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Smoos Workshop
Terry Wright (Smoos Workshop)
GB

Build #9 Tamiya 14016 scale Honda CX500Turbo

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Tamiya 14016 1:12 scale Honda CX500Turbo - Box art 
 

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All the kit components out of the box, not to many sprues due to this being one of Tamyia's earlier cheaper kits, not as much detail as the newer kits but I wanted to build one as my stepfather had the real thing 
 

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As with all my builds I start of with painting all the fiddly bits and assembling them into bigger sub assemblies, quite a few chrome parts in this kit but as usual with Tamiya the chrome was quite good, even on a kit of this age. Also at the top of my c 
 

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this is always the best bit of the build for me - assembling the engine, view shows the turbo at the front, frame is painted and is sitting off to the left of shot drying 
 

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and the left side of the engine  
 

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I was quite happy with the finish on the frame considering it was hand brushed, I do hate gloss black though for showing up fingerprint marks when handling the kit during assembly 
 

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left side of the rear swingarm assembly showing the shock absorber, wheel and brake caliper 
 

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right side of the rear swingarm assembly showing the shaft drive ( no chain on this beasty) again chrome parts are a pain to paint 
 

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engine has been mounted in the frame now along with the rear swingarm, front forks off to the left of the picture are painted ready to go and also the exhaust system bottom right 
 

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rear brake flexi hose and spark plug ht leads fitted left side 
 

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and the vinyl clutch cable fitted to the right side 
 

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on with the Zorst attached to the turbo, getting there now 
 

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the turbo is looking quite good in this picture  
 

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sorry this image has whited out somewhat but it's supposed to show the radiator fitted 
 

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dry fitting of the front fairing which is huge and the rear cowling and seat assembly prior to paint, really ugly beast of a bike the CX500 
 

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again sorry for the white out, white parts seem to reflect back a lot, showing the cx500's ugly front end profile (good bikes just fugly) 
 

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final test fitting before going off to paint  
 

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Ok after painting all the bodywork, fighting with all the decals and building up the front suspension assembly were now at this stage of the build where some of the bodywork has been assembled, decals don't look bad from this angle 
 

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but when viewed from the rear the wee niggles I had with the old decals become apparent - luckily they match Tamiya's X-10 gun metal grey, if I had of had an airbrush I would most likely of tried to recreate all the decalling with paint, but I don't so t 
 

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Ok finally got the front end on, rear grab rail, fettled the seat to fit not quite finished though 
 

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maybe I'm being too pernickety but I'm still not happy with how the decals have turned out  
 

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rear end of bike 
 

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right side of bike 
 

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can't quite make it out due to the whiteout on this image but the front decal TURBO is mirror image so car drivers can tell there a fast bike behind lol Just the mirrors to fit and one small decal but I can't find my superglue and it's late o'clock here  
 

Comments

23 December 2015, 01:14

Album info

It was a nice kit build right up until fitting the steering yokes and forks (they wouldnt sit square with the frame headstock) and trying to get the fairings to fit properly and the fettling with the seat to get it to fit, also graphics/decals were apalling (might be due to the age of the kit), this is not the norm for Tamiya and is one of their cheaper earlier 80's kits.

I suspect (due to it's age) that some warping of the plastic parts has occurred and that the decals were past their sell by date, one of the things you just have to deal with when sourcing Out Of Production (OOP) vintage kits I suppose.

Kit was hand painted using Tamiya acrylics and TS-45 Pearl white

24 images
1:12
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1:12 Honda CX500 Turbo (Tamiya 1416)

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