The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

Igniting the Hands On Spark Building Model Kits

By

Revell dragster modelWere you ever a modeler? Do you remember yourself opening those boxes from Monogram or Revell containing all of the plastic makings of an airplane, a ship, a car or a truck? As you pulled off the lid that often had an action image of what you were going to build, you could see the assembly instructions folded neatly inside, a sheet or two of decals and all of the parts, large and small, still connected to their plastic runners. With model cement, perhaps a small knife to help separate the parts and clean the edges of any flash and a table where you could spread everything out, your workspace was ready. To open the cement, you would jab a straight pin down into the tip of the tube, and when you removed the pin a small bit of glue would follow it out, giving off the distinctive smell every modeler knew so well. You were still young, but you imagined yourself someday driving or even flying the full size, real life version of the model in the box.

For many of us, those models were our first exposure to working on those vehicles. When you’re eight or ten years old, you won’t be maintaining any drag racers or fighter jets, but putting those models together, you were in charge and while building something with your hands, you learned the names of all of the parts and how each one connected to everything else. Whether the instructions called for an aileron or a radiator, you identified it, held it in your hands, put it in place and learned. When the day finally came and you graduated to the full size version, the parts and pieces might have been bigger, but you already knew what they were. Take it apart and work on it? Sure, why not? You built one from scratch when you were a lot younger, how hard could it be? You had a level of confidence born from experience and it served you well.

Building those models was a common experience not that long ago, but I haven’t seen as much evidence of it in recent years. Building those models brought along with it the experience of taking a pile of parts and turning them into something you could be proud of and display for others to see, you gained building skills, technical knowledge and often, the desire to work on the real thing when you were a bit older, it was the early stages of what often became highly developed hands on skills as the modeler became an adult.

Fascinations and interests while a child can often lead to a vocation or avocation as an adult and perhaps this is another reason why there is such a drop off in hands on skills of the kind far more common in the past. How many pre-teens or early teens are building models these days? I haven’t seen many on display lately, nor have I seen any other hands on hobby to take their place. That’s not to say it isn’t happening, but what would it be?

You can’t get the same knowledge and skill looking at or manipulating images on a computer. You have to physically experience the building process, properly orienting and trial fitting a part, getting it to fit just right, understanding the process of what has to come first because later you won’t be able to access a certain spot as other parts are installed, it’s a learning experience that carries over to all sorts of physical objects later in life.

In an earlier long and passionate post, I suggested that those of us with hands on skills to pass on to a younger generation should create some opportunities to do just that. Model building is an easy way to do it. You can work with kids who are quite young and after the project is done, they get to keep it and put it on display. They can tell their friends, “I made that,” and feel the pride that comes from real accomplishment. That’s how you build self esteem that lasts because it’s based on something more than words.

Revell and Monogram have merged and then changed hands many times over the years, the models are still available, but, like so many other activities, model building has faded in popularity and kids seem more interested in other things. Maybe what it needs to come back are a few of us willing to create that hands on spark in a young person we can influence. Maybe it’s time to buy a few models and spend some building time with a younger generation. Be a positive influence, you never know where it may lead.

Comments

  1. Look for the Tamiya line of 1/12 and 1/6 scale motorcycles. Very nice.

    Rememeber when model kits were in every store? Now, you have to go to a dedicated Hobby Shop to find them.

    FWIW, My dad used to hate it when I built “Plastic Junk”. He migrated me to flying free flight, U-Control and then RC. Still messing around with toy planes 40 years later.

    • Some of the kits today are extremely detailed and far more advanced than they were decades ago, but even that “plastic junk” is pretty nice and very capable of getting a seven or eight year old builder involved and learning.

  3. Does this ever bring back the memories!! My dad started us out very young building the simple “snap” together models, then graduating to the glue together.

    You’re right nothing like learning all the parts and eventually even building them with out the instructions. Some kits you could build one of two options like a street version and a drag version. You would always have left over parts and customization was born! Grafting parts from one kit to a different one. Then came heating the Exacto knife on the stove or with a match to chop tops and hog out fenders.

    Moving from the included decals to custom painting by hand. Adding details like waxing thread for spark plug wires and safety wire for fuel lines.

    Building models definitely lead to my mechanical abilities today. Dad owned an auto repair shop and when we were younger we would go down on weekends and dump out a big box of nuts, bolts, fittings, odds, and ends, you name it and screw them together to make toy guns, rockets, and what not. In my teenage years Dad would set me down in a back room with a carb. and rebuild kit on a work bench and I would rebuild carbs. Moved on to starters after that, then learned the valve grinding machine.

