1/48 Bandai BMW R 75 motorcycle
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 5:45 am
A couple of months ago I got the "hankerin" to build a kit that I used to have in my stash and in all the moves that my wife and I have been through over the years I lost some kits to damage and this was one of those. That's been about 13 years ago and I always wanted to build it, so I acquired one around the early August time frame and went right to work on it. This is my first ever "all out " attempt on a military vehicle and wanted to build it in the same scale as my aircraft builds. There are some things I need to improve on here and there but am still learning.
The kit build was fairly straight forward and very detailed in this scale. One of the only things I really didn't care for was the size of the wheel spokes but hey, you gotta remember that this was the ONLY BMW R75 availabe for a LONG time, so allowances were made. I scratch built the spark plug wires from a GM fuel pump relay coil winding that I had laying around in my "spares" drawer of the toolbox (you know , that drawer that's got all the "good stuff" in it when youre looking for something last minute repairing cars) . I also scratchbuilt the reverse/ low gear shifter rods on the right hand side of the solo bike from stretched sprue. I robbed the main machine gun, MP40 machine gun,(placed on the sidecar seat) sleeping bag(in the sidecar floor) and the tent ( on the spare tire) from the brand new Tamiya BMW R75 kit that I just recently acquired. The Bandai machine gun just sucked and the rest of the items were needed just to keep the motorcycle/ sidecar from looking too bare. I added two PE items from Hauler in the form of the machine gun ammo belt that's draped over the main gun and a sling for the MP40 in the seat.
Paints were all Model Master to include the gloss coat for the original decals( how these didn't crumble is still a mystery given how old the kit is) and the flat coat with a couple of drops of light grey for a "sun faded " look. Finally I dry brushed some ground up tan pastel for a "dusty/ dirty" look. This build was far apart from my usual aircraft subjects and was really fun to build for the most part. I do know need to work on my seam removal with wheeled vehicles because there are so much more surface variations than with aircraft.
The pics:
and that last pic for scale reference:
The kit build was fairly straight forward and very detailed in this scale. One of the only things I really didn't care for was the size of the wheel spokes but hey, you gotta remember that this was the ONLY BMW R75 availabe for a LONG time, so allowances were made. I scratch built the spark plug wires from a GM fuel pump relay coil winding that I had laying around in my "spares" drawer of the toolbox (you know , that drawer that's got all the "good stuff" in it when youre looking for something last minute repairing cars) . I also scratchbuilt the reverse/ low gear shifter rods on the right hand side of the solo bike from stretched sprue. I robbed the main machine gun, MP40 machine gun,(placed on the sidecar seat) sleeping bag(in the sidecar floor) and the tent ( on the spare tire) from the brand new Tamiya BMW R75 kit that I just recently acquired. The Bandai machine gun just sucked and the rest of the items were needed just to keep the motorcycle/ sidecar from looking too bare. I added two PE items from Hauler in the form of the machine gun ammo belt that's draped over the main gun and a sling for the MP40 in the seat.
Paints were all Model Master to include the gloss coat for the original decals( how these didn't crumble is still a mystery given how old the kit is) and the flat coat with a couple of drops of light grey for a "sun faded " look. Finally I dry brushed some ground up tan pastel for a "dusty/ dirty" look. This build was far apart from my usual aircraft subjects and was really fun to build for the most part. I do know need to work on my seam removal with wheeled vehicles because there are so much more surface variations than with aircraft.
The pics:
and that last pic for scale reference:
