 |
||
|
Tamiya model number: 14092 After market: Museum Collection decal sheet In progress through: 2003-10-12 - 2004-03-26 |
||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
High resolution here |
|
High resolution here | |||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
High resolution here |
|
|
High resolution here | ||
|
||||||
|
|
||
|
||
| In 2003 the five cylinder Honda RC211V
was about to be given to three new teams, one of wich was
Teléfonica. During winter the team tested at Sepang with a bike all
dressed in black. The black Teléfonica with its few but eyecatching
decals attracted me at first glance and when Museum Collection
released the test bike decal sheet I didn´t hesitate to get it.
Decided to build the Teléfonica simultanous with the West Honda RCV and Fortuna RCV due to the fact that they are all based on the same kit. The three kits was my contribution to the swedish nationals IPMS Open on the 27-28th of March 2004. I love the look of this bike and it was a pleasure to look for reference photos. Doing this I noticed something interesting, the white stripes running across the bike are there to separate 2002 cowling parts from the 2003 parts. Apparently Kato tested several clothings at Sepang wich can be seen if you look closer at the pictures, sometimes even mixing 2002 parts with 2003 ones. To get a really clean bike you could use 2003 parts for the cowlings and leave the white stripes out. |
||
 |
||
|
As with the West and Fortuna bikes I covered the plated parts in
oven cleaner to get rid of the plating. My plan is to paint these
with Alclad II instead. Because Kato is shorter than Valentino Rossi his bike looks a bit different than the Repsol base used for this build. To get a better position on the bike he used a shorter tank dummy and a seat cowling that also has been moved forward, Glancing through K's workshop and Max Motomodelling I adjusted the seat cowling with Tamiya Epoxy Putty and had a hard time getting it to look alright. I have actually left the preparation of the tank dummy out due to my fears of not getting it back together after cutting it. The altering of the seat cowling created problems with getting the back cushion in place cause the cowling didn't get completely smooth, looking back I should have testfitted this while the putty was still soft. Left Tamiya TS-13 Clear to try Model Master Super Clear. Harder to build wet coats but no damage to the decals and a satisfying result. |
||
 |
||
| Building two kits using Studio 27 decals at the same time to this one using Museum Collection ones let you notice the difference. The Teléfonica decals has a lot more carrier film and are really fragile. At several times I lost pieces of decal after dipping it in water. Yellow circles on the rimbs and the white stripe are some decals to be careful with if you ever build this kit. To get the large Teléfonica decals on the side fairings in place you have to cut them yourself. This is another fact that makes Studio 27 superior because they precut decals like this making it easier to get a better fit. I was lucky though and got the large ones in place pretty easy. | ||
 |
||
| Nice looking bike wich could have turned out better if I had some skill... I had not learned to thin the acrylics which led to visible paint brush strokes. A LOT of finger prints in semi dry paint (before I learned to use gloves while painting). I also painted the fairings and cowling parts with too heavy coats of TS-17. | ||