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Fiesta S2000


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With the Challenger completed, it's time to move onto the next project. First in the set of "cars which share a name-and-not-much-else with cars I've owned", this will be Belkits' Fiesta S2000, which I believe is only the second kit they made. Of course, after I bought this Belkits released their newer Fiesta with the Aston-style grille which would have been much nearer mine, but this will be close enough - after all being a rally car it's never going to be the same as a 1-litre supermini. Unlike @pau10wen's excellent ongoing project, this is going to be pretty much out of the box so I hope you won't try to compare the two too much - I'm not sure mine will withstand that comparison!

 

The first set of pictures are going to seem a bit repetitive as I've only really got the paint on the body so far, so apologies for the plethora of white Fiesta bodies coming up.

 

I had to have a couple of goes at cleaing up the body, as the first application of primer highlighted some bits of seam that I hadn't got sanded right down, plus some other sharp edges. But once that was done, the white plastic had a nice coating of white Halfords primer.

 

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After that, it was out with the Appliance White having sanded the body down with 2000grit sandpaper. What with the chassis also being white, and trying to get a good covering inside as well as out not to mention all the other body parts which also needed painting, I near enough used a whole 300ml can on just this car. And the picture barely looks any different.

 

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With the paint dried, yesterday I ran some dark grey wash into the panel lines to bring them out a bit using blu-tak as a dam where I didn't want it to run. Hopefully this is as bad as the body will look.

 

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And then today I got some 4000 grit Micromesh sheet onto those panel lines to get rid of the overwash. While it's cleaned up the edges quite nicely, unfortunately to my eyes it's also made the panel lines look a bit too dark. I think tomorrow I'll give them a run over with some white gloss paint to dial down the darkness a bit.

 

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What with cleaning up the body and washing two lines ont he boot which I missed, I haven't really got started on construction yet. But my feeling is that it will be worth getting the body done first (including decalling) so that the clearcoat gets time to dry,

 

Thanks for looking, even if it has just been white Fiesta after white Fiesta to start this thread.

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A good principle to follow is 'when in doubt, go to real life'. Panel lines in small models are almost always overdone, in an effort to show detail. But in real life, even inexpensive cars have panel gaps of 3 or 4 mm which are also 'filled' with body color. Just a hair darker because they're in shade. So they do not jump off the surface.

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I suggest a wash of about 80% body color and rest of a medium or light gray OR a tint darker of the body color. Experiment until you see 'real'.

And I hope you test fit the panels and windows before the first squirts of prime or paint. Many models require 'adjusting'. Some with hammers or blowtorches ! :wall:

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I'm following this one, it'll be a great build, out of box or not. I've seen your work, you don't fool me! 

 

Another excellent rally car build, I'll be following and hopping from foot to foot 👍😉

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On 04/05/2020 at 22:16, Codger said:

A good principle to follow is 'when in doubt, go to real life'. Panel lines in small models are almost always overdone, in an effort to show detail. But in real life, even inexpensive cars have panel gaps of 3 or 4 mm which are also 'filled' with body color. Just a hair darker because they're in shade. So they do not jump off the surface.

 

I suggest a wash of about 80% body color and rest of a medium or light gray OR a tint darker of the body color. Experiment until you see 'real'.

And I hope you test fit the panels and windows before the first squirts of prime or paint. Many models require 'adjusting'. Some with hammers or blowtorches ! :wall:

Thanks for the advice, but don't worry, I've already started the toning down process. As mentioned above, I;ve gone over the panel lines with some gloss white. Ideally I would have used some light grey panel wash as I meant to get next time I bought a load of paint - unfortunately coronavirus came around first and with delivery times being what they are I had to improvise. The other good news is that many of the panel lines will get lost in decals anyway :)

 

The other good news is fitment. At the moment (!) the windows fit fine. This is is one of those kits which has a single piece of 'glass' for the windows so less difficulty fitting (and less realism I guess) [EDIT: Having looked again, it's only the front and rear as one piece, the side glass is all separate bits]. No bonnets or doors to worry about on this one either, it's just wings (fenders) and the air vent I need to get added before the clear coat. So test fitting is minimal on this one, but the next one I have with opening panels will be using your card in the panel gap trick prior to painting.

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Slow progress this week, with the nice weather I keep getting distracted by other jobs.

