Fujimi's Resin body kits

[FujimiLover]

The two Veilside kit's I recently purchased. One of theme appears to have a resin body kit. I've never worked with resin before and was wondering if I prep it and glue it like normal plastic?

[dwc43]

You have to use super glue type glue on resin. Glues with cyanoacrylate in it. Don't breath the dust when you sand it. Use a good priner before painting too. I'm sure others with more exp. with it than me will add more to this.

[FujimiLover]

I'll use the typical "CA" glue for the body kits. I've just discovered, unfortunetly, that the wheels that are included in with the kit's, dont' match what is showen on the box! The MR2 has the BBS-mesh type wheels, and the 350Z has five-star wheels.

But, in the kit, it shows some wheels which I think are some what ugly!

Would anybody happen to have/know where I can get the proper style wheels from?

[dwc43]

Hope you find some wheels for it. Those things should go in the garbage can. Looks like something from a low rider jumpin car. lol

[FujimiLover]

Hope you find some wheels for it. Those things should go in the garbage can. Looks like something from a low rider jumpin car. lol

I totally agree, they dont' suit the style of the car at all. I e-mailed the seller and he replied quickly saying that all of Fujimi's Veilside models have the same style wheel set in the kit, and none match what's on the photo. He think's Fujimi expects you to buy "proper" wheel set seperatly. I have one set that I intended for my RX7, but dont' know how they'll look on these kit's. They are a six spokes and look alot nicer than these "lowrider" wheels.

I THINK I know where to get a set similar to the BBS-ish wheels, but not sure about the five-stars.

[dwc43]

I'm sure you have more connections than I have. You know, those 5 stars kinda look like some old 308 Ferrari type wheels. Maybe a kit bashing??

[MrObsessive]

If I were you, I'd use 5 min epoxy instead of the quick setting CA stuff!

This will give you some "wiggle room" to get things where you want 'em instead of in a flash such as the super glue. Trying to separate resin parts with the super glue is nigh impossible and you'll most likely end up with a damaged part. Since you're new to resin, I would stay away from the CA glues.

You can check your local hobby shop for 5 min. epoxy------if not there, certainly the hardware stores carry it.

As far as cleaning..........Dawn Power Dissolver, Easy Off (Yellow Can), Westley's Bleach White, are all really good for getting the mold release agents off the resin. Do use rubber gloves if using any of these products though as these are quite caustic and can cause skin damage for certain.

[Aaronw]

Are you sure it is resin? If it is there should be some instructions for working with it. You can check by trying to glue some scrap or an area you won't be able to see. Regular model glue has no effect on resin, so if it glues its plastic, if it won't its probably resin.

If it is resin you will want to prep the surface to remove any mold release or oils that occur during the resin casting process. Westley's Blech Wite is a tire cleaner available from most auto parts stores that many use to clean the resin. 70% isopropel alcohol (rubbing alcohol) and TSP are also popular cleaners some use instead. Generally the resin is soaked in the liquid for a few hours or overnight to remove any release agent used when making the resin part. Clean with soap and water after removing the parts from their bath. Prime and paint with what ever paints you usually use. I have found several light mist coats when priming works much better than a few heavier coats. Resin will often get minor fisheyes, so I find the mist coats will bond better and it gives the later coats of primer somethng to grab onto eliminating the fisheye issue.

For glue you can use regular CA glues (Crazy glue, Zap a gap etc) or 5 min epoxy. The epoxy is nice for parts you may need a little woking time to get placed just right vs the nearly instant bond of CA glue.

[Zoom Zoom]

Be very careful and aware of these Fujimi kits with resin body parts. Oftentimes the resin parts are much smaller than the parts they are replacing; conventional wisdom is that the molds used shrink over time, the resin parts might look good but will not fit w/o a lot of work.

[FujimiLover]

Geee, thanks for the info on the resin there, gives me some doubt now on these kit's. The description sais resin, but the photos look plastic, so not entirely sure.

