First, a big thanks to our friends who created this group!

I have a few Tamiya motorcycles in the stash, and a Honda Monkey posted on here not too long ago. These kits offer excellent reprieve from small scales, and a more joyful sense of mechanical wonderment. With seven aircraft now in-process and waiting for paint, I thought now would be a great time to work on something else for a bit.

Despite some new kits awaiting in the stash, I thought it would be best to finish up some kits that I had either "completed" or quit at in my previous modeling life (~12-15 years ago). Interesting enough, three out of four happen to be Suzuki's!

There is no coincidence here, as I learned to ride on Suzukis; a DR80, a GSX-R 750, and my last ride, a homely GS650E with 1100mi on the odometer.

While I prefer Honda's these days (my brother had a nice '81 CB750 Custom that I unappreciated at the time), I've all together given up riding these days, given the lack of defenses that a motorcycle offers against distracted drivers and wild critters.. But anyway, I can still enjoy building them in scale, and reminiscing...

The first kit I came back to was the Suzuki GSX1100S Katana. It was both the most complete and/or required the least amount of back-tracking. This kit is a bit of a custom build, and one which I will post as a feature article sometime soon. For now, here is the empty box!

The next kit is the first motorcycle kit that I completed, that is the Suzuki GSX1300R Hayabusa. This kit was fun to build, and I always felt like it looked great... however, after sitting sideways in a tote and getting jostled around did it no good. After recently discarding many of my childhood builds that suffered the same fate, I decided to try to salvage this one... she will be rebuilt... I hope!

Lastly, I have a special sort of bike. This too a Hayabusa, but modified by Yoshimura.

I started this kit many moons ago, and even primed and painted some of the fairings. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately now), some paint issues caused this kit to be boxed up, only now to once again see the light of day...

This last kit will require the least amount of work overall, but some stepping back will need to be done with the paint.

Fortunately, rough estimation assures me that all parts are accounted for, so this can be done... Stay tuned!

PS: this will be a slow process.. 😉

These are such wonderful entries, my friend @pb_legend!
Love your bike history! Thanks for sharing with us!
Looking forward to see your entries tackled / refurbished by your supreme skills!

Thanks @chinesegeorge ! The Yoshimira has many of the major assemblies complete, but there will still need to be some disassembly to either clean up sprue burrs or seams, and ultimately repaint everything that needs painted.

Speaking of disassembly, the Hayabusa has been disassembled into manageable bits, for cleanup and repainting. Fortunately time enbrittles old Testors tube glue, so most pieces popped off with a but of careful prying. The kit came with numerous different Hayabusa symbols for the fairings, so I will need to see what is still on the decal sheet and decide if they fit with some solid colors that I may want to do, since the painting makes are no more.

On a separate note, I took some time to clear the workbench of aircraft so that I can take pics of the Katana...

More to come @fiveten, @johnb, thanks!

Indeed, a manageable disassembly, my friend @pb-legend!
Looking forward to see the KATANA pics!

The Katana is posted!

Suzuki GSX1100S Katana - Tamiya 1/12

Well done, my friend @pb_legend! What a wonderful finish! Thank you so much for contributing to our ever growing Group!

Also, surprise, surprise... I'm thinking that I'll make this one red. It just goes well with the black and silver. Any thoughts otherwise?

I'm leaning toward doing something like this:

Hi Andrew @pb_legend, some nice detailing there, those hose clips look great but are just too fiddley for me. I vote for red as well.