    Today, I’m a licensed aircraft mechanic and a safety engineer and I contribute my success to those early years building models.

    Great topic Paul.

  4. The dime store in my home town had an entire section devoted to models –AMT, Revell, Monogram, Johan, even Big Daddy Roth (yes, I built a couple off those). An AMT 3-in-1 kit cost me three week’s allowance, but that gave me three weeks to anticipate tearing off the cellophane, opening the box and taking out the trees with all their parts, figuring what color to paint everything, and finally reading the instruction sheet, then beginning assembly. There was a particular warm feeling when the model was finished and looked the way you wanted it. I built cars, trucks, planes, a helicopter, ships, even birds.

    But those days are gone. Young people grow up with technology that was dreamed of only by scientists of 50 years ago. When kids have the world at their fingertips, how can a simple model kit hold their interest? We lived in a much smaller world, interacting with a small circle of friends and family; making models was an activity that was more on the small scale of our lives. My friends and I went to the dime store, chose the models we wanted to build (and maybe bought a copy or MAD magazine), and shared the experience as we followed each others’ progress. Our tools were X-Acto knives, sandpaper, paints and brushes, glue and thinner. Today’s young people do the same thing existentially, but on a global scale, and their tools are incredibly sophisticated computers and the internet. When they can play on-line games with hundreds of people around the world, plastic models don’t stand a chance.

    Sad to say, but the world has changed in so many massive ways, and most activities that we loved as young people are simply irrelevant to today’s young people. They might enjoy building a model or two, but they’ll be back at their terminals in no time, building their world in ways that we old geezers can barely understand.

    • I’m not as resigned to the idea of models being irrelevant as you seem to be. I agree, the plastic models we remember probably won’t keep kids involved as long as they used to because there are more stimulating activities awaiting, but a young child has to start somewhere and these are the “walk before you run” stage.

      After you get their hands on a couple of airplane models for instance, you can then move on to flying radio control models and then as they learn more and advance, you introduce them to DIY Drones, probably one of the neatest hi tech hands on activities going right now. If a young person has any hands on tech aptitude, drones should have a pretty good chance of grabbing and maintaining their interest.

  5. I did the whole gammit as a kid . From building them stock – to kit bashing – then moving on to extreme detailing ( engines w/cams-cranks – pistons , all correct wiring ) etc . Cars and M/C’s with the occasional airplane . Even stuffed a couple of correct scale Aero engines ( Jet & Piston ) into a couple of cars . My award winner was a 70 Challenger w/ V12 Hemi I created out of two V8’s ( loping off the front 4 of one then grafting them onto the other V8 ) complete again with working pistons etc . Sure some of the US models were crap , but with some creativity and work you could turn them into show winners as well as museum quality models . That was the whole thing with model kits . Creativity – Learning to DO something – solving problems and figuring out how to get what you want using only your own imagination and modeling skills

    A lost Hobby for sure . I can’t even find a shop in my city that sells any plastic kits these days

  6. Model kits separate the restoration guys from the customisers. I never cared enough to paint each and every part in my AMT Dale Earnhardt Lumina, Bigfoot, and Snake Bite models but that twin blown Ford powered #3 Lumina with dual 66″ tall monster truck tires was a lot of fun to build.

  7. I built many models as a youngster.
    Then I moved on to slot cars, and building them, and hot-rodding their electric motors, and stuff.
    It was a great time!
    We didn’t need “virtual reality”. We had “real reality”.

  8. My 1st model was Tom McEwen’s ’71 Mongoose rail. After that I remember a Rockwell P-51 molded in yellow, the USS Wisconson BB-64, a short condolidated freightways cabover and a Kenwort with a sleeper ( it was the CB era of the early 1970s ), and a straight axle ’55 chevy. It wasn’t until I was 17 or 18 I found out the last ‘S’ in Chassis was silent ; ) If this wasn’t any fun, why do I still remember it? I have a plastic P-40 and a Balsa P-40 both about 1/2 finished at home, save them for rainy days. My boy is 11 and just starting to notice cars, I see a model for his 12th birthday as a very good idea – thx for the post.

    • A model for his 12th birthday may be a great idea and he may love it, or he may not, but until he gets his hands on one, neither you nor he will know. And that’s the thing about doing hands on work, or any kind of work, until someone tries to do it, he won’t be able to answer the question “Would I enjoy doing this?” because he has nothing to go on and any answer is just a guess.

