Three (3) Yamaha YZR-M1's at the same time

[JHDrew]

Sorry, I've been away from the hobby for a few years taking care of some personal stuff. Don't you hate when life gets in the way of the hobby?

Anyway, I decided to jump back in with a three bike display of Ben Spies' milestones for Yamaha. His first MotoGP race on one, his first podium and his first victory.

I also wanted to do some detail work but only what will be seen with the bodywork in place.

This build has been going on for a few months now so bare with me as I insert the updates. It will kind of look like I'm some kind of speed demon but a lot is complete.

So, to get started...

Here is a selection of aftermarket parts and two of the three kits to be used.

Each bike will have a different muffler with different heat traces

I also had to kitbash one set of wheels to get the 2011 bike correct.

I drew up the pattern in AutoCAD then transfered the image to ABS plastic with thinner on the copy paper.

After that it was all cutting, grinding, gluing and putty work.

More pictures tomorrow. Lunch break here is over.

[polandmob]

man your brave! lol love the tamiya gp kits. i will following this

[Dr. Cranky]

Welcome back, and man you've hit the ground running. Those pipes look great. The work on the rims is amazing. Keep it going.

[Mooneyzs]

This is going to be an awesome 3 bike build. i. very impressed on the heat traces you have done on the mufflers. i can tell that these will be clean and very nice builds.

[sportandmiah]

LIKE!

[JHDrew]

The body parts for the 2011 factory bike were so different from the 2009 and 2010 that I had to order a resing upgrade kit for it form K's Workshop in Japan.

His kit also had wheel and exhaust updates as well as the complete set of decals for the 2011.

Here are all the body pieces ready to go to the paint booth.

And here are the wheels, frames and swing arms that nees some semi-gloss black

After the wheels were painted and inserted in the tires I needed to replicate the soft compund

rubber identificaion white stripe for five out of the six tires. A new no. 11 blade was mounted in

a compas and used to score the stripes out of white decal film. I cut the stripes into three pieces

for ease of the applicaiton to the tire.

Thanks for looking in.

More to come...

[Heartattaq]

I love the effect on the mufflers. How was that achieved? Beautiful precision work all around.

[JHDrew]

I just realized I forgot to include pictures of the three real bikes.

Here's the 2009 first MotoGP ride on a Yamaha:

2010, Ben's first MotoGP podium finish:

and 2011 his first MotoGP victory:

[JHDrew]

So, moving right along on the build:

Here are the three handlebars.

I relocated the fluid reservoirs a little higher up and added the cloth wrist bands by using epoxy putty and stippling with a small wire brush before it dried.

The 2011 factory bike had embroidered logos on the wrist bands so I made those decals.

The throttle cable detail pieces were from Top Studio and the rest was just detailed with wire and paint.

More to come this weekend. Lunch is over.

Edited March 2, 2012 by JHDrew

[Chris M]

You are my new hero! I'm not really a bike guy, but can't deny the performance, especially of the factory backed race bikes. Someday I hope to take on a full tilt moto GP build with all the nifty photo etched parts and what not. These look to be very in depth builds based on the goodies in the first post. Anticipating some killer builds.

Subscribed.

[JHDrew]

I love the effect on the mufflers. How was that achieved? Beautiful precision work all around.

Derick,

Thanks!

I use a fine detail Iwata, 2 stage, airbrush.

There is a basecoat of Alclad II Highly Polished Aluminum and then I added various shades of Spaz Stix clear colors in vary light feather applications. Some areas were masked to get the hard line shade as well. I also added Studio 27 chrome stripe decals on some of the seams and then shot transparent colors over them.

Let me know if you need anymore info on this.

[Hippie]

looks great, glad to see some more bikes here,

i noticed that you don't have the tamiya fork sets to use,

probly dosn't mater juging by the exust you can paint them up fine

anyway looks great.

[JHDrew]

looks great, glad to see some more bikes here,

i noticed that you don't have the tamiya fork sets to use,

probly dosn't mater juging by the exust you can paint them up fine

anyway looks great.

