In this WIP I’m trying to build a Christmas gift for my dad… Well if he reads it, he’s gonna have no surprise…
You see my dad and me we grew up in socialist Poland. Many years ago my pops build himself a ride:
You see in socialist Poland if you didn’t want to walk, or ride a bus or train, you had to get creative. In case of my dad he bought a piece of scrap that was Indian frame with engine and gearbox and rebuilt it as seen above. Al my life I had to listen about the story how when the baby was born (and that would be me) the bike had to be sold.
As only one photo survives I’m not going to build a 1:1 replica of my pops’ ride (yet), but I’ll try something simpler - I’ll take Italeri’s 1:9 Harley WLA, many of which were delivered to Poland after the war by UNRRA, and try to show how an ambtious young man could have rebuilt it in the early 1970s in socialist Poland.
So I’m starting with the wheels - I glued the rims, filled, sanded, drilled and Alcladed them (the colour came out on the dark side). I made a little rig for those wheels:
For the spokes I took 0.5mm silver coated copper wire. Here’s how the wheels look like after I’m done:
@Demolition - thanks a lot for your comment and for your kind words!
I have a small update today - I have dry-fitted the front wheel. I want to put one more coat of paint on the fender for better gloss, but you can already see the base colour - this is according to what my pops told me he used (I didn’t tell him why I’m asking).
As you can see I’m already working on the frame and also on the engine.
Coming along nicely. I’ve got a 1/12 Imai Harley I started years ago. Should probably get back to it at some point. I really like the blue you’ve chosen for the frame and front fender, what paint is that?
Pawel, this build is terrific! Your work on this motorcycle, as usual, is exemplary. Your dad is going to be so excited to see his old ride again. Very cool.
Looks like I made it to the newsletter again - yay!
I have another update for you:
As you can see I installed the drive chain, battery box, ignition coil, dry fitted the rear stand and the exhaust. I tried to paint the heat discoloration here, but I’m not entirely happy here - I’ll work on that more.
@fotofrank - thanks a lot! I didn’t quite get you with the “kidney belt” - would you like to clarify?
I have no choice, but to step up the tempo… Luckily my build looks more and more like a motorcycle and less like an ancient greek sculpture (you know, no head and arms…):
I installed the oil lines. I fixed the problem from the instructions - it has you connect the sparkplugs to the generator (no, they connect to the ignition coil). The backing plate for the toolbox (not pictured yet) didn’t want to fit, I had to cut it down and repaint. I’m also converting the lights to be “more Polish”. Let’s see how putting it all together will work in the next days… Thans for reading and have a nice day
