As Promised, My First Photo-Doc Build: Tamiya Gorilla

Still new here and when I did my intro I promised to photo-doc my next build - which was to be a 1/6 scale Tamiya motorcycle.
Well, I ran the prices of those kits, and decided to not go full $$$ for my first motorcycle build just in case it might end up being something I would lose interest in once I started. So I went cheap for my first bike build and chose the Tamiya 1/6 mini-bike; in this case it was the Spring Collection Gorilla mini-bike.

So far so good, am truly enjoying the build and have begun to document it with pics and of course comments on the build.

Here are some basics of the kit:

The kit is more in the area of the toy / have-fun-and-build type of kit instead of a serious show build. This is most evident in that many of the chrome parts have mating seams that cant be filled due to the plating and of course the sprue attachment points can not be smoothed without damaging the plating. In some cases where the blemish or seam is more visible, I have used a chrome marker which really helped. But this kit is not going to be show quality without going whole-hog and stripping and repainting everything with Alclad or some other metalizer.

For this build, I am just going with it as is in the box and having some fun and taking some pics!

This is the box cover, which as you will soon see in the sprue pics, this thing is nearly 100% chrome plated. I wasn't sure how I felt about that but figured that will come with time. There was a paint scheme for a non-chrome version, but that would mean de-plating nearly the entire kit of Tamiya's fantastic plating process.


Next up is a sample of the instructions, which as anyone who has built Tamiya knows, they are excellent and highly detailed. Not to the level of the latest releases from Meng, but they definitely are not lacking on clarity and information. And the ever present history and description written in Japanese.



And here are the sprues! As I noted earlier most of this kit is chrome plated, some is very "chromey" and some is a bit more subdued so it looks more like aluminum. -Dare I say that there has been a lot of (border line too much) scraping, but that is basically the fun of this kit.




These five sprues are all plated.



And here are the non plated parts (along with one plated sprue)

My next post will be some pics of my build progress. So far so good!
See you soon!

And next up are some pics from the build so far. I truly am enjoying this kit becasue of the simplicity of not having to paint everything.
It reminds me of the method of my builds when I was young....dump it, cut it and glue it! ha ha ha. Plus it has that fantastic Taimiya detail and fit!

There is some painting though, mostly brush touch ups with a few items needing the airbrush or rattle can. I will point those out in the pics below when I can.


Here is the frame. Thank goodness the seam will nearly be all covered. Good points are no warping, just a simple clamp for a few minutes to keep it in place while the cement dried.


Foot pegs. So awesome that Tamiya provided a little spring that helps hold the peg up in such a case that one might take it for a spin : ) The peg covers are a soft rubber material, very similar to the actual mini-bike I guess.



Here is the frame and foot pegs with the finger slicer for scale.


The cylinder head and case. The engine and case parts are plated in an aluminum type of material that looks very realistic. Plus makes a good contrast to the the bright work parts.


Second pic of the head and case, this time showing the little spark plug that Tamiya gave. its chrome, so I had to touch up the cap with white.


Engine and case mated. This shows the spark plug boot and the tubing for the clutch cable. Oh, and the contrast between the aluminum plated case and the chrome plated clutch cover - this was the contrast that I mentioned earlier.



Here are a few pics of the case and head with the foot pegs attached.


Here are two pics of the engine showing the carb, air filter (black) and fuel line installed. The air filter is one of the parts that I had to spray. It was chrome plated, but the instructions showed it needed to be semi-gloss black. I did not strip the chrome, just sprayed over it with no primer and it seems to be ok
FYI, I use Tamiya lacquer paints for all my builds. the lacquers spray real nice, dry quickly and are very forgiving for simple-folk like me. (word to the wise - if you plan to spray lacquers, you will need a spray booth set up outside of the living spaces - see my profile pic for the home-made contraption sitting in my garage that I built from a box and some computer fans)

See you in the next post!

Looks like a lot of fun. Is that a reflection I see?
You got me at the tubing for the clutch cable!
Nice!

Ok, part three and this will be all for now as this shows the limit of how far I have gotten.
I will continue to add to this thread as things progress - I promise : )


The above four pics are of the engine mated to the frame. You can see the foot pegs, kick stand and the battery box - I hand painted the battery box using flat black per Tamiya's guide.
I also painted the top collar on the handle bar tube (I forget what this part/ area is actually called)
My macro photo skills are still "in progress" so please forgive me for the blurry pics.


This picture and the ones below show where I am currently on the build.
The primary changes over the previous pics are that I have added the exhaust (the nighbors have thanked me). The exhaust consists of the header pipe, the muffler, the tail pipe and the burn scar preventer (heat shield).
You cant see the muffler as it is under the heat shield.
Everything fit together very well. The mounting points are all large and solid, so scraping the plating is fairly simple to do with out damaging locator pins and what-not.

The only beef I have is the plating on the header was sub-par. Its hard to see, but in the picture above, there is a heat sheild molded as part of the header that has small cooling holes in it. But the plating was very mottled on the heat shield which oblitereated the holes.

Instead of requesting a new part from Tamiya, I instead sanded off the chrome and cleaned the holes and painted the heat shield on the header pipe semi-gloss black. This would be the color for the standard Gorilla - although this kit's version would have been plated. all is good, no one's gonna notice.


The left side of the frame and engine. Here you can see where I have installed the rear wheel trailing arms. That was tricky, it consists of three parts; the two side pieces and a single cross bar that is the only thing holding the two arms together. Then the whole assembly mounts to the frame with pins.
I used the Tamiya thick glue (orange cap) which allowed me a few minutes of working time to get the arms aligned. This is one case where one has to be very careful in removing the plating from the glue surfaces as there is only a small pin on each end of the cross bar that fits into corresponding holes on the trailing arms. So this has to be a good joint or the entire thing could crumble.
Instructions were very clear on this step and all the parts fit well, its just one of those tricky steps that models will have from time to time.


The tubing installed so far is for the plug wire going from the coil under the seat area to the spark plug (Tamiya gave a very realistic looking spark plug boot which can be seen in picture 5 above or any picture of the right side of the engine).
Also the clutch cable going from the case to no-where right now and there are two fuel lines. One looks like it goes to the tank, not sure where the other one goes to yet.


Here is the rear fender and another view of the rear wheel trailing arms. The rear fender was super easy to install, lots or areas for glue contact so it should be staying in place for a long time.




Thats all for now. I have some house projects to work on while the weather is frightful (granddaughters like to watch Disney's Frozen, now I tell them to go outside and look for Elsa in that winter wonderland in our backyard) And I do still go to work during the day - have to pay for this model habit some way or other - so I dont expect to get back to this build for at least the next week or so.

Thanks for looking!

BarleyBop said:

Looks like a lot of fun. Is that a reflection I see?
You got me at the tubing for the clutch cable!
Nice!

Click to expand...

Yup, that is a reflection. The plating is done so well on this kit!