      We need to expose more young people to work that much of the world around them has been neglecting or shows in a negative light. It’s why it always drives me crazy when I hear someone tell me he’s still thinking about what he might like to do with his life. Until he stops thinking about it and actually tries a few things, he’s won’t have any data to process to come up with an answer and another year or two of thinking won’t get him any closer to the “right” answer, all it will do is make him older.

  9. Thank you Paul, for this one. Especially for this one I think.
    I too went nuts as a kid building plastic models, I got my very first when I was 7, a front engine rail job. It’s still on a shelf here in the shop too. We lived in a terrible neighborhood when Dad got out of the navy and it was unsafe to play outside so for six months we lived there plastic models became my life. Later when I was 14 we moved to Japan for a couple years. Now those kats can make a platic model kit….I learned all about Tamiya kits first hand. I got my first RC car in 1980 from a Tamiya SHOWROOM in Tokyo, it was the original version of this kit:
    http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXTDR4&P=FR. From that I learned about suspension and driveshaft angles (I made some wacky lift kits for that thing) and gear ratios. I moved onto the earliest AWD sedans and got an education in wheel rates, roll-out, chassis balancing and tuning dampers. For those that don’t know, check into current RC cars; they are technologically amazing.
    This introduction made me a life long tinkerer, hotrodder and lead to a business building motorcycles and parts.
    Pretty much a direct line of progression if you ask me. Had I not gotten that first plastic model, perhaps I’d be an accountant that has to have JiffyLube change my oil.

    Because of this article, I just ordered some Tamiya kits and supplies for my all too regular insomnia nights!

  10. Paul:

    DIY Drones looks like very cool technology, but it seems to be aimed at training young people to operate “real” drones of the type used by the military to kill hostile players in the Middle East and other places. Building the drones isn’t an end in itself as static model cars and planes are; it’s not even like building and flying R/C planes — it’s a means of using the internet in yet another say. I suppose if we had had the internet, we would have been just as enthusiastic for it. I still contend that the ‘net has changed society in a fundamental way that we oldsters can’t fully understand. The generation born after 1980 sees itself and the world in a different way — sort of the way people saw themselves in the world before and after the transatlantic cable brought news of the globe within hours instead of weeks, only on a vastly larger scale.

    But I’m getting off track. We’ve been discussing how modeling taught young people the precision manual skills they would need later when they started working on real cars and motorcycles, and how those skills seem to be disappearing with models. I wonder — how about stereolithography? That’s modelmaking, only it’s software-driven. The builder has to know how all the parts go together before writing a program to make the parts. It’s merely a software-driven tool that replaces all those hand tools. I know that a great deal of the conversation on The Kneeslider surrounds society’s loss of manual skills and how to regain them. As digital technology grows ever more sophisticated, those old manual skills will fall by the wayside. It’s the way society works; how many camera stores have closed after digital cameras appeared? My dad developed his own photos taken using a pinhole camera; last year I put away my outdated Canon A-1 SLR camera and bought a Canon Rebel digital camera, not because I yearned for one, but because film technology is dying and soon will be gone.

    Technology has the habit of eliminating some manual skills and replacing them with other– automobiles put harness makers out of business but provided a living for mechanics. Now, however, technology is eliminating manual skills altogether. Sure, someone has to build the machines that build the stuff, but the days when young people spent most of their free time making things are about over. Modern vehicles don’t lend themselves to backyard wrenching the way earlier ones did — there’s almost nothing under the hood we can work on, and the result is that owners don’t learn to fix their cars, relying on dealers and mechanics to make repairs. The result is a net loss of manual skills in the general population, especially in young people who won’t develop those skills at all.

    By the way — I still have a JoHan Chrysler Turbine car in 1/25th scale — it’s a second-genration version and still in the box. Maybe I should get it out and start building it.

  11. I built a lot of kits as a kid, mostly our British Airfix brand but quite a few Revell, Tamiya and Monogram kits too. Most were aircraft but there were also ships, cars, motorcycles and tanks as well. I built and flew balsa aircraft too.

