Honda RC166 - Tamiya - 1/12

[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 machine 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 spoke 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

[BlrwestSiR]

Rob, that engine looks stunning. Nice to see a motorcycle on here. 

 

[FullArmor]

Good looking engine👍

I once had the opportunity to hear this engine running...absolutely incredible sound.

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Rob, that engine looks stunning. Nice to see a motorcycle on here. 

 

1 hour ago, FullArmor said:

Good looking engine👍

I once had the opportunity to hear this engine running...absolutely incredible sound.

Thank you Carl and FA. The precise fit and great engineering make that engine a pleasure to build. I thought it would take much longer, being used t very demanding and lengthy builds lately. It was intended to be an in between build.
The engine sound must be - unique - I guess, unlike you compare it to dentists drilling machines.

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

[KUROK]

Following along.

I have a couple of these Tamiya motorcycle kits too.  I've been wanting to take the plunge.

[FullArmor]

Yes very exciting to watch.

A few Japanese youtubers are building  excellent motorcycle kits. Almost therapeutic to see.

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, KUROK said:

Following along.

I have a couple of these Tamiya motorcycle kits too.  I've been wanting to take the plunge.

 

1 hour ago, FullArmor said:

Yes very exciting to watch.

A few Japanese youtubers are building  excellent motorcycle kits. Almost therapeutic to see.

Thank you Kurok and FA, these recent Tamiya motorcycle kits are phenomenal. I built a Ducati some years ago as my first motorcycle kit and then got hooked. Every now and then, there will be one on my bench.

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