Erik,

Actually I bought three (3) fork sets after the picture was taken as well as two of the Top Studio 400+ piece chain sets. More on that later.

[Hippie]

cool man the fork sets add a lot, also the chains are unblevable when finshed, i did one once, took me a hole day working on it but defentaly worth the work, was pretty fragail though....

seince you got the chain sets i was wonderin if you bought any of the electronic detail up sets?

[Scale-Master]

Great stuff, as I expected when I saw it was you... Good to see you are back to building.

[JHDrew]

Originally I was not going to go overboard on the chain detail with a Top Studio detail kit with all the individual parts but after I saw one built up I decided to go for it. Well... perhaps just for two of the bikes. I also found that Hobby Design made a detail kit but the inner chain links are photo etched as one piece. I purchased the two Top Studio kits and one Hobby Design kit and after spending a total of 18 hours on them I had created three complete chains. The pictures below are just of the Top Studio version which is just awsome after finishing. There was an article in a recent Model Cars issue that the author stated the chain kits were probably too tedious to deal with so he wasn't going to do it. Well I beg to differ as the visual results versus the time spent are well worth the effort after they are installed. Even if you just opt to do the simpler Hobby Design type it is still worlds better.

Anyway, hope you like these shots of the Top Studio Version

Each section is about 3/4" long. The first section took about three hours but the last I had down to about 45 min. Still worth it.

If you are going to do this for the 2009 YZR-M1 kit, it takes 5 full sections and a short section with 9 roller pegs in it. This knowledge is not in the instructions will save you about an hour of calculations.

Top Studio also has a photo tutorial on their site. The only difference is that with their newer kits there is no cutting of the pieces from the plates. Much nicer now. Just go to Tips/Chain Making on their site.

http://www.topstudiohobby.com/

[weasel]

wow.....

hope i can comeback like this!!! lol

[JHDrew]

Well here are all three frames ready to go for bodywork addition. The only thing missing is the rear brake line and some sensor signal lines on each frame.

This is the 2009 bike:

This the 2010 bike:

This is the 2011 bike:

Edited March 9, 2012 by JHDrew

[Romell R]

im impressed to say the least

[JHDrew]

I ran into a bit of an issue this weekend.

The Studio 27 decals for the 09' bike are mostly OK. Studio 27 is notorious for not getting things accurate but sometimes they really screw up.

I was about to just dunk the No. 11 decal for the front cowling into the warm water when I realized something was just not right. After measuring it for placement it turns out that is should be 80% smaller.

So I took the measurements and figured out how much it needed to be reduced in each direction. Then I used a new blade and scored the decal so that after a trip to the water I could slide the excess pieces away and put the remaining pieces on the model. It came out to be eight pieces of decal per number but I managed to get the puzzle assembled on the cowling after a bit of muttering, fidgeting and Micro-Sol. A little paint touch-up and they look nice. When I get a coat of gloss on later and polished out it should be perfect.

Notice the size difference and you may also be able to see some of the scoring I did on the decal sheet.

So if you do this bike with the Studio 27 decals you have been warned.

Edited March 19, 2012 by JHDrew

[JHDrew]

Finished the decal job on the 09' bike last night. This should be the hardest of the three to do. Studio 27 decals take a lot of work to get them to lay down.

I will probably do the final assembly on all three at once as there a quite a few metal fasteners to add to the body parts.

Well, on to the 2010 machine decals.

I know it's not a car but thanks for looking in anyway.

[krazyglu]

Wow three builds at once is pretty insane. I cant believe you cut up that decal and made it work.

[Prostreet]

Great work, Can't wait to see them all lined up together.

[Austin T]

I'm not much of a zoom splat (Pocket rocket) guy,but man those are incredible to say the least.Keep up the good work.

[JHDrew]

OK, things are moving right along.

Just finished the decal placements for the 2010 bike. These seemed to go on a lot easier than the 2009. Still need to gloss coat and polish them but the hard part is over.

I also shot the paint for the 2011 bike last night so I should be able to do those decals this coming weekend.

Stay tuned and thanks for looking or following.