Most will know the Brough Superior 100  is a £350,000 motorcycle so when i bid on one in bits on an online auction for £120 imagine my suprise when i won. As it turns out its a bit smaller than i expected but no problem, i could lose some weight....

 

This is a Model Factory Hero 1/9 scale  metal and resin kit. These are very limited runs and very low production and quite collectable. they are made in Japan from mostly white metal with some resin parts, I have built one before so i know what i am letting myself in for 

 

This is my 1939 Crocker I built last year.

 

 

As you can see these are not £10 airfix kits, new they will cost you about £550 but as they are so hard to find, unbuilt models can fetch £750 plus. 

For this reason finding a Brough for £120 was quite a find.

 

So this is what i bought  , a box of bits, some assembled.

Someone has started this as you can see  ...and then given up. What he had done was not very good and as i stripped his work back to just parts i discovered he had built the front wheel with the rear wheel hub so basically he had the larger wheel on the back...my guess is this is why he gave up.

Anyway a few hours with all the asembled parts soaking in acetone and  i could strip the assembeled wheel and engine back to bare metal as it not only disolves paint, it desolves super glue as well.

You can see the wheel the previouse guy assembled above in the box of bits , and here it is disassembled

I had to make a jig out of plastic sheet to hold the hub central to the rim and clamp both parts to stop them turningv while i laced up the wheels, note i built both wheels at the same time.

Shame i couldnt leave the wheel bare metal but the Brough had black painted wheels so here they are with an etch primer on the rims.

And here they are now finished in semi gloss black with gloss black hub and with its tyre the front is about 3 inch dia

Click pictures to enlarge 

So on to the engine. again this was semi assembled so i stripped it down to its componant parts and cleaned them up, the frame had been brush painted, as had the tank.

The engine disassembled and cleaned up. Metal parts are cleaned by placing in a jar with some acetone and then placed in the ultra sonic cleaner which strips paint and the super glue used to assemble the metal parts

Frame striped back to bare metal then primed with an etch primer. With these models its not just a case of  putting the parts together, all parts need to be cleaned up and smoothed, these are metal castings. Also the frame for example has over 20 holes drilled in it. You have to work out hole sizes which are important and drill these with referance to later steps in the instruction to tell you what goes where.

Tank striped back to resin which fortunately seems to be acetone proof unlike plastic

Engine re assembly under way

Engine back in its freshly sprayed frame and we are back to where the previouse owner gave up.

And this where i have got to now, Gearbox fitted as well as the linkage to the hand gearchange. Tank has been resprayed and the metal side panels have been fitted.

All the time i do this the elephant in the room is the 2 chains, primary drive and final drive. These are a mission and could be the downfall of the whole project......

Rear subframe now complete  and fitted . To my suprise it even lines up !!!

Big moment with the front forks fitted but the more parts you fit the more fragile it all becomes and the more difficult it is to even pick up without damaging something .

A seat, footrests, and levers and about 3ft of wiring and i do believe this will have been a successful save/restoration.
Only part missing was a small seat mount. Unfortunately by the time i had bought a 3ft length of 7.5mm alloy and only needed 1/2" it was easier to just replace it via MFH who supply parts free but ship via FedEx which is fine for a complete model but the same price for a part the size of a .22 cartridge 
anyway considering i saved £400 on the purchase i think i have got off pretty lightly 

Click pictures to enlarge 

And here we are job done. These kits are incredably fragile, even picking them up needs careful planing. They weigh over 1KG and even the stands will not support the weight so to pick them up you need to slide your hand underneith and spread the weight across you palm and support with the other hand.... nice display model all the same.