Z-Force Rapid Fire Motorcycle

 The Z Force Rapid Fire Motorcycle was one of the first Action Force vehicles that I received as a present.  It came with Quarrel, a Z-Force covert operations agent.  The motorcycle was a repaint of the GI Joe RAM cycle and Quarrel was a repaint of Scarlett, adopting the standard black/green with red accents Z-Force scheme.  Sadly, Quarrel, the bike and the gun all mysteriously vanished decades ago, all that remains is the 2 saddlepacks and a slightly out-of-proportion drawing I made at the time...

A 40-year old drawing of the motorcycle.

I found the GI Joe RAM cycle by Jabberwock on Thingiverse.  Reduced to 18% original toy size, this works out at 1:100 scale.

I printed it vertically on end to try and get the best result, though looking back on it now, slightly angled would have been better.  I think I was probably trying to squeeze them onto a build plate with several other items and didn't think it through as well as I should have done.

Some of the supports were slightly awkward to remove and left scars on the fuel tank and rear of the body.  These were prepared using the Anycubic slicing software.  I have Chitubox now, which gives much better results and allows greater modification of supports to get the best and cleanest fit.  I also soften the supports in hot water before removing, which makes them far easier to detach.

After cleaning up the models, I gave them a grey spray primer undercoat.  This shows up the detail much better.

You can see that they are only about the size of a 1 pence piece.  Although the detail is fairly low, at tabletop viewing distances they look fine.

I painted them in Vallejo olive green with black and red accents, as per the original toy.  I'm not sure whether to put them on bases.  Having the sidecar type gun pod helps stabilise them, so I'll probably leave them as is.

Finished bikes.

Finding a rider has been the awkward part.

Note scars from printing supports.

The detail on these bikes is OK, but could be better in some areas, especially the wheels and the gun barrel (here shown as a single barrel, not the rotary gun of the actual toy).  Still, at 15mm you can't see it much.

Side views.

They scale very nicely with my Peter Pig US troops who are standing in for Z-Force infantry.

Rear view.

As it happens, the Random Miniatures Patreon I subscribe to recently included the STAB "Super Tactical Attack Bike", which is a far more detailed version of the RAM cycle.  I might lose some of the details when I reduce to 56% to convert from 28mm to 15mm, but it should still be better than the original version I've printed.

"Super Tactical Attack Bike"

 

Once my printer is back up and running, I will try printing some of those, especially as they come with female (Quarrel/Scarlett) and male rider options - perfect!

Female rider option.