Honda RC166 by DocRob - FINISHED - Tamiya - 1/12 - multimedia

[DocRob]

Since a while, I desired to start the build of the famous Honda RC166 from Tamiya, driven by Mike Hailwood, who won the world championship in 1966 and 1967 with this bike. What a change after the big Cobra of the same scale, I finished recently. Instead of the big block, there is a tiny engine build in, but it´s very special. It has a displacement of only 250 ccm but has six cylinders, generating about 60 PS with a max of 18.000 revolutions. The max. speed was 245 km/h.

The Tamiya kit dates back to 2009 and I will add all the available extra sets from Tamiya, which I got for relatively small coin directly in Japan. There is a set of metal parts for the front fork, clutch and air intake funnels, another for the metal spoked wheels, one for the numerous metal rivets and one for building up a PE chain. The latter I won´t use, because I have a 3D printed chain set from Falcon.



Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I started with the engine and I have to say, this kit is absolutely fantastic, even by Tamiya´s standards. I built their big F4-U and the 1/48 P-38, which were excellent kits, but the Honda is even better. 
The engine is very complex, but so well engineered and the parts are fitting perfectly. The cooling ribs are a piece of art and are only possible to be casted in plastic, as there are several thin parts, which get stacked onto each other, genius.
I used Extreme Metal colors for the engine, matte aluminum for the block, titanium for the oil pan and other parts and a mix from titanium and copper for the carburetors. The air funnels are turned aluminum and the clutch consists from PE clutch discs and a pre fabricated metal cage.
I used a brown panel liner for accentuation and painted all the screwheads with silver.











Cheers Rob

 

[shipman]

Thanks for sharing your progress, building this impressive kit of a fabulous motorcycle.

 

I do wish Tamiya would introduce a kit of my favourite, the Phil Read MV Agusta 500-4 from the mid 70's.

In my opinion, that was the apex of the basically 'traditional' 4 stroke racing motorcycle.

[Canute]

Love your color selection. Looks like a working engine.

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, shipman said:

Thanks for sharing your progress, building this impressive kit of a fabulous motorcycle.

 

I do wish Tamiya would introduce a kit of my favourite, the Phil Read MV Agusta 500-4 from the mid 70's.

In my opinion, that was the apex of the basically 'traditional' 4 stroke racing motorcycle.

Thank you shipman, and yes your mentioned MV Agusta would be very welcome, even if I´m not very deeply interested in motorbikes. Fascinating subjects nonetheless. I wish, I could lay my hand on a MFH Ducati 750, as I like twins a lot.
Tamiya is still providing new motorcycle kits, so at least, there is hope, but I guess, the RC166 was somebodies pet project with Tamiya
 

Cheers Rob
 

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, Canute said:

Love your color selection. Looks like a working engine.

Thank you Ken, I tried to match the colors to the reference photos I have. I think, scale wise they look halfway correct.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The engine got a bad hair day with the tubing. I used the supplied vinyl tube, albeit it may be a bit on the thick side, but I want a relatively quick build and not hassle with preparing all the connectors with tiny brass rods. Not much of it will be visible, anyway. The frame was sprayed with Tamiya LP gloss black, which again was perfect with it´s shiny finish. The light brown "things" might be capacitors, if I´m not wrong, which will be connected with the spark plug wires.
The footrests are made from turned aluminum and are supplied with the original kit, nice touch, Tamiya.


 

Cheers Rob

[CDW]

Following!

Great subject to model! 
I built one and will be entering mine in the IPMS event contest this month.

[CDW]

That Tamiya aftermarket chain was an e3xercise in frustration for me. I'm hoping you will find the key that unlocks the secret of building it.

I would get mine all built, then when I tried to build and connect the last links, it would begin to fall apart for me, most of the time various places all at once. 

I tried over and over again to no avail. In retrospect, I should have bought a Spot models chain set.

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, CDW said:

Following!

Great subject to model! 
I built one and will be entering mine in the IPMS event contest this month.

