@gblair no i think it makes me OCD 😉

Great progress, despite the challenges, my friend @gblair! Great save on the fly-away part 🙂

You’re bound to find that part now, George @gblair, good save though. We have a hard floor where my work area is, so no carpet monster, but it’s amazing how far small parts travel if they are dropped.

Parts cleanup continues. I assembled the three saddlebags and sanded down the seams left from the assembly. I discovered each bag had two sinkholes in the front of the bag (I don't suppose they could have been in the back?) that would need to be filled and sanded. With this complete, I assembled the parts of the frame for the sidecar. There will be a seam on both the inside and the outside of the frame that will need to be removed, but that is a struggle for another day. Cheers everyone, and keep on biking.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Nicely progressing, George @gblair
Those sink holes are not that easy to correct them smoothly, but you succeeded well.

I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got in a couple of hours of modeling before the sun came up. I spent a lot of the time cleaning up parts again. The frame under the sidecar consists of round sections which were glued down the middle, leaving a ledge on each side. Some filler, along with careful sanding to keep the shape somewhat rounded finally got the frame ready. I cleaned up and added various parts to the frame. It took a while to cleanup the parts to finish the assembly of the saddlebags. Many of the parts were small and needed lots of cleanup. The clasps that close the saddlebag were a real challenge. Each of the buckles had an ejector pin mark in the middle of the buckle. How they managed to get a solid ejector pin mark in the part of the buckle that is supposed to be open is beyond my understanding. It took a lot of careful work with a new #11 to get them cleaned up. The frame for the saddlebag was also a challenge. It was difficult at times to tell what was the part and what was the sprue, but I think I got it. I started painting some of the metallic parts using Humbrol Steel from a spray can.

I planned to complete this model as a motorcycle used in North Africa, so I needed to find the correct sand color. I was dreading having to mix the shade using two or three different Tamiya colors to arrive at the correct DAK color. Well, guess what? I found out today that Tamiya has released some new colors, a DAK Sand (prior to 1941) and a DAK Sand (after 1941). I checked online and the DAK color gurus say that the colors are right on. Next miracle: I went to my online source for Tamiya paints and they had them in stock. They are on their way as we speak. Yeah.

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten). Despite the cleanup issues, it has been a fun kit, so far. I have grandpa duty tonight, so no more building today. :o)

Thanks, George (@chinesegeorge). I wasn't looking forward to using formulas for Tamiya paint that were made up of three different colors. In a build like this it is inevitable that I will need to retouch some paint, or paint some part later and hope it matches. That never turns out good. "PawPaw" time with our two year old granddaughter was fun. I think she burns more calories in an hour than I burn all day. Cheers.