Tamiya modell number: 14077 After market: Ragged Designs decal sheet In progress through: 2005-10-01 - 2006-02-10     The light blue color of the Kanemoto bike is really beautiful! I've had this decal sheet for a long time without starting it but felt it was about time. Base kit is the Tamiya Repsol Honda from ´99 and I think I can get away without modifications. Stripped the chrome plating and painted the parts Alclad II Polished aluminum. All parts that was supposed to be painted X-11 got the same treatment. The airbox got serious CF treatment. I decided to try covering the whole box with CF decal, something I've seen others do but been to afraid to try myself. I covered the whole shabang in masking tape and cut it into smaller sections wich I transfered to the CF decal from SMS. A lot of MicroSol and some clear smoke later it looks like this! Here's a close up of the rear sprocket, sprocket cover and chain. These are basic details on my later builds and really lifts the appearance, don't you think? After some trouble I decided to do the cowlings TS-23 Light blue and paint the tank with Creos Mr Color "Cobolt blue". Talking to Rod at Ragged designs that made the decal sheet we can't decide upon if the bike was raced in the light blue color on all cowlings including the tank and that the darker blue tank that is visible on some reference pictures was just a test bike feature or not. I decided to go with a darker blue on the tank. Here's a picture of the wheathered and heat stained exhaust systems. I messed them up at first but after all they turned out ok. Base is Tamiya black enamel followed with Alclad II Aluminum. I masked of the weld seams and then sprayed Model Masters Burnt Exhaust and Tamiya clear blue over the bends. The exhaust bracket fot CF treatment to look more realistic. No problem here. Just to cut an oversized piece of CF decal. Smear it up in Micro-products and pull out the old hair dryer. Works wonders! Most cables are made out of fishing line. .6 mm for brake and clutch lines and .4 mm for the throttle cables. I used Model Factory Hiro clear tube for brake fluid and breather hoses. I also scratch built the control wheel for the brake lever on the left handle bar. Decals was a pleassure to work with. In fact I think they were the best I've ever worked with so far. So my compliments to Rod at Ragged Designs for this really nice sheet! You can clearly see from the livery that this is an "older" bike. Pretty clean and not that many decals to apply. I love to be back on the older NSR:s. Somehow they trig something in me, the newer kits has so much detail that it's almost boring. Don't get me wrong, I love newer kits as well but these "retro"-builds are fun as they have to be detailed with a lot of scratch built stuff. I really enjoyed this one!