    I’ve built a few kits with my younger son and he’s interested. We’ve done three balsa kits together adn tho he’s only nine, he’s learned the hard way to be careful with a craft knife after opening a finger and I trust him with that now as long as I’m around! In fact, he got the Revell USS Enterprise for his birthday last month and that’s on the waiting list to be built, tho we’re finishing off a sailing ship at the moment and also have a Hawker Typhoon and a half-built F18 to finish first. One of his friends builds plastic kits too and comes round sometimes – they were working on the F18 together last time he was over.
    My son did take some of his models to school and the other kids were impressed – we even finished off his teacher’s Spitfire, which was in a bit of a sorry state until I repaired it and the two of us painted it.
    I wish my elder son was interested too, but he’s not. We do other stuff together though, like playing sports.
    As long as my kids are actie and don’t spend too long hunched over a computer or electronic game, I think they’re doing ok.

  12. My dad started me building model kits when I was six and I never stopped, although there was a very annoying period in my teen years when the state laws changed and I was no longer allowed to buy spray paint.

    I realized long ago that I was never going to have my “dream garage” of classic cars and motorcycles–not in full scale. Model kits provide a much, much cheaper way to own my favorites, and customize them and learn something about their inner workings along the way. By now a few of my real motorcycles have miniature counterparts, as well.

    While the old Revell, Monogram and Airfix kits are nice for nostalgia value, I find the higher-end Tamiya, Hasegawa, and Italeri kits much more rewarding. It’s always nice to have more detail (and more little parts!) and higher-quality plastic. After I took a course in production technology, going back and looking at those tiny, complicated injection molded parts just boggles my mind. Someday I want to see that mold tooling in action.

    Finding high-quality kits in the local hobby shop has become more and more of a challenge, so I order many kits online. I’m surprised that owners of older hobby shops with massive inventories of older, rarer kits haven’t been putting those on eBay in large numbers.

    Stereolithography has serious potential for the future of model building. One could create kit patterns for rare prototypes and print them out on demand, without the need to create complicated and expensive molds. The other key piece of technology would be a portable 3D laser scanner so that prototypes in museum collections could be recreated exactly to scale.

  13. I’m only 23 years old and I used to build these kits as a kid. My uncle built some as well and encouraged me. The problem with them these days are that they’re so expensive! Only the hobby shops stock them now, so the last model kit I bought cost me $40! Plus the paint and glue! Funnily enough, I got a 427 Cobra kit for Christmas, so I’ll be revisiting the world of plastic model kits again very soon.

  14. I know it’s not a model per se but LEGO was my plastic model during my childhood. The early instructions were terrible! You could build anything, take it apart, build it again, build it different, then when Technics came along you could build machines! By that time I was in my twenties and still buying LEGO. I built a LEGO double wishbone motorcycle front suspension before drawing it on CAD and then building a full scale working bike. Mechanical anti dive is wild. My son, now nearing his twenties, still sets up dioramas in LEGO. He never got interested in mechanics but his social skill were developed using LEGO people. LEGO had/has? the ability to design your own model. You build it on the computer and they will send it to you complete with instructions. Don’t know it this is still available.

  15. All three of my kids [9, 7.5 & 6) love LEGO and can spend hours playing with my childhood stock and their own sets. I was delighted when my middle child started building gear trains.
    The youngest is interested in building models from kits and has started with simple balsa and pine car kits (simple, blocky cars). As his attention to detail improves I’ll buy him some simple plastic models and see what develops.
    I was a keen modeller; building my first ever kit (a Chinook) with Kwik Grip contact adhesive. I quickly learnt about the proper solvent type glues.
    I used to spend my pocket money on model kits and paint and after a while graduated to building Mad Max style car kit bashes. I wish I had some photos of those old builds.

  16. I never cared about plastic models. I had some, but I never wanted to build them. They stayed in their boxes. I went straight to the real thing helping my dad work on the truck.

  17. So good to hear LEGO Technic kits get a mention. I built plastic model kits and had masses of LEGO and it’s fair to say the LEGO taught me the most – suspension systems, gearboxes, linkages and levers, it was physics without the restrictions of the classroom.

    • I love LEGO, espicially the technics stuff. Broke quite a few pieces trying to graft an electric motor into the frame though!
      Fun when it worked.

  18. One of my favorite modeling activities was building a WWII fighter, then taking a hot needle and detailing bullet holes and windshield cracks for that “lived in” look.

  19. Model building is a great entry into the world of cars, aircraft, ships, what ever. The best part is that the build is followed by ongoing gratification by desplaying the work on a shelf or hanging it from a thread.

    A KUB-KAR is a very basic model kit that has limitless potential for creativity. Young kids thrive when given a block of wood (and wheels), paint and basic wood-working tools. My rec room had about 10 of ’em on display.