 

That said, I've gone over the panel lines with a thin brush and some white paint (as mentioned in another thread on here) which has toned them down to something about right to my eyes (the lines which weren't panels such as the top of the spoiler got two coats of white to tone them down even further). I also got the window rubbers masked and painted, although since the photo I touched up the top so it should look a bit better now.

 

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A very small start has been made on the chassis too. I dry-fitted the driveshaft just so as I could get the arms positioned correctly as it's not particularly tight when you fit them so would be easy to glue in at the wrong angle and interfere later in the build. That driveshaft assembly has been removed now the glue has set and is being painted now. As you can see, very little gluing has been done so far.

 

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The real delay though has been the suspension, which has needed four separate colours most of which seem to be in contact with each other. I've got these done for the front, but got the same for the rear to do as well. Two days to get these two painted up, are the other two something to look forward to...?

 

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As I said, not a massive amount of progress. I think the weather is meant to turn soon, that might speed me up.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

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That suspension work may be time consuming but wow what a result very impressive mate 👍Keep up the good work 🙂

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Thanks all, the suspensionis definitely one of those jobs where I'm glad I got hold of a Tamiya HG Ultra Fine brush. Even then, I had to wash the brush every 3 or 4 coils due to paint build up. I'm also surprised at the way the springs have been moulded - not a coil for each of the red, black and purple springs, but instead the red and black coils (at least) are modelled as a set of rings. I think Belkits are relying on the fact that only one side will be visible at a time.

 

Just starting on the decalling today, and all I'll say at the moment is that the first (massive) one is not fun!

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Minimal progress on the chassis, with just the engine (or rather the underside of the engine as that's all you get) plus front driveshaft assembly fitted. All the new parts are done in satin black as per the instructions, although the rubbers on the driveshaft/steering arm have been done in matt black (not that you can tell).

 

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The hubs have been fitted to the springs, so they are ready to fit - that will be the next job. And I've got a start on the rear springs, probably still a couple of days to go on them yet.

 

I mentioned the front decal yesterday, and it's fair to say that it has been a pain. Before applying, I had to fit the front wings. Not quite sure why they're separate unless different wings for the same body are supplied for the WRC version. As for the decal itself, it's large (covers both front wings and grille), quite thick and with lots and lots of body contours to conform to. I ended up chopping it into three pieces, then more breaks to get it to semi-fit so it's in seven bits now. Even then, and having had a good go at it with microset and microsol, it still wanted to stick straight out over the wheel arches rather than dropping down the side, so in the end I broke the cardinal rule with Microsol and having applied it pressed the decal down using a clean cloth. I got away with no tearing there, although more Microsol will be needed to get rid of all the wrinkles you can make out on the (unfortunately out of focus) shot below.

 

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There will be a bit of touching up the breaks in the decals once completed, fortunately the other ones I've applied running along the sides and roof of the car went on smoothly. I'm not sure whether the problems with the big decal is down to my incompetence, Belkits' large and thick decal, or a combination of both. Either way, I'm not completely happy with it, but will have to live with it once finished.

 

This is the first Belkits kit I've made, and although the kit itself seems good, I'm not overly enamoured with the instructions. They seem to be CAD printouts of the various build which sounds a good idea in theory, but they are quite blocky and in practice you have to study it quite hard to work out exactly how two bits go together. As for the decals - no numbering, and the quite to applying them is a photo of the bodyshell from top, front, rear and one side. So the instructions need some thought, but we'll get there...

 

Fingers crossed the next update has a bit more to it.

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On 10/05/2020 at 20:51, Spiny said:

Not quite sure why they're separate unless different wings for the same body are supplied for the WRC version.

 

Nope, same wings on my wrc version spiny. No real reason I could see for them to be separate either? 

 

And also the same difficulty with the side decals, but the roofline ones I was expecting to be a nightmare just fell on there for me too!?? 

 

Looks excellent so far mate, and I'm re-living the agony of the belkits decals with you. Keep going, it'll be well worth it by the looks of the progress 👍👍

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Thanks for confirming it's not just me messing it up. I think the main problem seems to be that the decals are quite thick, but are also being asked to go over quite a few contours, particularly the big front one. The side decals on this are on quite a smooth surface, but quite long and thin; apart from a bit around the door handles they've gone on pretty well too. It's just the one on the back bumper causing me problems at the moment, then again I still have some more to go.

