Ras Ambrioso

CDW, all I can say is: same here. Had the same problem with my Bianchi bike. Fortunately the acetone worked and I managed to get the spoke wheel finished. Hang in there; there is a finish to all this effort.

Amazing work. I smile when I think of your tolerance of 0.008 mm when mine is about 0.500mm. Its a real pleasure to look at your work.

Wishing you well.🙂

Finally, after three days of work, (a total of 10 hrs, really), the first wheel is done. To set the tire in the rim I had to recall my experiences as a teenager removing car tires off their rims to fix the flats. Working part time in a garage, the only tool available was a steel bar and a hammer. Here I had to use very small screw driver to open up the tire an let it slip on the edge of the rim. As everything else in this build, a very frustrating experience. But I loved every minute of it. After a wait of over 30 years I, finally get to see this kit nearing its completion. Notice the detail on the tire itself: Pirelli. And this is how the Bianchi looks now.

Well, the day came that I had to start assembling the spoke wheels. I have dreaded this moment since I had failed before in my attempts to build this kit back in the 90's. At that time, I started with the wheels and got totally frustrated and abandoned the project. Now, that I am older, I think that have gained some patience and perseverance to deal with failures. I purchased this kit used. It seems that the previous owner had started the wheels and had fabricated the 80 spokes necessary and then quit. So, for the start, I checked the spokes he (or she?) had cut and bend. Horror 🤪, The spokes were bent wrong. So, the first job was to verify the size (two different lengths were required) and the bends. Each wheel has two rims and two hubs to which these spokes are to be inserted. That done, I proceeded, as per the instructions, to thread the spokes into the hubs. This was a little complicated as the spokes are feed alternately on the hub holes: half up and half down. Then another crisis developed. The instructions indicated that the spokes would be lined up as per the diagram and then placed on the corresponding slots in the rims (#47 and #48 below). A tape, with adhesive in one side, was provided to spread and hold the spokes (see #44 and #46 above), but the pattern in #46 is not to scale and therefore useless. I scratched my head several times and decided that I needed something to hold each spoke in its slot (unglued) while I located the others and placed them in the rim. The answer was using modeling clay to hold each spoke in place. Success🙂 And here are the results. And, to make it more interesting, I assembled the second half of the rim's hub backwards. I had to submerge the rim with the spokes in acetone to remove the CA glue. But there is a happy ending to the story. The challenge continues........

Now you got me excited. I will be following you. I thought that my Bianchi was complicated. Your engine is a beauty. Kudos

Did the negative wash of light over dark and following are the comparisons. Before: And after I used Vallejo grey and silver. The result looks like a dirty engine and the black hole of gloss black is gone. Following is the progress to date: Spoke wheels next.

Thanks for the comments and likes. I went to CDW's log of the Buccaneer and got very good tips about washes. BTW, he's done a beautiful job on that aircraft. I am going to paint some plastic with the gloss and try a negative washing of light over dark. I will follow up with my findings.

A little more progress as I tackle the piping and wiring. The mystery of the little tank on top of the fuel tanks is resolved. The tank is an oil reserve tank and is piped back to the main oil tanks. This tank actually feeds two oil pumps which feed the DOHC and the crankcase. As you can see it is difficult to see the details on the lower part of the engine due to the glossy black paint. I am thinking about using a thin grey wash over it . What do the forum think about it? And finally the seat came out OK. I tested several solvents and found that acetone did the job. Still got a little more of the cabling to do but I think I will build the wheels before I install the handlebars, which are already done. Thanks for following, your advise is very valuable to me.

Keith, I followed your recommendation and painted some of the rubber spruces. I also cut pieces of the rubber and used acetone, lacker thinner, and mineral spirits. The paint got sticky but the rubber was not affected by any of the solvents. Then I painted another piece of the rubber with acrylic paint and it stuck and dried solid. So my next step is to try to clean the seat with one of the solvents and paint it with acrylic paint. Hopefully it will work. In the meantime I tackled the seat frame. This one has four really small springs (see post #28) and I had a hell of time trying to open the ends of these springs that are 1.0mm diameter. Finally I figured a way by threading a fine wire through the spring and wrapping the ends in the seat holes. And the final product: Added a few more details to the engine including the main drive chain and the magneto drive. I painted the the whole engine in black but, in retrospect, I should have followed the color scheme in the kit box (grey bottom and black top) to make some of the details more visible. This is an outstanding kit. Next challenge is fabricating the spoke wheels and installing the handlebars and the seat. Then complete this project with the the piping and cabling of the engine.

The spokes are the real challenge, they have to be fabricated. I did these on the the first kit back in the 90's. Took me a long time and I lost interest in the model. This time, I have left the wheels for last and I am determined to finish this project. Following are the instructions for the fabrication of the wheels. On the good side is that previous kit owner had already fabricated the 80 spokes and hopefully he did a fair job on them. I am still trying to understand the sequence of assembly using the sticky templates. I have looked at many spoke wheel fabrications on Pinterest but most of them had different rims and also used monofilament line for the spokes. Its going to be fun🤔🤔 For the saga of the leather seat I want to show you how good the paint looks in the rubber seat. Unfortunately is very sticky. Thanks for watching.

