Nick's Aoshima 1/12 Kawasaki GPz900R ......... TOP GUN

[therapy]

Getting geared up ready to make a start although as I'm working the next few days, I won't actually get to kick-off on the first. However, here is what we're going to be working with, and it looks pretty good....



I have three different boxings of this kit, two of which would have been suitable. As it happened, this was the first one I came across when digging through the stash. As seems to be the way with Aoshima kits, there are going to be some unused parts.















Some of the chromed parts look quite nice and may only need to be toned down a little rather than needing to be stripped, we'll see. Only a few of the kit decals will be used...



And now we come to the bits that allow this to be part of the group build...





I was pleased to see some masking templates in there. And Zero have provided the paints for the main body colours..



Instructions are of the 'unfold into a great long thing' type. A snippet...



I'm gathering a bit of reference material, but I do have a bit of previous with these bikes - here's a snap of the one I was running about on 30 years ago...




Apologies for the intro being so 'pic heavy'. More later in the week with a bit of luck.


Nick.

 

[Jakko]

Pic-heavy intros is good, so we know what we’re dealing with Could you also add a bit about the movie, how it appears in it, etc.? A still or screenshot of it would be ideal to include too

 

[therapy]

No probs Jakko, I will add some references later in the week...

Nick

 

[therapy]

Ok, a bit of background......

This is a build of a 1/12 replica of the Kawasaki GPz900R as ridden by Tom Cruise’s character Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in both the 1986 film Top Gun and its 2022 sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. For anybody unfamiliar with the original film, it is about a gifted young Navy pilot who is given the chance to attend the Naval Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun). We first see the bike when Lieutenant Mitchell arrives at Naval Air Station Miramar to attend Top Gun. As he rides along the perimeter, an F14 is taking off alongside and he ‘races’ it. The bike makes further appearances during the film. The GPz enjoys more of a cameo role in the sequel, where it appears towards the beginning of the film when Mitchell pulls a cover off the bike within his rather impressive hanger and rides it over to Miramar. Later in the film he rides a modern supercharged Kawasaki H2.




The bike itself was launched in 1984 to much fanfare. It featured a 908cc, four cylinder, double overhead cam 16-valve water-cooled engine. The claimed power output was 115bhp at 9500rpm and weighing in at 228kg, the performance was excellent for the time. And it handled very well, which was what really made it stand out compared to its forbears. The bike remained in the Kawasaki line-up for around ten years with only one major update and successfully outlived at least two potential replacements. These days the performance feels fairly tame compared to modern high-performance bikes.








And so to the kit. The Aoshima 1/12 GPz dates from 1996 and this appears to be a 2017 boxing, which I’ve had for a few years. Overall, the quality looks reasonable although there is a fair bit of flash and quite a few sink marks will need to be dealt with. First job was to sort out the parts that will not be required for this build. Mainly these consist of the wheels, front forks and brakes from the post-1990 models and also the longer rear mudguard not fitted to US spec bikes.




A little busy with other stuff at the moment, but a small amount of progress has been made in cleaning up some of the parts and putting a couple of the sub-assemblies together that will need some serious seam work in order to look reasonable….



Thanks for looking in. I see a lot of scraping, sanding, filling, sanding etc in my immediate future.......

Nick.

 

[therapy]

Not a huge amount of progress what with work and family stuff over the past week, but I have done a bit...


I hate it when parts have this sort of split right at the end. Hopefully filling it with some sprue goop will allow it to be re-profiled ok.




The exhaust hanger brackets look particularly poor...



Been attempting to improve their appearance but there is more work still to be done..



The rear body panels are a bit nasty... yuk..



These are quite long parts that wrap around the rear of the bike and mate up to the fuel tank and they only have this short area where they join...



I've put some reinforcing on the back that will hopefully help to stop it splitting later. One that's finished going off completely I can think about dealing with the join...




More later in the week with a bit of luck.



Nick.

 

[Allen Dewire]

I'm in for this Nick and it should be a good one. Movie was Ok too! I'm sure you'll have no probs with the build Sir. It's looking mighty fine so far!!!...

Prost
Allen

 

[tigersteve]

I feel the need - the need to watch ............

 

[Jakko]

That does look like a kit that could have benefitted from better planning of where to put the seams between parts, yes … but you seem to be getting it into shape

 

[therapy]

I'm in for this Nick and it should be a good one. Movie was Ok too! I'm sure you'll have no probs with the build Sir. It's looking mighty fine so far!!!...

