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Honda S600


Spiny

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Now that the Cuda is finished, it's time to move onto my next project. I'm not sure if there will be much interest in it - my MO is to build straight from the box and take a long time over doing it.:sleeping:

 

So this weekend, I made a start on Tamiya's Honda S600. Well, that's almost correct as since the weather warmed up I have been doing the necessary spraying of the body and other body coloured items. But this was the weekend when I made a start on assembly, albeit a very slow start.

 

From what I can gather, the kit has a good reputation, and I can't really disagree. But what really strikes when you first open the box is that this thing is tiny. To demonstrate, both the Corvette and the S600 in the pic below are 1/24, and the rear end lines up on both cars.

 

41630811831_5c37b6c112_c.jpgIMG_6396

 

Closer examination reveals very little in the way of mould lines, so I presume they are concealed within the chrome strips which will run along the body. What mould lines there are are generally pretty small and not very noticeable. So not noticeable in fact that I completely missed one that runs along the corner of the boot lid until after I'd primed the body. Having resanded that bit, I had to respray the back of the car which has meant that instead of having the body in the intended colour, that and the bonnet will have to wait a couple of weeks. Other body colour items have the colour coat on now, so hopefully I can get the clear on before too long.

 

26762677947_3ae4c42bfb_c.jpgIMG_6395

 

This is where things stand at the moment, very early days. I still haven't even got the second coat of aluminium paint on the enginem and only have the block glued together. Not a lot else really, so I guess this is a good point to leave it.

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Spiny, thanks for starting a WIP on one of your projects. I'm in no hurry so just take your sweet time and I'll be tagging along :-)

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Can't argue that it's a pretty car, particularly in convertible form, so I hope I can do it justice. I must admit that I do have a soft spot for a lot of the early Japanese cars, even those which I really shouldn't such as the 3rd generation Toyota Corona

 

I've also just realised today that it's going to be almost three weeks until I get back on the bench unless something changes in real life, so it may be a bit of a wait until the next step. But I promise I will keep you updated. If I build it on my usual timescale, expect me to complete around September, although with this being the summer project, don't be surprised if that timescale slips.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, I did say progress would be slow. But at least I had a chance to make some progress this weekend - almost finished Step 1 of the instructions!

 

But first up, spraying. Unfortunately the weather was a bit wet yesterday (it started raining while I was warming up the can 😠) so only got the wheels colour coated this weekend. Hopefully next weekend, I can get colour on the body, but for now here's the wheels.

 

41369224034_24c5b27390_c.jpgIMG_6439

 

Not really a lot to say on these, they're wheels, they're sprayed aluminium and in a couple of weeks I'll clear coat them - something I haven't done to wheel rims so far. Still a while until I need these so no rush.

 

Meanwhile, I'm onto the engine. It does seem to go together extremely well, much better than the previous cars, to the extent that most of the pieces hold together on the locating pins without glue (although I have glued them). The main engine block is completed now that I have the sump on, and the manifold is stuck on too:

 

41369226524_972e8e9056_c.jpgIMG_6437

 

I've also got the ancillaries painted, just need to tidy up a little bit around the belt and wait for the Microsol on the decal to dry before assembly.

 

27218639487_559c8328e4_c.jpgIMG_6438

 

There wasn't too much in the way of mould lines on the parts, but what there are seemed to be located in the sort of places where you couldn't easily file down. However, a little bit of gentle persuasion with the blade seems to have tidied those bits up a bit, even if I did end up having to repaint. Hopefully I won't get pulled up on that this time!;)

Edited by Spiny
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A good weekend this time, even if I did only reach the end of Step 2 in the instructions. But, if you're adding large pieces to the model (in this case the chassis), it always feels as though you've done a lot:)

 

Had a two pronged attack at this car this weekend. The first line of attack was in the spray booth with me getting the clear coat onto the sprayed underbody parts. I've shown these above when colour coated, but here they are again with the clear coat added:

 

28365625728_1269fe9893_c.jpg

 

Far more noticeable is the appliation of the colour coat to the body and bonnet.