These pictures were provided in the ebay listing. Here is the 300ZX body kit, look's plastic to me.

And here's the MR2's body kit, this looks more like resin?

I thought resin's had more of flesh color to'em?

[FujimiLover]

By the way, I've just done an extensive search through HWJapan's webiste for wheels. They certainly had alot of nice 1/24 scale wheel sets, but NONE suited these models.

I do know of an odd company that makes a set of wheels useing the same poly-cap type installment that might have the perfect style for the MR2, but not sure about the 300Z.

The wheels come in various styles and in three finishes, white, silver, and chrome. If I can get up to Denver, I'll check out the local hobby shop there as their more likely to have what I'm looking for than the Hobby Town's here.

[Brendan]

I have built both of these kits for a customer. And I had to cut the resin pieces in half to make them wider to fit the bodies. The pieces were off anywhere between 3 to 6 mm. It would have been better if Fujimi had just casted them in plastic.

[FujimiLover]

I have built both of these kits for a customer. And I had to cut the resin pieces in half to make them wider to fit the bodies. The pieces were off anywhere between 3 to 6 mm. It would have been better if Fujimi had just casted them in plastic.

Now that really makes me feel bad cause I don't have the skill to do that.

[FujimiLover]

Now I'm really nervous about these two kit's. Worried that the body kit which is what interested me in the first place, might not FIT PROPERLY?

I'm worried that I wasted money on a project that might fail due to lack of resin-experience.

Edited March 24, 2009 by FujimiLover

[Aaronw]

Don't base if the parts are resin or not on the color, resin commonly comes in white, tan, gray and a yellowish color. High quality resin can be hard to tell from plastic if you don't have experience with resin parts.

As far as not having the skills to widen the parts, you can wait until you do, or just try, you might surprise yourself. It sounds like you may need to widen the parts 3-6mm. That is only 1/8 to 1/4", split the part, insert some plastic to fill the gap, then use putty to make it pretty again.

People get all psyched out about scratch building and resin. There are some new techniques to use, but really its just extensions of the skills you already use when building a kit right from the box. Just work slowly and double or triple check everything you do before making any cuts or gluing a part.

[FujimiLover]

Thank's for the tips. I've already started building the MR2 and first step is to cut off the stock bumpers. It looks to me like these bumpers will fit perfectly. All though I wont' really know till I actually try to fit'em. So let's hope I got lucky with this kit. The color plastic on these two kits I got seem to be a flesh-color?

[dwc43]

I'd go ahead and cut it up. You wont learn how if you don't do it. I'm not the best at it for sure, but I've done it before and it turned out pretty good. I wanted to build a replica of a race car that I drove that belonged to a friend of mine. I found an old Chevelle in a junk box. Only prob was the hood was cut out for a blower. I had a piece of balsa that I glued right into the center of the hole. Filled it with green putty on both sides and worked it out pretty good. Shot enough red oxide primer on there that it covered up what ever flaws I left behind and it turned out pretty good. Been like that for almost a year now I guess. I'll have to post up a pic of it sometime. It's truly a scrap box save.

[Brendan]

Just to let you know that the body is not resin. It's a plastic kit. The only parts that are resin are the add ons to the body. It you look carefully at the body, you can see the injection pins on the inside of the car. As for cutting stuff off, an easy way to do it is to use sewing thread and just move it back a forth across the seam and it will cut right through it.

Fujimi's only made a couple of full resin kits. And they go for in the $200 range.

[FujimiLover]

Thank you for that info. The MR2's body was same color as body kit add-ons so that's why I assumed full resin. Anyway, I've already successfully cut off the factory front bumper and am now in the process of putting the front bumper on. Please have a look at my thread Fujimi Veilsides CI Model in workbench thread. Later tonight or tomarrow morning I'll start filling in the gaps and be doing alot of filler, sanding, et'c.