Prost
Allen

Thanks Allen.

I feel the need - the need to watch ............

That does look like a kit that could have benefitted from better planning of where to put the seams between parts, yes … but you seem to be getting it into shape

Indeed Jakko - they could have simply made a rear panel and two side panels the same as Kawasaki did....

Nick

 

[JR]

Great introduction Nick .
Will grab a seat .

 

[therapy]

Great introduction Nick .
Will grab a seat .

Welcome along John, feel free to help yourself to the virtual coconut macaroon flavour hob nobs between my sporadic updates....

Nick

 

[Jim R]

A great choice of subject Nick. L9ks as if the kit has a few challenges. Nothing you can't sort.

 

[therapy]

Well guys. apologies for the lack of updates but stuff both at home and work have given me a bit of grief lately. However, I have managed to make some progress...

Firstly the bodywork:

Didn't look too bad under a bit of decanted Tamiya grey surface primer but there were still one or two issues to resolve.










After a bit more remedial work, I shot some Mr Surfacer 1500 pink on the bits that were going to be red....



Followed by the Zero paints Kawasaki Firecracker Red..





That's all set aside now ready for masking. The silencers also remained a bit sorry looking after the first application of primer.



So they had a fair bit more work and another shot of grey before being joined to the collector and given a coat of gloss black. Reasonably happy with them now.




I set some of the 'chromed' parts in an overnight bath of bleach after which they remained stubbonly chromed... So I gave the oil pan a black wash and it looks ok, not that it'll particularly be seen anyway.



The wheels on the Top Gun bike were all black without the polished highlights of the standard model so they were given a coat of black over the 'chrome'. They will get a satin coat before any further work in that area.



The main frame parts were given some clean-up, assembled and grey primed then had some more work, more primer and were finally painted gloss black.






Lastly for this update, I have assembled the basic engine block and given it a coat of Rubber Black. There was a little work to do on this - needed a bit of filling on the left-hand side. I also had to level the top of the cylinder head before adding the cam-cover. Outer covers will be gloss black so will be painted separately and I need to bring out the detail a bit on the cylinder head and cam cover.






That's about it really, lots more parts to clean up and tons more painting to do.... and we're a third of the way through the time allowed already!



Thanks all for looking in. Back to working in 1:1 scale tomorrow

Nick

 

[Mickc1440]

Nice work so far nick, certainly one or two issues to knock in to shape

 

[therapy]

Well, time is whizzing by and despite extra work I have been making some progress over the past couple of weeks. As is the way with bike kits, this has mostly been in the form of prep and painting with very little actual assembly thus far. But it's coming along......
















Puffed a bit of HR Hobbies 'Black Chrome' on the silencers....




And then there's this lot..... plus all the rest that I haven't even started on yet.........




Back to work for a few days now. Thanks for looking in.


Nick

 

[tigersteve]

Coming on nicely , Silencers look great !

 

[therapy]

Well, as usual, my good intentions on the group build front have fallen by the wayside and hats-off to you guys that can keep providing regular entertainment both with these and blogging builds in general. I don't know how you do it. Nevertheless, I have been quite busy prepping and painting. The challenge has been to try and provide some variation in the many shades and finishes of black! Also, Kawasaki along with some of the other bike makers use a kind of green passivated finish on some metal parts like small brackets and pipes and I have replicated this with a mix of dunkelgrun and gunmetal. The greeny-grey looking plastic used for the handlebar switches was attempted with a mix of schwartzgrun and dark grey but still looked too green. This was toned down with a black wash.







For the chain, I painted in gunmetal and then used several coats of a 'fresh engine oil' enamel wash to build up a greasy finish.



Lights and other misc. parts are done. I used some metallic powder to bring out some detail. I used a clear green over off-white to try and replicate the rear brake reservoir.







I filled the voids in the backs of the fork legs and swinging arm before painting. Forks were done with Vallejo metal colour.








Engine assembly is pretty much complete.








Bodywork paint. Hmmmm.... the Zero paints Kawasaki Ebony did not go on as smoothly as I would have liked, so I am currently plucking up the courage to attack it gently with some polishing cloths before going for it with the decals.




All in all, we're pretty much at the point where some meaningful assembly might be possible.




Thanks to all those who have persevered with my sporadic updates on the group build.


Nick

 

[Airborne01]

Looking good!

 

[Mark1]

Taking shape nicely

 

[Jakko]

You’re getting there!