Scale-Master

The interior is done. There was no shifter in the kit; sometimes there is, other times there isn't. I added the two roll bar supports too. They are shown on the instructions but are not included. I guess it's still "out of the box"… The gauge decals are a nice inclusion.

One of the tire decals fell apart and since I didn't have an extra I had to make four new ones myself. The rims are a combination of metal outers with resin centers and PE rings.

The other single color decals are just as brittle so I had to paint them in too.

I probably should have started with a smaller decal… The first one cracked into many pieces and fell apart when I tried to apply it. I mixed a bright red with Tamiya acrylics and hand painted that one in. I clear coated the rest of the decals, but they are still very fragile. The black is two decals but needs a good amount of touching up still. I figured I'd start painting the window trim too...

After the first base coat of yellow I pre-shaded the panel lines with black. The second and final coat of TS-47 Chrome Yellow.

1/43rd scale resin kit by Starter.I typically bring something to tinker on or clean up while I'm relaxing at the GSL. This is what I picked for the last one, but I didn't get much done on it; maybe an hour of pre-paint prep in the hotel room.The body casting was pretty clean with only a few medium pinholes to fill, but the window trim was a little on the soft side. A couple light coats of white primer and it looks OK.First coat of the body color, and the instructions…

All done. It was actually finished about a week ago, but poor weather prevented me from getting decent photos. It does stand on its own on both the center stand and kickstand, but it's been so windy it was unsafe to not use the clear stand. Built straight out of the box but I added decal details for the controls on the handlebars. WIP Thread: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/179920-honda-crf1000l-africa-twin/

The seat…

I wasn't going to cut and buff the clear after looking at the photos of the real thing, but then I decided it would look better if I did. After polishing I added the warning decal.

Thanks Wolf! I agree, they should have been included, especially for how prominent that part of the bike is visually. Handlebars ready for installation.

Fork assembly… ready for installation.

I also applied the kit decals to a handful of other small parts and then decided (thanks to Wolf for drawing my attention to this omission in the kit) to make the decals for the switches and controls on the handlebars. I made over a dozen decals for these two parts.

This is the main assembly so far. It's gaining mass at this point.

I figured I should apply all the decals to the fairings so I could shoot clear on them together.

The exhaust system is ready to be installed. Since the rest of the build is closer to showroom stock I decided not to heat stain the pipes.

The kit provided masks for the tank work well. They aren't die cut; they have to be hand cut by the builder. I airbrushed the LP equivalent of the TS Pearl Blue called out in the instructions. The tank decals fit fine, but be prepared to spend a good 30 minutes applying each one of these two.

I applied the decals to the front fender.

Yes, I built a Jägermeister 934 and mixed a translucent paint to hide the seams on the tank and also used it on all the fiberglass parts for continuity. Sorry, I don't have photos of it handy.

The forks are mostly metal and functional; they have springs in them too.

I thought I should get some of the six "body" panels painted so they could be drying while I build other parts. (I'm going to need the front fender soon.) TS-45 Pearl White over TS-26 Pure White. I shot a coat of TS-13 Clear too. Can't hurt before the decals…

There's a good amount of time invested in the radiators and fans, but I suspect they won't be seen when the model is done.

It builds up pretty quickly, if you do a lot of paint work ahead of time…

I wear reading glasses when I build, no matter the scale. And Thank You Everyone for the compliments!!

Swing arm.

A little fiddley to put together in the end, but it wasn't as difficult as I expected. It's done.