Making the best of transparent "wire wheels"

[Matt Bacon]

I have two of the old Merit 1/24 racers in Smer boxes - the Talbot Lago and Alfa Romeo Alfetta. Instead of wire wheel spokes, they have disks of transparent plastic with spokes engraved on. The rear of the wheels are solid disks which the spokes sit in front of, which is correct for the original full size vehicles. Because these kits are being built for a display at Scale Model World, where we're trying to show what you can achieve with "classic kits", I'd like to build them as "out of the box" as possible, which means replacing the wheels with Herb Deeks etched wire Borranis is not an option, although they look pretty good in the build-ups I've seen!

My first thought is to thin and polish the back of the disks as much as possible and draw on the spokes witha Gundam marker; I'm wondering whether to matt down the front surface to prevent reflections between the spokes. But I haven't really got a clue. Has anyone made a convincing effect with transparent plastic "wire" wheels an wants to tell me how they did it? Or anyone got any other bright ideas to experiment with?

best regards,

Matt

[sjordan2]

I once built a Mercedes racer that had those kind of wheels and I could never figure out how to make them look realistic. The Talbot is a pretty nice kit that is tremendously enhanced by using the Herb Deeks wheels. You may have already seen how they look at this build description:

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal1/501-600/gal558_Talbot_Dalton/00.shtm

[tabsscale1]

Make you own wire wheels and they will look the best !! Here is a link to making some for a dragster , but the concept would be the same!

http://www.straightlinemodeler.org/wirewheels.htm

[warra48]

I'm currently building the SMER Talbot Lago kit.

Here's my build of the SMER Alfa Romeo 159.

I relaced the wheels, using fishing line, and sprayed it with Alclad Polished Aluminium.

Here's a shot of a relaced wheel from the Revell MG TC model. It's not been airbrushed yet. The lacing pattern is prototypically correct.

Edited April 20, 2011 by warra48

[DanielG]

My two cents; I would go with 'what you can achieve' and ditch the plastic and do some kind of wire-spoke job.

[sjordan2]

If you're willing to fudge a bit on the "out of the box" part, there's a new thread in the General section where Jim Gibbons mentioned that Herb Deeks photoetched wires for 1/24-1/25 wheels are available on eBay. I can't tell for sure, but it looks to me like you remove the wire spokes from the rims on the original wheel and put these on, which means you would only replace the clear spoke part. For a Buy It Now of $18, it seems worth it to me – especially when you consider that complete Borrani kits with rims and hubs from Hiroboy cost almost 3 times that.

Here's the link that Jim provided:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Wire-Wheel-trans-kit-1-25-24-1-32-photo-etch-Borrani-/400147732745?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d2aa9d909

Edited April 20, 2011 by sjordan2

[old gearhead]

Yep, 4# test fishing line is what I use. Photo-etch is faster, but my kid's college tuitions and $4.30-a-gallon gas means reliance on old skills these days. And, you get round spokes rather than flat.

In most cases, my method is relatively fast (everything is "eye-balled" rather than jigged and measured) and yields a reasonably accurate and robust wheel. If I can find an ounce of time between working/travelling and keeping my high-mileage 1/1s on the road these days, I'll try to KO and post a quick tutorial.

PB.