Yamaha

DSC11

DSC11 model

This model was released in October 2001.

This is not my favourite style of motorcycle, but is an interesting model nevertheless. I wasn't very successful in getting the rear wheel and fender nicely aligned. This was Yamaha's first attempt at "wire spoked" wheels, and is not entirely successful - the spoke pattern is not convincing, and it is all a little heavy, particularly on the rear wheel.

Left front quarter Right rear quarter

As is suggested above, I have never been wholly satisfied with this model, so in 2023 I decided to have another go. The main areas of work were with the wheels and the rear arm. I also rounded off a lot of rather faceted pieces, notably the lights, a lot of round covers on the engine and the footboards.

The wheels turned out to be somewhat unusual. The great majority of wire wheels I have made previously have 36 spokes (with just a couple with 32 or 40), all evenly spaced around the rim. The DSC11 wheels appear from photographs to have 48, grouped in sets of 4 with an extra gap between sets. This meant a bit of extra work to reposition the spokes on the rims, but otherwise was not a big problem.

The rear arm was more of a struggle. I just couldn't get it to fit to the main frame without pushing the wheel too far back or much too low. After making a side view drawing of the frame and rear arm assemblies it was clear that major surgery was needed. Eventually, after two abortive tries, I managed to squeeze everything in by drastically shortening the upper part of the rear arm and moving the rear cross-beam of the frame forwards, taking the suspension spring with it.

Left side Right side
Left front quarter Right front quarter
Right rear quarter Left rear quarter