Tamiya Honda VFR750R RC30

My next project begins! Hopefully, this one won't take as long as the last! I glued this section together, made up of four pieces. There's an extra small part (in the crocodile clip) that will attach later, I decided to paint it separately as it will be hard to do once it's attached. You can see my rough plans for this part in the background, although I've changed my mind about it a bit since. The plan now is to prime all of it with black primer, which I did today as you can see in the photo. Four different finishes will be on this one part, two gloss and two matt/semi-gloss. We have glossy, reflective aluminium and a matt, rough aluminium, semi-gloss black and shiny reflective chrome silver. So I will mask off the matt/semi-gloss areas and then spray a gloss black for the shiny glossy paint to go on top. I will then remove the mask, and then mask off the chrome silver and the semi-gloss black parts, as these will be painted by brush. Then I'll spray the metallic aluminium over both the gloss black and the matt primer, hopefully getting two different finishes in the aluminium. Then I'll brush paint the chrome silver and the semi-gloss black. Then give the whole thing a coat of X-22 and sand and polish anything that needs it. Very complicated for one piece, but I want to use this model to practice certain techniques and experiment with getting different kinds of finishes. Any advice will be welcome! 

Masked up this part so that I can spray the X-1 Gloss Black undercoat for the shinier and glossier metallic finishes to go on top. Leaving the matt primer untouched as an undercoat for the more matt, rough finishes. Went a bit overboard with the masking, and tried aiming for perfection by covering very small and complicated areas. Realised halfway through that it wasn't going to be possible and so ended up just doing what was sufficient.  

Sprayed X-1 and I'm happy with the result. Noticeably more shiny and glossy and also just darker and deeper black.  

The next step will be to remove the mask and then mask off the areas to be brush painted as best as I can. Some overspray won't matter too much, as it will be covered by naturally thicker brush paint. Then I'll spray the Aluminium Metallic  

Unmasked, gives a view of the different shades of black 

Masked up the areas to be brush painted. I tried not to be too perfectionist here, as these are difficult areas to mask and some overspray shouldn't be an issue 

Airbrushed the aluminium metallic. It's more pronounced in the photo, but I seem to have a bit of a speckled appearance, which doesn't match my reference photos. Not sure what I can do about that, if anything 

Unmasked and then brush painted the small parts. I fixed a mistake with the aluminium paint, where I forgot to remove a tiny piece of the mask before spraying. So I brushed over some aluminium to cover it. Then some parts were painted a semi-matt black and some were painted chrome silver. 

It's been a long while. I wanted to improve the paint finish on this part. I used Tamiya Polishing Compound to roughen up certain areas to give it the correct dull metallic look. I then painted other sections with a light coat of Chrome Silver to give it the shiny, reflective look it has in the reference photos. Now the two different areas stand out more and are closer to matching the desired effects. 

I have built as much of the engine as I can before painting. My next step is to prime all of this and then give it a coat of gloss black. I will then clear coat both the engine and frame before hand-painting the small details and attaching these two sub-assemblies together. 

I finished building and painting the engine. Airbrushed the large pieces. Primed with Mig One Shot Black, then coated in Tamiya X-1. The small pieces were brush-painted with a variety of paints. The next step is to clear coat the engine and the frame with X-22 - then attach them together and attach the tubing. 

I won't always be using it, but these engine photos are a result of my new Canon R7 - the difference is clear to see, even with very little preparation and effort paid towards lighting and background 

Decided to change my methodology with this project. Instead of completing each step at a time - I'm going to prepare every large piece/subassembly - then prime, colour, and clearcoat everything that requires the same thing, at once. Small pieces can be brush-painted and attached when necessary. So these are all of the large pieces - sanded and cleaned up ready for priming - some will be coated in black primer and some in white. 

Everything primed - also for the first time, I sanded and polished after priming to improve the finish for the final coats - even with matt primer, I was starting to get a bit of a shine going 

Bought myself a small case to store all of the small parts - labelled for the stages in the instructions. This way it uses up less room, and is a lot easier to work with. I'm working my way through painting each small piece by hand while I wait for airbrushed parts to dry. 

Airbrushed all of the white parts and semi-gloss black parts. I prepared my airbrush for painting the aluminium parts, but I had to abandon it. I find Revell paints aren't good to airbrush with, they often clog mine up. Could be me, it probably is... but I think I'm going to favour Tamiya for airbrushing from now on. I might try some other brands too, I've heard AK are good. 

I made the effort with the gloss white finish this time, to spray multiple layers, building up the "wetness" each time. I have definitely achieved a much better glossy and shiny finish this time - and I haven't begun clear coating or polishing yet. This is something I've struggled with in the past, for example on my Land Rover - the paint finish came out very matt and almost rough, which wasn't the intention. 

I finished airbrushing every colour—some photos of the panels here. I also sprayed the exhaust sections, wheels, and other larger parts. I have also nearly finished painting all of the small pieces by hand. The only thing left to do now is start glueing and connecting everything into larger subassemblies - which I will then clear coat and finally connect all of the subassemblies to complete the model. In the midst of all of that, I also need to apply all of the decals - some of which are likely to be the most challenging I've had to do!  

Made a larger subassembly with the engine and frame - I also attached all of the tubes these parts require, which was a fiddly job!