  20. Great insight, Paul !

    As a kid I built plastic models of all sorts, moved into balsa and paper planes for u-control, and naturally branched out into building a home made go-kart. When I built my first paper-covered u-control model, a Japanese Zero, I decided I would have to learn how to apply a decent finish. I used the “spray gun” that attached to the exhaust port on my Mom’s vacuum. It worked. Now, many years later, I can still shoot a pretty good paint job, like when I restored my Harley VL. A young person who learns to build models gains skills and confidence that will take them anywhere.

  21. It is nice to hear that there are other people who used the vacuum cleaner paint sprayer. I painted my brother’s 1970 Mustang Fastback orange with Boss 302 lettering and stripes using an electrolux vacuum and the accessory sprayer. It turned out quite well; but of course I had years of scale model building skills to help me succeed.

  22. I still have my models, they sit pride of place on my walnut shelves.
    I was more into tanks and Humvees myself, could never find a motorbike kit that didnt suck.
    Did a V8 kit, but the scale was way off, so it was tiny.

  23. I couldn’t agree more with this post. Model building gives so much valuable experince using your hands and your mind compared to sitting online, chatting, tweeting, texting, or the other “hobbies” of today. I would not be an industrial designer today if it was not for my father introducing me to model building in the mid- 1970’s. Heck, most of the guys I know that were into model building as a kid have gone into professions they actually like, and many can trace inspiration back to building plastic kits.

  24. I started like most with the plastic kits from MPC or Revell.The Revell kits were better detailed than almost anyone else in those days.The MPC stuff was pure junk,with “artists renderings” of what was in the box,where Revell would at least use photos of the model, suitably touched up of course.Or at least their cars.Their bike kits were a joke,always 20 years out of date.This was in the mid to late 70’s.Revell was still apparently in their MPC inspired”loadsochrome” phase.
    .I lusted after the Tamiyas and Protars that were way out my price range.
    So I found myself building what they would not….UP TO DATE DIRT BIKES,not leftover,outdated junk from the 60’s.I even tackled building the Husky that Brad Lackey was racing in Europe in his quest to be World Motocross Champion.Starting with what was at that time,the most up to date “dirt bike”kit available,Revell’s Malcolm Smith Husky from the movie” On Any Sunday”,which was nothing more than a 70 or so Husky 400,with the only changes being a Vesco Fat Skinny Gas Tank,common on Desert bikes of all kinds due to lack of gas stations out in the middle of nowhere, Twin Air and Champion decals,and a tool bag that mounted on the handlebars.The biggest disappointment when I opened
    the box was the Trials Universal Tires where Knobby tires should have been.Oh well,it needed a new rear half of the frame as Husky was using a laydown shock setup on Brad’s bike which was not in their production yet.On the
    front were leading axle Husky forks.
    After multiple attempts to make this look right,made more difficult by Brad’s bike changing from race to race,I finally,after taking a jewelry course in high school,where I discovered hard silver solder that a torch was needed for,decided to try making the whole frame in metal rather than plastic.Numerous attempts later,I had a reasonably close copy of Brad’s husky,complete with working leading axle front forks.On the rear were handmade Fox Air Shox,which Brad helped develop with the Fox Brothers,Bob and Jeff.
    By this time,I had signed up for Jewelry School after high school.It was there I learned the use of the Watchmakers lathe,often called,incorrectly a jewelers lathe. Among other things, I made working Fox Air Shox with the tiniest metal springs I’d ever seen on the inside.They were made in brass with a steel rod leading to the spring on the inside.I later attempted a working straightpull throttle,which was all the rage by then,but too much internal friction doomed it to non functioning status.
    I should also say at this same time frame,I was racing HO slot cars with the local club.A guy there had an old Mattell vacuum form machine that he made bodies with.After he showed me the basics of mold making,I attempted to make the Preston Petty fender like Brad and most others were using. I carved the mold out of Plexiglass and used the crappy material he used for the bodies,as he insisted that HO racers did not need Lexan like the bigger slot cars and R/C cars.The results were not good.I then moved on to the rear fender which was a much simpler shape and hidden mostly by the seat.It turned out much better.
    By this time I had made the whole frame,not just the swing arm and forks in metal,very crudely but it was as correct as I could make it.
    Brad’s bike also used a gas tank that was shorter front to back yet taller top to bottom .This I made using Sears steel filled epoxy,starting with the Vesco Gas Tank from the kit.By the time I was through,there was nothing left of the original.It was all epoxy.This is where I discovered the trick of dipping my finger in water to smooth out the epoxy as it cured.This was much faster than sanding as the water not only kept the epoxy from sticking to my fingers,it allowed me to shape and blend it before it dried.
    It was still crude at this point, but I did take some close up photos at that point.I might still have them somewhere.The whole thing was bolted together with 00-90 bolts and nuts.The crowning achievement here was the the footpegs,made from alligator clips,(otherwise called roach clips), to which a 00-90 bolt was soldered.A matching nut was then soldered to the frame in the appropriate spot.They didn’t fold,but so what?There wasn’t much left of the Husky engine either
    .I made a new carb for it in brass with a removable cap.I then got the bright idea to make the engine a cutaway after making a crankshaft in brass,complete with brass connecting rod and piston.This was fitted into the cylinder from the kit,that had been filled with epoxy,then drilled for a brass cylinder sleeve,sized to fit the piston I had already made.
    This was all made obsolete the next season when Brad switched to Honda.At that point, I gave up and all I have left of that project is those photos,if I can find them.

