A Ducati monster, YAMAHA YZF R1 which has a height of 7 inches, we arent joking, these are the model made by Nandish Bansi of Belgaum. Nandish has this hobby of building models of bikes and cars. He currently has made 20 models and also has a collection of about 40 vehicles.
Nandish did his Schooling from St Xavier’s high school and graduation from GIT Gogte institute of technology. He is currently working as an IT professional in Bangalore.
Being very passionate about Automobiles, especially the motorcycles, It was during his semester holidays when he used to spend most of his free time flipping the pages of automotive magazines looking for good colourful pictures of motorcycles. This fascination for Automobiles invoked an interest of building models.
He makes models out of PU foam (solid thermocol), gel pen refills, covers of tablets and many other waste plastic materials which can be used to finish and add more detailing to them. He also tried his hand at aero modeling and used the same techniques and procedure for building the Motorcycles and Car models of Balsawood.
Speaking to AAB Nandish said, “The 1st two models built were the sports bikes with a HONDA badge and TRIUMPH SAXON RADIKA III, Though the finishing was not neat and up to the scale but, but this gave me the confidence that i can better this.”
He then made the HONDA X11 in black, MOTOGUZZI CENTAURO in red and white with massive detailed V twin engine, his next favorite was Indian bike the HERO HONDA CBZ with detailed engine clearly showing the bolts and screws, and painted in silver. Next model was the naked yellow DUCATI MONSTER, this bike’s beauty lies in its tubular chassis and this was done using thick gel pen refills. YAMAHA YZF R1 2003 was added a spring to the rear swing arm, much attention was paid to detailing like the front discs, the footrest linkages, the exhaust clipped to the rear footrest, The height of models range from 6 inches to 12 inches and he spends approximately 10 to 20 days to build these models depending on the detailing.
He further said, “ I started making models in the year 2003 and now it has been some years that I can make almost any model now. Well going forward, I am getting more inclined towards the vintage motorcycles from the 1905, basically pre-war motorcycles. So already started collecting blueprints and material will soon start building them
He also intends to share his knowledge with others.”
Nandish has won the runners up award in 2005 and was the winner in 2007 of the Mahindra and Mahindra and Autocar India organized the “BUILD A SCORPIO” contest for designing and building futuristic Scorpio models out of Balsawood, He got an opportunity to visit Lotus Cars UK and learn how the design process flows.
He has a wide collection of scale models include the Vintage Harley Davidson and Indian Motorcycles from the 1920s, The Vespa scooters of the 1945s and 1950s, The Ducati motorcycles which includes sports and naked bikes and the Motogp collection especially the Valentino Rossi models ( One of the great Motogp Champion) and few other models.
The Car collection include the Lotus Elise, the Mercedes gullwing series from the 1955 SL300 , the SLR 300 and the present SLS AMG, the Hummer H1 wagon and US the military Humvee and few Ferraris.
He now plans to build 1:1 scale model of Yamaha R1 motorcycle and collect and build many Vintage Pre-war Motorcycles keeping this love and passion for motorcycles alive in me.