Chopper 300

[joelwideqvist]

Here's some pictures of the rear pulley as described above. As you can see it needs a bit of attention before painting. The kit sprocket that I used was drilled out and that has to be sanded. There is also a minor gap between the sprocket part and the outer ring that has to be filled. When that is done I'll add an inner rimb.





I don't know if I've shown the reworked rear fender? I cut the bigg ass mother F to get a really narrow, arrowstyle, fender. It is not cut in perfect shape and I also found that the resin was thicker in the rearmost section. I corrected that with my Dreml and will continue to work on this piece. Sorry for the out of focus image...





Here is the state of the transmission. The front pulley for the secondary drive will be situated on the nearmost short end. I think it will look good with a housing for it but really don't know how to scratch it as it has to be possible to add after the pulley is installed. I'm thinking of putting parts of styrene sheet on top of the now existing piece and then glue them together in some way. I then have to drill holes in every sheet and down in the transmission block where I can install rivets to hold the housing in place.



Give me your thoughts

[joelwideqvist]

Instead of doing some serious work on the Marlboro bikes I took this little sucker out for a little bare knuckle fighting.

What has stalled me recently has been the thought of scratch building a housing for the secondary drive. I'm pretty lousy when it comes to scratchbuilding if it has to include cutting plastic. I can't cut straight. I guess I just don't have the right tools nor the talent. My idea though is pretty basic.

I cut small stripes of plasticard and temporarily fitted them around the transmission using krystal klear.



I added some putty to hold them together and used some glue from the inside. I then glued the original transmission end on top of the plasticard strips.



My idea is to gently remove the strips from the transmission and make some reinforcements on the inside. Then I'll have to try and get some shape to that fragile construction.

Now that I have shown what my intentions are I very much welcome alternate approaches to achieve the same thing. Fire away.

/Joel

[joelwideqvist]

This kit is pretty fun!
We're still to see where it ends but all these little alterations is really inspiring. Just as it is intended.

As the transmission housing is drying I puttied up some more stuff. The kit primary drive is but ugly and will be replaced by resin parts from Minitunning.com



The belt looks a bit short so perhaps I'll replace that with some other material. In the original kit they use a primary cover to cover up the non detail pulleys.



I'm not going to include that part as I want the Minitunning pulleys to be visible. I'm thinking of putting a guard on top of the puelleys instead. Original primary base looks like this, with a rounded edge in the front.



I put some putty on to even that curve out. I will cut a plate out from Plasticard and glue it to the plate.



The swing ends, where the wheel axle will go got some putty as well. I'm not yet sure about how to fix the axle but it will come to me.



What else. I've drilled holes in the tank underside to fit the pins in the frame. This is a pic of a test fit with tank, seat and engine. Engine is a bit high due to some masking tape undernieth but you get the idea. Snug fit between engine and frame.



/J

[Twowheelsrule]

Recently, I have found doing custom bikes is a bit more relaxing than trying to make a replica of an original bike. I like all the effort you are going through to make this Revell kit more interesting!

Mark

[joelwideqvist]

Thanks Mark. I totally agree. I'm much more relaxed working on this bike than on my GP builds. Same when I did my custom R1 build. Artistic freedom is the sh*t obviously.
/Joel

[joelwideqvist]

I continue to work on every piece of the bike at the same time. Most parts need some conciderations regarding how they will go together with other pieces so I do a little here and a little there.

As you maybe remember I cut off most of the resin rear fender. I want a tougher look, a bit more aggressive. As I didn't want to brake the fragile resin I cut it pretty straight instead of working on the final shape. To make it fit better in the swing I've now glued a bit of styrene sheet on. I will level it out with putty and start working on the shape.



Over the primary drive I want some cover. Not necessary but it will go with the overall look of the bike. I drilled some vent holes in a piece of styrene and glued it in place. Unfortunately I used a type of glue that reacted with the putty applied earlier and the shape didn't come out totally straight, but I'll live with it.