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They do seem very thick and very liable to crack, strange combination?

 

The front and rear were the most difficult for me, must admit. The amount of micro sol I got through 😂😂😂

 

Looks good so far for me anyway 👍

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35 minutes ago, Mr Mansfield said:

Large decals scare me! It looks like it's gone on well in the end

Oh  man, yes I hate decals too... I always need lots of spares... I'm getting the hang of this modelling thing but decals... I don't see many rally cars in my future 🙂 

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9 hours ago, Mr Mansfield said:

Large decals scare me! It looks like it's gone on well in the end

Large decals in themselves don't scare me, but large decals on compound curves definitely do. The front and back decals on this one have made me wonder whether there is some tie-up between Belkits and Microsol as myself and Paul hinted at earlier ;) Anyway, you've all seen the front, now here's where I am with the back of the car. This means that the last of the really large decals are applied now, although I still need to attack them with some more Microsol (there have been times where I've been tempted to try a Microsol bath even though I know that would be very stupid). Onto the smaller ones now.

 

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As for the chassis, I got the front suspension assembled a couple of days ago. So far, and at the risk of jinxing it, all the parts on this kit are going together really well - it feels as though Belkits are really on top of their game so long as paper isn't involved! Hope it stays that way.

 

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The exhaust and rear suspension are also almost ready to go onto the body. As with the front, the springs have been a bit of a holdup with all the different colours, just need another coat of silver then tidy up a couple of placed where the brush slipped while painting between the springs and they'll be ready to go on. I thought I was through the multi-coloured pieces... then turned the page and noticed that coming up very soon are the brakes which also have four colours on one part :rolleyes:

 

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So this is where I've crawled to so far - just think how long it would have taken if I was only modelling on weekends!

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Well done mate looking good. This decal scheme with the white shell certainly looks the part keep up the good work 👍

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I have to admit that the colour scheme is one thing which attracted me to the S2000 version over the WRC - unlike so many of the current racing and rally car schemes it has a nice, clean look to it rather than some graphic designers wild fantasy. Now if only that had translated into easier decalling....

 

As for the stock market page, you can blame Covid19 for that - if we hadn't been in lockdown I would have had more papers to use as a cover sheet for the desk :)

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Those decals against the white look excellent from the rear quarter Spiny. Well worth the effort! I Love that livery too 

 

It is a great colour scheme, it'll be a cracker when it's done. And as for progress - just keep swimming 😉

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The camera is being deceiving, that's just about the best angle for it.

 

Finally got the rear suspension painted up and that got fitted today along with a few other bits. Everything went together very well apart from one piece attaching to the struts - basically a lot of parts on this kit use semi-circular posts and holes which helps immensely with positive placement.... apart from the one where the semi-circle is the wrong way around. Fortunately, I was able to get the post in with a small amount of sanding plus Extra Thin to soften what remained of the edge. This is where the chassis stands at the moment, and before long I'll be covering most of it up with the underbody guards,

 

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Going back to the body, I'm pleased to say that I have all the decals fitted to the body apart from one (which will follow after I've clearcoated the vent which will allow me to place the main roof decal more accurately). Of course there are all the decals still to fit to other parts as and when, but apart from that one decal the body is ready for a clearcoat. For some reason I've taken a photo of the worst corner :doh:, but I always knew I was going to have to touch up a few small bits before then. And there's still a load of microsol to add 🌊, but I'm gradually melting those decals into something resembling sumbission.

 

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Chances are it's going to be a few days before I can do another update - I'm onto the brake disks/calipers which have four colours on each piece, all metallic and from my experience so far metallics don't cover brilliantly so there could be a few coats of each on the way.

 

Thanks for looking.

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On 5/14/2020 at 8:49 PM, Spiny said:

I have to admit that the colour scheme is one thing which attracted me to the S2000 version over the WRC - unlike so many of the current racing and rally car schemes it has a nice, clean look to it rather than some graphic designers wild fantasy. Now if only that had translated into easier decalling....

I agree with you on this . Modern colour schemes look good,  but older , simpler schemes I think are more memorable. This particular car was a one off entry by Ford M Sport onto that years Monte Carlo rally to show off its abilities as it was new to S2000 regs . It did that by winning. Keep up the good work , Gary.  

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