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Kawasaki GPZ400R


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Hello all,

Watching the Isle of Man (on TV) this year got me in the mood to build a motorcycle. My first assignment in the AF was in Okinawa Japan. After I was there for about a year the GPZ400R came out. I was in love! The only thing standing between me and my new love was the approximately $3000.00 price of the bike. For a one stripe airman at that time it might has well been a million. Luckily for me a little while later Tamiya produced a kit of the motorcycle I wanted so bad. One day a friend of mine came back from the local hobby shop with one. I built it right away with no putty and my favorite modeling tool of the time, toenail clippers. They could clip and file. The kit eventually took to much damage from moves and being knocked off of shelves and was thrown away.

Squadron recently had them on sale so I bought another. Here is the box top.

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Today I base coated the aluminum parts and got the body parts together so I can start working on the seams.

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Els

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Sweet! I've got one of these in the stash too! I love building the Tamiya bike kits. They fall together and they look really good when their done. Can't wait to see the finished product!

-Dave

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Wow! Didn't know that this one existed!

I've got the larger brother im my garage and the model of it from Aoshima on my bench :rolleyes:

It'll be interesting to see how this kit comes together, as compared to the Aoshima GPZ900R kit.

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2quick

I like building the Tamiya kits as well. It doesn't take a lot of work to get a great looking model.

Lancer,

I have been thinking about buying that 900 kit. I have never built an Aoshima kit though and was not sure how good/detailed it was. I would be very interested in seeing some pics while you are building it.

I spent a little time smoothing out the fairings.

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I will hit it with some primer later to see how much more work is needed.

I also worked on the engine.

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I did not get to detailed with it because most of it will be hidden by the fairings.

Els

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  • 3 weeks later...

There has been some progress on the kit. I stripped the chrome off the forks and exhausts and put some clear red and yellow on the turn signals and brake light.

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I think the clear parts will need at least one more coat.

The frame and rear wheel are on.

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The fairings are painted, for the second time. The red didn't turn out very well the first time so I had to strip it down and respray.

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Most of the decals are on. The silver decals didn't want to conform to the curves very well and I was afraid to use Micro Sol on it. I have had bad results using Micro Sol on Tamiya decals in the past. I tried a little on one of the decals I wasn't going to use and it was fine so I used it on the tank. So far so good.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am going to call this one done for now. I cannot find the rest of the tubing supplied with the kit to finish the brake lines. I think I accidentally knocked off the desk into the trash can. The next time I am at the hardware store I will look for some wire in the same diameter to finish it up.

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Not my best build but I looks good on the shelf with the other motorcycles.

Thanks for following along.

Els

Edited by Els
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