  25. Snap-together kits… Anyone?

    At some point around 12 or so, I would go to the toy section in Wal/K-Mart and see what was available in a snap kit. I eventually worked up the nerve to attempt an 85 Convertible Corvette kit that required gluing and painting. It pales in comparison to my older brother’s F1 Elf racer with working steering, and he is more adventurous under a hood than me to this day (as well as his bike club’s president and resident mechanic).

    Nevertheless, I have installed a cruise control, various emissions equipment, removed/replaced stereos one vandalized lock cylinder, several spark plugs and countless quarts of oil, and instructed one nephew with a first car and one girlfriend how to change their own tire.

    I always just assumed it was due to general interest, but I guess figuring out exactly where in the world that alternator bracket was supposed to go on the LS could be more concretely connected to the latter exploits.

    Get a kit, get a kid and get to it.

    • decided to do some searching and saw that Revell & Monogram merged…realized what started me modelling was a Snap-Tite Stealth Fighter concept model.

  26. what was left of the husky was destroyed,then tossed out many years ago.I later built a Danny Magoo Chandler RC500 Honda from 1982 when Magoo whipped the Euros 4 motos in a row in Motocross Des Nations,something even Roger De Coster never accomplished, based on the much earlier Tamiya kit.It actually had the knobby tires and the correct details that I wished for from Revell.
    But like the Husky before it,I wound up making a new frame for it also.
    Because it seemed such a shame to handmake a frame and then cover it up with layer after layer of paint,I instead sent it out to the local plating shop and had it plated in 24k gold.It was entirely a bolt together deal, just like the Husky.
    It however had the removable subframe, something only found on Honda’s works bikes at that time,held on with a variety of 00-90 fasteners.It also had my interpretation of Honda’s linkage suspension as used only on those works bikes.What made it into production later were not the hand made,carved from billet pieces,but used many of the same designs,even if not the same exotic materials.Keep in mind,this was the early 80’s,so the phrase” exotic material” had a different meaning than now.
    Carbon fiber was in those days, just starting to show up on F1 cars,and not generally available,and when it was, was around $800 a pound.Magnesium was already common on production bikes.Titanium didn’t show up until much later.
    It also had my interpretation of Honda’s monocoque subframe,alumininum for them,Stainless steel over a brass framework for mine. I used a lot of what I learned on the Husky
    on that project,but going much further,including my version of the front disc brake,mounted to the drum brake hub,LOL because numerous attempts to make a proper disc brake hub were not successful.The forks didn’t work, and the lower legs were screwed together from 3 separate sections,the middle of which carried the offset axle.This idea was borrowed from the 84 Yamahas that year which used the same idea. The original plan was to make and spoke a new hub,which I made,complete with 18 perfectly spaced holes on each side.The hole drilling was provided by a friend in a machine shop with the proper tooling for such a task.The disc mounted with simulated bolts.Sadly, I never got to make a matching rim or spokes.I have pictures of that somewhere.
    I was working in a jewelry store at the time,and the jeweler there suggested gold plating the frame and helped me polish it for plating.But the store closed before i could get him to do it,so I wound up taking it to a local plating shop instead.
    It was entered in various model shows, but always lost out to somebody’s chopper,not as original and usually covered with multiple coats of airbrushed,hand rubbed, candy apple, metalflake or some such,or some roadracer,where all the details are hidden behind or under the fairing.It seems the general public who voted on these had no clue what they were looking at and definitely did not appreciate scratchbuilding unles it was a military vehicle of some sort or a spacecraft..