 

42192121982_32de4f3185_c.jpg

 

I know this isn't an official manufacturer's colour, but I thought it might suit the car (time will tell on that one) and figured that there can't be many Japanese cars over 50 years old which haven't had a respray at some time in their life. It's also my first attempt at a metallic paint, and so far I'm pleased with how it's gone. The only downside is that there are a few bits of dust seem to have crept in there😷. I'm sure I saw somewhere that you shouldn't sand metallic paints before the clear coat (???) so I guess they'll have to wait until then. They're not too noticeable anyway.

 

So, that's one line of attack. The other is the assembly. I managed to finish the last of the engine over the weekend, and then add the gearbox and propshaft as well as assemble the chassis. Looking at the instructions, I was wary that I was going to end up with the wheels off-square as you have to assemble the rear part of the chassis attaching this to the front. However, it all went together beautifully - this kit really connects well to the extent that you almost feel that you don't need glue, and one built was solid and easy(ish) to paint. As before, there were some bits which needed some mould lines cleaning up, usually in awkward positions, but I don't think this is particularly a fault of the kit, more that I'm getting more aware of them. So, without further ado, I'll finish off with a pic of the kit as it stands now:

 

27368078757_dc829202d6_c.jpg

 

Still need to touch up a couple of places near the engine mounts and add another layer of paint over the mounting of the rear axle, but apart from that it's ready for the next step.

Edited by Spiny
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11 hours ago, JeroenS said:

The body colour seems nice enough... What colour (or rather, which paint) did you use this time?

This one is done with Tamiya TS-42 Light Gunmetal, and in a couple of weeks I plan to follow up with their TS-13 clear on the body as I did on the tub. The paint doesn't look quite as 'flaky' in real life, but one of my concerns doing a metallic paint was that I'm not keen on the result when the metal flakes look big and out of scale - I hope that doesn't happen with this one.

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Not all that much progress this weekend, and the chassis has stayed exactly as it was so no progress at all on the assembly front. Similarly, there was very little in the way of spraywork, with the only spraying being adding a clearcoat to the wheels - given that they look exactly as above a photo is going to be pretty irrelevant.

 

In terms of work completed, I have at least got the parts for the rear suspension and chain drive painted, just letting them harden before gluing on.

 

40608303130_73c1bbd3c4_c.jpg

 

Those chaindrive/suspension assemblies come as an all in one, and are surprisingly fiddly to get the paint into that V between the shock and the chain unit. Got there in the end though. (EDIT - Yuk! that paint on the hubs looks awful in the photo, might have to have another go at those).

 

The only other work over the weekend was adding a wash and decals (make that decal, as there was only the Honda badge) to the body and bonnet. Glad I went with a black rather than dark grey wash for the body panels though as it doesn't seem to be showing up very well on the metallic paint. It's taken me three goes with the wash to get to a stage I'm reasonably happy with.

 

42416430001_b85b9aa3e7_c.jpg

 

Fingers crossed next weekend is more productive.

Edited by Spiny
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Well, this is a bad start to the weekend😞

 

I added the clear coat onto the body and bonnet today. The body has come out pretty well - I'm happy with the way this looks, just needs a bit of polishing to be good I hope.

 

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Unfortunately, the bonnet doesn't seem to have gone so well:

 

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Adding the clearcoat seems to have brought out that darker diagonal line across the bonnet. It's also the shiniest bit of the bonnet, so I'm hoping that it's not a case of the paint and clear having reacted badly, but more a case of the way the light reflects off the surface and something that will polish out. I presume that I'm not the only person to have had a similar issue, so does anyone know if I will be able to correct by polishing, or will I need to strip and respray?

 

And, as a special piece of icing on the cake, after taking the photo I knocked the bonnet onto the floor. The cocktail stick was attached, and indeed is still attached to the bonnet hinge - just unfortunately the bonnet hinge has snapped off the bonnet🤬 I'm not expecting this to be a difficult fix, but that doesn't stop it being annoying...

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Hi Spiny, I had a hinge break on me as well today, pretty annoying indeed 🙂

 

I don't know about the bonnet, perhaps the best is to try the polishing first, stripping is always an option if you're not happy with the outcome

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Well, it's years since I saw one of these. I'd forgotten about the chaindrive rear end.

