Thanks Andrew (@pb_legend) and George (@chinesegeorge), decided to go with simplicity and used a 1/8th" dowel painted white. Drilled a hole in the bottom oil pan and 'viola', the bike is solidly in place. I lined the black edging witht a Sharpie and Gloss coated it.
Here are the decals, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). So glad I used he Micro Film and the decals took forever to soak free and they had some minor cracks. The 'Suzuki' logos on the gas tank had to be touched up using XF-7 lightened up with XF-2. The reversed "KATANA' on the headlight cover just fell apart, I had no replacement so I just left it out and I don't think I can print a replacement.
Some minor items left like an overall gloss coat, then flat coat on the foot pegs and handle grips and attach the windscreen. Almost done.
I remembered that my cousin had a nickname as a young kid in Malta, they called him 'Trifle' for some reason. I decided to add a personnel touch and made an Ontario Bike License plate with his nickname on it - hope he gets a laugh out of it.
This will hit the Headlines soon in the next day or so.
Thanks for following the build gents, and thanks so much for the invitation Spiros. There are some excellent bikes being built in this group. Amazing work is getting done.
This was perfect timing as I found the kit just as the group was started. I probably never would have completed it if not for the group build.
I know that I did put it in the box way back when I had problems painting with enamel whites back 30 years ago, but he recent discovery of the Tamiya XF paints and using Tremclad as a primer made this a pretty easy build.
Just as I was thinking this would be my single and only bike build, I found another bike that I just had to buy seeing Spiro's completion - another Katana, the 750's big brother - the older GSX1100S.
I found this Tamiya kit in pile of other Tamiya Bike kits, they were all about $50 and for some reason this single kit was $19 CND! And it's SILVER - not white!
So maybe I'll build the 1100 for the GB and keep it for my own display case.
Cheers Gents!
5 attached images. Click to enlarge.