Guys, thanks to all for the suggestions. I should have checked the effect of the paint on the rubber. First I will try superclean as the Admiral had a supply. Then I may go for the leather but for that I still have to find a glue that wont react to the rubber. Thanks again

Guys , I need you help again. The seat for this bike is a rubber like material and it has the surface molded to imitate leather. Looking at Kim's (refer to Post #44) I figured that a brown leather color really looked good and proceeded to spray the seat with brown (rattle can) paint. Horror 🤯 (again). Its been three days since the spray and the paint has not dried yet. My thought now is to use paint thinner and try to remove the leather color and live with the original black color. Do you have any ideas about the use of paint over rubber?

I love this🤩🤩 Photos are coming

Thanks Mark for the revision. Ciao

And, by the way, I knew the bike's name was Freccia, with two c's which means Arrow. But when I submitted the post it was edited by the coordinators (??)

Holy cow, it seems that I woke up the bees. Very interesting arguments. At the beginning of this thread I said that I thought it was oil to the OHCS and I tend to stick to it and I will ignore the instructions (Oh my!) agreeing with Shipman and Egilman. However the drop oil feed to the chain is coming from the crankcase from a pipe and valve on the left side of the bike. The fact is that, if you look closely at the right side sketch, the oil system is kind of weird. I appreciate you comments and value your opinions and, for that , I thank you all.

This what I enjoy this forum. After reading your responses I believe the little tank serves as a reserve tank. The engine is a four stroke and, if you look at the photos below, you will see that the oil pump feeds the OHCS and that the tank feed the carburetor. Thanks a lot for your likes and responses. Like I said before this is a complicated build.

I have been scratching my head about the little blue tank on top of the gas tank. I have thought that it was part of an oil drop lubrication system. But, today, I looked again at the piping diagram in the instructions and saw that the hose from this tank was going directly to the carburetor. Then I remembered that, in my engineering days, I did a project in Venezuela building an MTBE plant in one of their refineries. MTBE was used as an additive to gasoline to improve the octane which is adding oxygen to the fuel. This chemical was popular for a time( the 70's) but was a dangerous and expensive process and it was substituted by ethanol, not as effective but much cheaper and abundant. I can imagine that during the 20's racers were always looking how to improve the efficiency of their machines and used these kind of additives. So, I think that little blue tank was feeding some additive to the combustion to improve the performance of the engine. Also, since I already increased compression by reducing the cylinder height, I am sure that the bike could really use another little boost and Freccia Celeste will be as fast as a "bat out of hell. LOL😂😂😂 Any comments?

Valeriy, happy to see you are back in the forum. Looking forward to this build.

The Bianchi is starting to look like a motorcycle. The bike has two fuel tanks that straddle the bike's frame. The separation of the fuel tanks was done to prevent the fuel from shifting to one side on curves, thus affecting the bike's stability. The third little tank on top of the fuel tanks is, supposedly, another oil tank that is to be piped to the cylinder double overhead camshaft (DOHC)and is used for "drop oil lubrication" (as per Wikipedia). I am interested in your comments about this tank. Next I will be installing all this equipment in the frame and touch up some of the damage that resulted from the assembly. And then I will go to real challenge of this project : the spoke wheels. And after that I will add the piping and wiring. The kit furnishes black rubber material but I think I will use electric wire with different color of insulation to identify their purpose. And that will be the last challenge.

Well guys, thanks a lot for your comments and support. Today I went back, after a good night's sleep, and turned the engine around. It was much easier than I thought thanks, in part, to the fact that the sides of the frame were not yet glued, only screwed. Yves, the picture you posted made me cry. Kim is definitely a master modeler comparable to Valeriy or Wefalk in our ship modeling. I hope my Bianchi comes out as pretty. In looking at Kim's Bianchi, I can see how tight the engine fits in the frame. Following is the result of todays work. I took the picture over the instruction sheet to show you how easy it looked in the print. Next time I will be a little more careful in analyzing the kit parts before blindly starting the assembly thinking it will all fit. More details have to be added to complete the engine. To make me feel better, I went ahead and assembled the rear fender. Again the little pins to secure the rear seat (????) were too short and I ended having to glue each strap to the pin stub.

Pretty bike. I have owned three Harleys, the last one being a trike as I was getting too old and unbalanced for two wheels. I truly enjoyed riding them. However, in the Florida summer, they are hot as hell on your legs. My wife, who still rides, had two Harleys one of them was impractical jewel: a Honda Fury. I say impractical because the gas tank held less than 2 gallons that gave it a range of 10-15 miles and also there was no way I was going to ride in the back. But, lets get back to topic. Today I reached the top of frustration. After spending close to a a week (roughly 15 man hours) with more, filing, sawing, sanding and cussing I managed to place the motor in the frame. So, you will say, whats wrong with ? If you look closely, the driving sprocket is on the right side of the frame. Horror 🤢🤢🤢 So, is back to bench to an easy fix since the engine is supported with screws. Thanks God. Previous to this, I had installed the oil tank in the frame. It came loose while doing the motor installation. Following is how that looked. You can notice how my pre-painted frame has suffered all this handling. Touch up will be required but the bike now looks "weathered". LOL

Keith, I had the same thought while sawing off the “extra” fin.

Hours of pleasure yes but, you are right, the kit parts are not as accurate as they should be and that is creating problems in the assembly. The engine assembly was in three parts,: the cylinder, the head and the overhead cams enclosure. When assembled (see post #33)the total height of the engine was off by close to 1.5 mm of the required height to fit between the mounting bolts and the the bottom of the gas tank support bar in the frame. My solution was to file off one of the cooling fins lowering the head. Now I need to counter sink the cylinder bolts so that the head sits flat over the cylinder. Hopeful that will work. Will keep you all posted.