I did remember that it's basically a motorbike engine and has roller mainbearings.

They were an odd little thing when new and expensive because of import duties I think?

I seem to remember they had steel wheels and chrome hubcaps. But I may well be wrong.

As for the bonnet, do you have any micromesh? If not then well worn wet and dry is the thing.

Use it with soapy water and sand gently, you should get a good result that way.

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23 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Well, it's years since I saw one of these. I'd forgotten about the chaindrive rear end.

I did remember that it's basically a motorbike engine and has roller mainbearings.

They were an odd little thing when new and expensive because of import duties I think?

I seem to remember they had steel wheels and chrome hubcaps. But I may well be wrong.

As for the bonnet, do you have any micromesh? If not then well worn wet and dry is the thing.

Use it with soapy water and sand gently, you should get a good result that way.

Thank you for setting my mind at rest on the bonnet. I've never done a metallic paint before (did I say that above?) so I was concerned when that diagonal stripe appeared out of nowhere. Your reply has gone a long way to setting my mind at rest, and if the worst comes to the worst, I'll just sand back and add another colour and clear coat as needed. As the kit comes with white and red Honda badges, I can always give it a red badge, but I hope the polishing route works out. Even better, I do have micromesh sitting under the table (4000 through to 12,000 grit) so polishing isn't a problem:fingerscrossed:

 

You're absolutely right on the wheels - steel wheels and chrome hubcaps are just what this thing has. Looking at the kit (and a follow-up enquiry to Mr. Google), it's a quad carburettor engine which I understand gives away it's motorbike origins. If you've seen one of these, even years ago, then you're one step ahead of me as I've only seen S800s. In fact, it was an S800 which set me trying the metallic grey colour scheme, even if I didn't get a close match to that either. This is my inspiration:

 

40735125040_28250ea689_c.jpgHonda S800

23 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Hi Spiny, I had a hinge break on me as well today, pretty annoying indeed 🙂

 

Sorry to hear that, particularly given how many hinges you must have on that VW bus. I hope that you managed to fix it as easily as mine got repaired.

 

Meanwhile, for this weekend, as well as the spraying, I also got some more work done on the chassis. The rear suspension is in place now, along with the chain drive on each side, and I've also got the exhaust fitted so it seemed to be coming along nicely.

 

41641266935_43687e543f_c.jpgIMG_6448

 

As with just about every kit exhaust I've come across, there were mould lines to get rid of, and as with just about every kit exhaust I've come they always seem to reappear after I add paint. This was the third time of asking, and I can still see a mould line in places. I also got out the pin vice and put a small hole in the back of each exhaust pipe, but they aren't particularly visible - the matt black paint to fill the hole was one dab with a 10/0 brush.

 

So all was going smoothly when I started removing the front suspension pieces from the sprue, right up to the point where I discovered that there was a clash between the sump plug and the roll bar/sub-frame which was preventing the addition of the sub-frame. I'm reasonably confident that it's a genuine issue rather than my incompetence, as everything else ties up so well. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a 'before' photo, but here's two 'after' pics (I do still need to give it at least one more coat of paint):

 

28669859758_7bd8e09c25_c.jpgIMG_6449

 

41641264335_f4853e2a62_c.jpgIMG_6451

 

As it comes from the kit, the sub-frame is joined to the roll-bar. I had to cut through the sub-frame so that I could bend the roll bar up but it still wasn't enough to give me clearance. So I trimmed about a millimetre from the sub-frame just in front of the 'V', then dunked the part into some hot water. After about a minute, I picked it out, squeezed it between pliers and dunked it in cold water. Test fitting without paint, it just fits, so fingers crossed that's still the case when I get around to fitting it properly. I am still figuring things out with this modelling lark though, so if there is a better way to do something like this I'll be happy to hear it.

 

And that's where this one is. No more spraying on it (if the bonnet polishing works) so I've moved onto spraying the next model - hopefully just small parts and assembly to go on this one now.

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14 hours ago, stevenkelby said:

Good stuff. 

 

I'm about to start mine, I've always loved these little old go carts. 

