Team Suzuki ECSTAR GSX-RR '20 – Tamiya 1/12
When George @chinesegeorge posted several of his beautiful bikes and Spiros @fiveten created a special bike group, I could simply not resist to enter with a kit myself. Although no experience at all with building motorcycles, I definitely wanted to give this Tamiya kit a try. It is the Suzuki ECSTAR GSX-RR from 2020 by which Joan Mir became world champion in the MotoGP. A wonderful kit I have to admit and all the imperfections observed are solely caused by me. Between each major step I applied a clear coat to protect the applied decals and painted parts. For example the decals on the tires are very sensitive. As an extra I drilled out all the openings in the rear brake disk. Biggest issue I had was that I accidently touched a part of the larger decal with masking tape and tore off a piece of it. Luckily in the end it is not visible anymore. Painting wise, the mica blue and silver rattlecans were the biggest challenge. Besides the smell also the huge pressure compared to an airbrush did give me a hard time to get it on nicely. The kit itself is a true gem, amazing engineering from Tamiya. For example the frame weldings are very realistic molded. It was a very enjoyable build, not straight forwarded though.
Thanks a lot to all who followed the building thread and helped me to get the most out of it.
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- 1. some repair required
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- 1. opened up all ventilation holes
A wonderful result, John! No imperfections visible from here! A wonderful build thread, too! Thanks for this wonderful entry and ditto result in our super Motorcycles GB!
@fiveten, thanks a lot, Spiros. So many beautiful bikes can be seen in that group. Still need some experience to get the same level, but in the end I'm pretty happy with this bike.
Well, well done, John! Looks like your inspiration transferred to the build. The paint job looks great.
@gwskat, thanks for the compliments, Gary. Not an easy paintjob but the Tamiya mica paints give very nice result.
Hope you're proud of this, John... I would be. Turned-out brilliantly.
Ian.
@ij001, thank you, Ian. Definitely proud to have this one on the shelf.
@johnb - That's so pretty John! You could never tell where the decal tore. The result is really fantastic. The color combo looks great. All the detail work really paid off.
@brithebuilder, thanks a lot, Brian. Luckily the repair turned out better than I expected.
I’m really happy to see this Suzuki here in headlines, @johnb, a fantastic finish, no-one would guess that it’s your first bike kit. Your WIP was very enjoyable to follow, is there another bike on the horizon?
@chinesegeorge, thank you very much, George. As a matter of fact, I received a nice gift of Spiros @fiveten of the 1/8 Kawasaki "Godier Genoud". This one will be my follow up motorcycle.
Hi @johnb, really looking forward to seeing the Kawasaki.
Well done John, the first of many !
@kalamazoo, thank you, Allan, Very likely.
Very nice result here, @johnb.
@tcinla, thanks a lot, Tom.
Awesome John!
@mvtb, thanks a lot, Marcus
Ready for the Races ! Nice, and keep up on 2 wheel kits between all the others ones !
@bernardbedeur, thank you, Bernard. I definitely will, have a gifted Kawasaki coming up.
Impressive work!
@lis, thanks a lot, Bernard
Superb John looks a classy bit of kit. You get a big thumbs up from the Mrs 👍 she is the motorcyclist in our house green quackers are her thing 😊
@thom, thank you, Guy. And my thanks to the Mrs as well.
Yeah, @thom, Kawasakis should be green.
Really nice result John. I’d never have guessed that this is your first motorcycle build. Congratulations!
@popeofchillitown, thank you, Ben. A lot of credits to Tamiya as well, the kit is beautifully engineered.
Absolutely gorgeous, John @johnb. Hard to believe this is your first motorcycle build. (Everyone's saying that, right?) Working with metal flake paints is really difficult but you sure pulled this off. An issue I have with metallic paints is the actual scale of the "metal flakes". They always see too big for the scales we work in. Decals look terrific (nice save) and so does the engine. Well done!
@eb801, thanks a lot, Eric. The flakes are indeed pretty big for a 1/12 scale, I agree on that. Still they do add a lot to the final finish.
A good result! It looks impressive.
Congratulations on your first bike!
What’s your next bike going to be?
@richardmcstay48gmail-com, thanks a lot, Richard. It was a pleasure to built something differently. I do have a bike in stash which was gifted to me by Spiros, a Heller Kawasaki 1000GG Godier Genoud , this seems however a bit more complex.