 

 

49 minutes ago, CDW said:

That Tamiya aftermarket chain was an e3xercise in frustration for me. I'm hoping you will find the key that unlocks the secret of building it.

I would get mine all built, then when I tried to build and connect the last links, it would begin to fall apart for me, most of the time various places all at once. 

I tried over and over again to no avail. In retrospect, I should have bought a Spot models chain set.

Good to have you on the backseat, Craig, but wait, its a one seater. Good that you also built one, you know, when questions arise... .
The Tamiya RC166 seems to be a very popular kit, I haven´t realized before, but there are a lot of builds around, but I really would like to see yours.
I already found the key for the chain set, I ignore it and use the Falcon Models, I bought a little later. Building up of the chain was also the most miserable part of the MFH Crocker build, so if there is a way around, I take it. Like your experience, the main problem was to close the chain. In case of the MFH chain there is a great risk to break the chain somewhere during closing and there is no easy way to repair it.

Cheers Rob

[CDW]

27 minutes ago, DocRob said:

The Tamiya RC166 seems to be a very popular kit, I haven´t realized before, but there are a lot of builds around, but I really would like to see yours.

Cheers Rob

Just in case, here is my thread on it:

 

[DocRob]

9 hours ago, CDW said:

Just in case, here is my thread on it:

I need a brain update, Craig, I didn´t remember your build, but had posted in it . I will re-read it, specially for the wheels, which are next on my schedule.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Next, I started with the wheels, an extra set made by Tamiya to substitute the not too shabby kit wheels. But what looks better than plastic, right, metal. The rims are turned and the spokes are pre lengthened and pre bent. I recommend to study the manual very thoroughly and check twice, as it is easy to make mistakes. There is a line engraved into the jig for alignment with the valve and I nearly interpreted a cast blemish for the marking.

First you add the spokes to the ABS hub and roughly align them correctly. The manual calls for using whit glue to fix them temporarily, but I thought, I try masking fluid instead, Worked great and will be easy to remove.



After the second of four sets are aligned in the opposite direction, it´s time to put the rim and the spoked hub into the jig. With a pair of tweezer and very light bending of the spokes, you insert them into the rims holes.



Finally, you add the spoke nipples from the outside. I used an old, very sharp pair of tweezers for that, holding the nipples by their middle hole and inserted them. Sometimes, a little wiggling with the spoke was necessary to insert the nipple properly. Then the nipples were secured with CA and whoops, half a wheel is finished.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I finished the front wheel any difficulties and started with the rear wheel. After fiddling the spokes into the rim, I secured them with liquid mask and set the rim and spoked hub into the rim. Next, I inserted the spokes carefully into their holes in the rim, where some needed slight bending.
Then the troubles began, while I tried to add the firs spoke nipple, some spokes flipped out of their holes in the rim, nasty. It was caused by slight movement of the hub in the jig and therefor, I used some blue tac to fix the hub like shown on the picture. During applying the nipples, a straining task, two spokes came completely loose from the hub, caused by too small heads, which slipped through the hole. Somehow, I got them fiddled in with a lot of swearing. On the pic below, one is still missing, but I fixed it now.



Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I finished the second wheel, but somehow, it was a chore. I had lots of difficulties to fiddle in the shorter spokes, one half being a fraction of a millimeter to short, the other half too long, that they needed heavy bending, to get them into the rims holes. Anyway, it´s done now and looks better than the plastic wheels for sure.



Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

What I especially like about bike kits are the different metal finishes, you need to let it look realistic. Here, I used aluminum, titanium a mix from jet exhaust and copper and chrome, all from the AK Extreme Metal range. Chrome got a undercoat of gloss black, the others were sprayed directly onto the plastic.
I was lazy, avoiding masking and sprayed the 3D printed chain in aluminum complete with the chain sprockets. The chain should look like steel and was therefore treated wit a heavy dose of black panel liner, followed by Uschi chrome pigments, which I rubbed in. The tyres received a treatment with a grey Flory wash, to enhance the detail and let them look a little less plastic like. The fit and engineering is still fantastic and putting together the kit is pure joy.