Thank you. Hope you show how yours goes, it'll be good to watch what you make of it. It seems to be a nice little kit too so should be a fun build, up until the sub-frame issue everything has gone together just as it should have, and really well designed too to the extent that I wouldn't se surprised if many of the bits could hold tegether without glue.

 

Fingers crossed you enjoy building yours too.

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Another step forward on this, but only a small one appearance wise. The little S600 has got it's front suspension fitted now, even if the camera did decide it was going to be more fun to focus on the engine:

 

40909099980_97b6d86547_c.jpg

 

And in super-unforgiving close-up:

 

40909096510_43a3ba4ce2_c.jpg

 

If you're anything like me, you'll have looked through the instructions and mentally braced yourself for a couple of stages which look as though they might be tricky. The front suspension on this was one of those, but apart from the sub-frame I mentioned last week, and having to strip off the paint from the hub assemblies to enable it to fit properly where they connect to the steering rod (arm?), it all went together very nicely, although having three hands would have made it easier. A particular surprise was the dampers which the instructions make look really fiddly to put in, but with the help of some tweezers fitted really easily.

 

I'm also pleased to say that bending the roll bar to avoid the sump plug does seem to have worked, and dry fitting of the unpainted radiator seems to confirm that the engine is in the right place too, so for Steven and anyone else building this model it could be worth checking if yours needs altering once you get the engine in the chassis. This was how mine ended up, although it's not that clear in the photo the roll bar is right up against the sump plug but the locating pins between the sub-frame and chassis are in the right place.

 

40909099020_cfa88dd144_c.jpg

 

Next step looks quite an easy one - the radiator and battery followed by the wheels. I haven't tried micromeshing the bonnet yet though - that's planned for next weekend - but I did give the body another clear coat as it was a bit rough just in front of the windscreen. It looks much better now and will get the buffing treatment in 2-3 weeks time.

 

 

Edited by Spiny
Wrong photo!
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Thank you both being so kind. I'm pretty average and still in early days as a model builder, so am just aiming to take my time and get things as right as I can rather than rushing through things. With this car at least, the kit is generally so good that it flatters me.

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First job for the weekend was to fit an extract system to my home-made spray booth in the garage - now I can spray without poisoning myself! Still using a facemask though just to be a bit safer.

 

There's something about adding wheels to a chassis which psychologically makes you feel you've made progress. I got to that stage this weekend, but first I tried to polish out that bonnet. Unfortunately, it turned out that the differences in colour were in the colour coat rather than a result of different finishes to the clear. So it was out with the 400 grit sandpaper to put a key, in with some very careful masking to protect the badge, and then another go at spraying. At the moment it looks as though I have a much better finish with the colour coat than I did first time around, so hopefully I won't mess it up with the clear in a couple of weeks.

 

Before:

41798190484_b7eedc6c45_c.jpg

 

Now:

42142930794_7895a77c2d_c.jpg

 

That was a sidetrack to the chassis build, which I think is now complete. First up was the radiator and battery, not really difficult but some small detailed work, particularly with the silver paint. And I think that radiator cap is just about the smallest styrene part I've come across to date - still not sure how I avoided losing it:) Shame I overtrimmed it getting it off the sprue😞 The decal on top of the radiator is in the wrong place according to the instructions, but the instructions don't show the ribbed top so I just moved it to the side where it would fit properly.

 

41049943030_000e5b2e44_c.jpg

 

And finally, fitting the wheels which to my mind is one of those stages which makes a big difference to the model for not too much effort. These went together very nicely, just the usual chanfering of the ends of the pins to make it easier to insert them but other than that straight in. The tyres had a quick rub over of the tread with 280 grit to dull them off, but the seam line on them was so slight that I didn't need to do much with it. The only concern is that the tyres do have a slightly sticky feel to them, which was reduced by giving them a good wash in soapy water, but I do wonder if that means there is an increased risk of the tyres melting the wheels?

 

27992017487_68cddab331_c.jpg

 

42142928164_5368545b55_c.jpg

Edited by Spiny
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Looking good Spiny, thanks for the update /pics. Your custom radiator cap doesn't look too bad. Sometimes I patch up bits like that with a drop of thick ca and let it set then paint over. 

 

I haven't started mine yet, hopefully soon. 

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