Your top five motorcycle detailing upgrades

[PaulinKendal]

What are the five things that you think are most worth doing to improve motorcycle models?

I've just joined here, as I'm about to embark on a build of the Hasegawa Kawasaki KH400-A4, and it's the first plastic model I've built in many decades, so I'll be needing all the help I can get!

For me, moulded spoked wheels cry out to be improved, so I'm definitely going to try that - although the prospect fills me with dread, as it looks incredibly fiddly.

I also reckon brake and fuel lines are ripe for improvement, with decent banjo end connectors and thinner pipework.

Chromed plastic always looks garish to me, so I'll either remove the chrome entirely and respray, or gently distress it with fine abrasive and weather it with panel liner.

But I'd love to hear what other improvements make the biggest difference for you - especially if they're easier than re-spoking those wheels!

So my five are:
1. Re-spoke wheels
2. Replace brake and fuel lines
3. Distress and weather chromed parts
4. ?
5. ??

[Tim Marlow]

Never tried one….though your vid link looks very good, if almost too fine. The spokes remind me of bicycles rather than motor cycles. There are quite a few other sites around, so have a good trawl.
There are a lot of after market upgrades for bikes around, so it might be worth a good net search. As to other things, I fully agree about replacing chrome plate. You cannot clean up the parts properly with it on, and it looks toylike to me. I use Alclad 2 to spray up the parts afterwards, but Vallejo metal colour is very good if you don’t like lacquer paint.
Other things worth thinking about are polishing compounds. Gloss paint can look a little plastic, so giving it a week to dry really hard, then polishing it up with Tamiya fine compound removes that effect and gives a scale glow to the paint. That can also work well with black plastic parts used for vinyl seat covers. Tube Oil paint is useful for oil stains and smudges.
The Hiroboy site is good for paint and general parts and tools by the way. There are a couple of bike modellers on the site so I expect you’ll get much more useful advice soon.

[PaulinKendal]

That's really useful, Tim, plenty to investigate. I'd agree about the spokes being perhaps too fine, but that's easily remedied.
I'm struggling a bit with searching for upgrades as I keep getting stuff for real bikes, not models. I think I need to track down specialist suppliers and search their sites. Thanks for pointing out Hiroboy, I'll have a look.

[PaulTRose]

it all depends on how far you want to go......and how deep your pockets are!

hiroboy is a good place for aftermarket bike bits

[Tim Marlow]

There are some here….

https://www.rcjaz.co.uk/tamiya-scale-models-detailup-parts-for-carmotorcycle-c-4472_105_270.html

Bit pricy though. John in the shop may be able to source Tamiya stuff if you want it, so worth a mail…..his prices and service are excellent.