Cheers Rob

[CDW]

It was a great idea using masking liquid to hold your spokes in place. I wrestled with them, finding the task of attaching the spoke nipples tedious at best. I can see where the masking fluid could have made the task more manageable.

[Danstream]

That detail of the chain is impressive. It looks like the real thing.

Dan

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, CDW said:

It was a great idea using masking liquid to hold your spokes in place. I wrestled with them, finding the task of attaching the spoke nipples tedious at best. I can see where the masking fluid could have made the task more manageable.

Thank you Craig, the liquid mask worked really well, holding the spokes in place, but easily movable. I chose the thickest, I had, Mr. Masking Sol Neo. Tamiya recommended using their craft glue, which is in fact white glue, to keep the spokes where they should be. I feared visible residues and therefore came up with the idea of using liquid mask.
For adding the spoke nipples, I started with very sharp tweezers, but found, the method recommended in the manual was even better. I used some double sided adhesive tape on the flat backside of a toothpick, to pick the spoke nipples pushed them carefully into their holes and wiggled at the spoke with tweezers, until the spoke nipple slid in.
Other than you, I had eight spoke nipples and some spokes left in the end.

Cheers Rob  

[DocRob]

1 minute ago, Danstream said:

That detail of the chain is impressive. It looks like the real thing.

Thank you Dan, I had bought the Tamiya PE-chainset, but was really happy, when I saw Falcon Model releasing a 3D printed set, which I used. The detail is fantastic and my treatment with panel liner, followed with rubbed on chrome pigment, made it look good. 
With bike kits, it is all about material appearance, specially with metals. They have to look right with their individual colors and sheens in these larger scales.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Lots of sub assemblies got finished over the last days. The mighty six in six exhaust was airbrushed in semi matte black (Tamiya LP-5) and added with some fittings, build to the bike. When I glued together the three per side exhausts, I fitted them temporary into the engine block, while the glue was still not fully cured, to have the proper spacings and layout. The fit was perfect again. I even managed to exchange the sides for the exhausts wondering about, how to lay deep into the curves, but found out my mistake in time .
Another addition was the front fork, which is a working full metal affair. The area around the handle bars looks a bit wild for now, but that will change soon.






 

Cheers Rob

 

[shipman]

Looks like a real Honda....you are making a good job of it.

(that steering damper needs attention)

[kgstakes]

The details are incredible!!  Makes a nice model - looks real !!! 

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, shipman said:

Looks like a real Honda....you are making a good job of it.

(that steering damper needs attention)

Thank you shipman, agreed about the steering damper, the fit is a bit loose and I will fix it as soon, as I finish the front section. For now, it´s a tiny push with the finger to get it right temporarily.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

6 hours ago, kgstakes said:

The details are incredible!!  Makes a nice model - looks real !!!

Thank you, the good with Tamiya kits, it´s relatively easy to shine, building them, the bad, if you fail to achieve a good result, its only yourself to blame

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The Honda starts to look like a bike, slowly. I completed the front section, adding adding brakes, fender and front wheel, The tyre was aged a bit, using Flory grey clay wash, to accentuate the profile and branding. I added the cockpit, which only has only one dial, guess what, a rev counter. I also attached most of the tubing, but there might be changes for better fit under the fairing. BTW. fairing and tank were airbrushed in alu-silver and bright red.









Cheers Rob

[CDW]

She's a beauty, a thoroughbred.

[DocRob]

4 hours ago, CDW said:

She's a beauty, a thoroughbred.

Thank you Craig, the build is nearly too fast to enjoy, I´m not even two weeks in and can see the finish line. I´ve studied the manual and made a plan, how to approach with other builds in this short time .

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The sun is shining for a change, so out with the Honda and my camera.










 

 

Cheers Rob

 

[shipman]

I must say, not only is your build top notch; so is your excellent photography.