/Joel

[joelwideqvist]

The story continues,
Transmission is what bothers me most right now. I can't do the right side drive housing justice. I'll try and explain better. For the wide tyre bikes the secondary drive (belt or chain that goes from the transmission to the rear wheel) is better localized on the right side. This is to pivot the weight of the bike in the center and not to the left wich is the case if you put both primary and secondary drives on the left.

This is a pic of a right side secondary drive transmission;



As I had to make the transmission wider (to go outside the frame) it looks kind of dull without a housing for the belt pulley. I also thought that a housing could hide the point where I put the belt together. This is where I am now. My idea is to fasten the housing using rivets.



Since that pic was taken I have also added some cooling fins to the transmission .



I'm sanding my finger prints off trying to cope with the tank issue. There is so many layers of putty that every time I take care of some puttied up irregularity I sand some other up. Take a look at this pic and it shows a lot of small small holes. I don't know how to fix it. Perhaps I shall prime the tank once again to make the new putty layers stick better? You can also see a bracket that I added to the right side. This plate will work as a strengthening plate for a meter mount.



/Joel

[joelwideqvist]

Tank underside, I tried to make some weld seems.

A thin grave was scribed along the edge, not easy due to the mix of materials. I then glued in a .5 mm styrene strip and made indentions in the strip using a heated knife. Last I levelled the strip out a bit using abrasive paper.

In the top right, I drilled a hole and inserted a .8 mm styrene rod to fit the gas tubing later on.

The piece has to primed so I can see if the the welds look aweful or not...

[ketje]

Hi Joël, keep up the good work.

I always use a mixture of CA glue and baby powder to fill holes like that. Just mix these two items and fill the gaps. After about 5-10 minutes you can sand this without a problem. The main advantages of this mixture is that you can sand it after some minutes and it doesn't shrink.
You can also use just the glue but with some baby powder in it , it will be easier to sand .
Works all the time for me.

Have fun.

[joelwideqvist]

Still working on the basic shaping of the different parts. Most scratchparts have now been washed to be ready for primer. There are definately irregularities left but I need a primer coat to spot all.

Today I just made an adjustment to the swing. As I'm not going for a fender as in mud guard I need to protect the engine parts from dust/mud?/road residue in some other way. On choppers this is mostly done by inserting a plate in front of the wheel. As you can see in this cad image they made the swing to have such plate built in, I've seen others where there has been a aluminum sheet instead.



I first though of painting a sheet in a color that differed from the frame parts but I finally installed a plasticard square and glued it in place. It will be painted together with the swing.



/J

[joelwideqvist]

How about this!? If I wasn't so far into this build I would have ordered one emediately. Found it on e-bay, it's from Jerrys Resin who also carry some spring forks for the revell chopper!



/Joel

[NYC Al]

Joel
you make scrachbuilds even better then original parts, incredible, good job.

[Roca46]

Fantastic progress here.
I think you're enjoying to work with the fingers, making adjustments and new parts...
I really like this project and I'm looking to see more updates soon.

Originally Posted by joelwideqvist

I'm sanding my finger prints off trying to cope with the tank issue. There is so many layers of putty that every time I take care of some puttied up irregularity I sand some other up. Take a look at this pic and it shows a lot of small small holes. I don't know how to fix it. Perhaps I shall prime the tank once again to make the new putty layers stick better? You can also see a bracket that I added to the right side. This plate will work as a strengthening plate for a meter mount.

What I do when I have this problem is to mix Tamiya's putty with acetone in order to dilute the putty to apply over the area with a brush.

Hope this helps.

Roca.

[joelwideqvist]

Thanks Roca! I really do like scratch building although I don't have enough material to do serious stuff and I'm real bad at cutting plastic at the right angle...

I'll try the delution trick with my putty and see if it gets any better.
/Joel

[Roca46]

Originally Posted by joelwideqvist

Thanks Roca! I really do like scratch building although I don't have enough material to do serious stuff and I'm real bad at cutting plastic at the right angle...

I'll try the delution trick with my putty and see if it gets any better.
/Joel

I forgot to mention, of course you will have to sand it with sandpaper, under water, with special paper to work with water and with a very smooth movement like doing circles.

Roca.