did was remove the foot peg/controls mounts and the chain adjusters. The kit chain adjusters are particularly blocky and don’t look right at all, particularly if you are a biker! I then made up the Photo etch parts from the Studio 27 kit that I got from Grandprix models.

As the frame and swing arm were butchered for the photo etch parts, I had to repaint them. The kit chrome is really nice, and I was a little worried about replicating it. I used Alclad Chrome to do it, and it turned out excellent. When using it, it is important to have a very shiny and smooth base, so it is sanded and primed. Then it is spayed with gloss black. When this is dry I put on 2 extremely thin coats of the chrome paint with low pressure on the airbrush.

I then moved on to the engine. Referring to a whole lot of photos of the real bike I decided on colours to use. I assembled the main parts of the engine, and painted it using Alclad Aluminium mixed with a few drops of Humbrol Black. The sump and rocker covers were done with Alclad Pale Burnt Metal. These colours looked spot on.

I then painted up all the rest of the engine parts. Most of the metal parts were done with Alclad paints, and the blacks were Tamiya acrylics. The clutch bell is a turned metal part from the “detail up” set by Tamiya.

I then went over a lot of the engine with a very thin mix of matt black in the airbrush. I did this as on the real thing you can see a lot of this tarnishing on the larger metal parts of the engine.

I then moved on to do a few of the Carbon fiber parts. Rather than using decals to do this, I first painted them Semi gloss black, then using the type of fine mesh used for grills etc, held tight over the part, I airbrushed Tamiya Titanium Gold over the whole part. It is then coated with gloss lacquer to make it shiny.

Next I moved on to all of the coloured Fairing parts, as I would need some of them soon. I assembled them all and filled any joints and sanded them. I then primed them with white primer. I decided that I would paint all of the insides of the parts, as they should be carbon fiber. I used the same method as above.

I masked all of these surfaces off before going any further.

After this there was a little over spray on the outside of the fairings, so I sanded them lightly with Micromesh and gave them a light coat of primer and a final light sand with Micromesh. Each part was wiped well with a tack cloth to ensure there was no dust. Two colours are used on the Fairings, I used Tamiya Dark Mica Blue and Tamiya Brilliant Orange is used, decanted from the aerosol and applied with an airbrush.

There were two parts where a decal is supplied, however I decided to mask the part and paint it. For example in Fig8, the blue is supplied as a decal.

I then left all of these parts aside so that the paint would be nice and hard when I came to apply decals.

I next sprayed the wheels with Tamiya Bright Orange so they would be hard by the time I needed them. I used the Studio 27 parts to make up the rear brake disk, as it is far more refined looking than the original part. It’s painted with Alclad Chrome and Gloss black.

I then moved on to the front disks, which are carbon on the real thing. The disk itself was done with Humbrol gloss black and a few drops of Alclad Aluminium. The frame for the disk had an extra couple of drops of the aluminium as it was a slightly different shade. The calipers were done using Alclad Pale burnt metal.

In order to get the red “brembo” logo painted, I used a very thin mix of acrylic paint thinned with tamiya thinner. This meant that it wouldn’t damage the Alclad paint in any way. I allowed the paint to flow into the recesses, and wiped away any excesses. I did this a second time when the first coat was dry.

I didn’t need to paint the black parts of the forks, as these were from the detail up kit and are turned metal already painted. However the bottom parts were again painted with the usual mix of Aluminium and black. The suspension pistons came finished too and didn’t need to be painted.

I sanded the tyres using a mini drill to remove the mold line and make them look scrubbed, and applied the tyre decal. I then assembled all parts and put them aside.

I then assembled all of the swing arm parts, put the engine into the frame. One thing I did here was omit the screw that holds the rear wheel in place as this covers all of the extra details in this area, and obviously isn’t used on the real thing! I used a small bit if plastic rod to hold the wheel in place.

I next move on to the pipes. One each of the silencers I had a photoetch part to wrap around them. It ment also removing the part that attaches them to the frame, as there was a photoetch replacement that looks much much better than doing it the kit way. After all of the parts were assembled and filled they were then primed. They are made from stainless steel which discolours with heat, so I wanted a good shiny metal finish before I went on to do the colourings. I painted the parts with gloss black and then Alclad Chrome.

I then coated them with Kleer floor polish to protect the Alclad paint, as it is quite delicate.

The pipes discolour depending on how the hot gasses move through them. For example the bends and welds get hotter than the straight parts. So constantly referring to as many pictures of the pipes as I could, I airbrushed Tamiya Clear Blue onto the bends on the pipes, then Clear Orange onto the straighter parts. Next I used Tamiya Smoke (clear black) to darken some of the orange and blue.

There are many variations of this discolouring, and from the pics I had I liked this best. I even polished the pipes on my own real bike to see just how they would discolour from new!

I then completed the Instrument panel. I used the kit part, and sanded all the detail off it, this was then covered with a photo etch part and sprayed the whole thing gloss black. The rear of the panel was given the carbon fiber treatment. In order to do the screen I first painted the recess Tamiya Chrome, and then built up Tamiya Clear Green over a couple of nights to give the impression of some depth. Then using the kit decal, I cut out the dial for the rev counter and applied it. I then built up some clear lacquer over the dial.

I then spent a bit of time making up some of the little parts, like steering head, handle bars, chain and pipes for the engine. On the rubber hoses I made some jubilee clips from metal tape cut into fine strips and stuck onto the pipes. This is a little detail that really looks good in my opinion.

The steering head was done with Tamiya Bronze and had a little very thin matt black sprayed over the center, as this is what the real thing looked like.

This is when a lot of the parts get assembled and the bike really takes shape. I put on the forks, the petrol tank and the cables for brakes etc. I also added a bit of wiring behind the instrument panel complete with connector blocks. I used light copper wire and some plastic cut into blocks for this. I painted the wires black and the blocks orange, green etc.

There is a also a clear pipe which connects into a copper one coming out from the top of the tank. Im not sure exactly what this is, but know its on the real thing, and not on the kit, so I made it up anyway!
The Radiator was also painted with Alclad Chrome and added a metal grill that came with the Studio 27 kit.

This is also the point where you hit any little things you missed, like the small blue electronics box on the side of the frame. Or any bolts that havent been painted!

I then went back to the fairings and applied all decals. I did this over two or three evenings. I applied each decal, smoothed it out with a damp cotton bud or tissue and then covered the decal with Microsol. The Microsol softens the decal and lets it adhere to every nook and cranny.

I don’t like to leave the decals bear, as they look matt, and the real thing should be shiny. I left all the decals to dry over two nights and then applied a few coats of Halfords lacquer.

I then put photoetch panel clips anywhere they should be, these came with the Studio 27 kit. All fairings were then put in place. Some were to be screwed on in place, which though it doesn’t look the best, it means the fairing is removable at a later date, which is good because you can’t see most of the detail once the fairings are on!

By Lee McGuire

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