8 replies to this topic

[hooknladderno1]

Hi Guys,
There has been some discussion about performing "tire surgery" in the "Resin" section. It made me think of this great tutorial posted by master German modeler Klaus over on another site. His work makes scratchbuilding look easy! His techniques provide simple ways for anyone to do this "surgery". Below is his tutorial on narrowing and then rejoining a tire to fit your needs. Hope this is helpful to you.


David



by truckin24 on Fri May 28, 2010 3:31 pm
Hello modellers,

Are you interested to see how you can build wide tires by yourself ? O.K. let’s go. I try to explain with my simple words how you can do it. First of all we need a very sharp tool.
A razor blade ! Well known the Wilkinson blades.








The Diecast truck models made by Revell were produced more than 15 years ago and for all truck modellers well known. Down in my basement I found two of these old models and I thought to myself I change the tires. The diameters of these tires are the same as the tires in the Italeri kits. Years ago Italeri has replaced the terrible plastic shells through new rubber tires. The tread pattern of the these tires has a fine structure and is fitted for the wheels on front axles.





Solid rubber, 11 mm wide, diameter 43,5 mm. Made in China and shall get the double wide.





What we need is a special tool. It’s impossible the drill or to mill the tire. At first we need three sheets made of PS, two sheets are 1,5 mm thick and one is 1,0 mm thick. The size of the three sheets is 40 x 60 mm.





We glue together these three sheets and we get a plate with a thickness of 4 mm. As next we put a piece of a double faced adhesive tape on this plate, see photo.





Very careful we put down the razor blade on the tape and press it a little.





With a PS-sheet we cover the blade. Be careful you have only two thumbs and the most of us still eight fingers.





And now the tool is finished. Slowly and under lightly pressure we turn the tool around the tire and the cut will be deeper and deeper.

Edited by hooknladderno1, 04 March 2012 - 06:35 PM.

[hooknladderno1]

After some turns the blade is not more to see and the tire is cut in two pieces. With the number of sheets, 0,5 mm, 1,0 mm or 1,5 mm you can decide the high of the cut.





Now the large tire half is 7 mm thick and thin half is 4 mm thick, together 11 mm.





The slowly the cut the better and cleaner is the cut surface.





It works only with this rubber sort to glue the two tire half’s with the Revell cement. A little cement on both tire half, press together and ready. Please use a rim to find the right position
of the surface.





And now the tire has the double wide, exactly 14 mm. For this new tire we need also a wider rim, it means we have to make a small extra ring for rim.





14 mm wide and the cut is not to see. Perfect tires for the all front axles.

And now you should test it by yourself ! be careful !

Klaus

[Chris M]

Nifty trick with the blade "jig." I'll definitely add that to my arsenal!

[A.R.C.]

Very cool! Thanks.
I`ll definitely use this trick in the future

[Danno]

Neat.

[Casey]

That's a good trick for cutting the tire, but the catch is going to be where you position the cut, and what the tread pattern looks like on the tire. The cut has to be made between tread blocks or straight through tread blocks in order for the cut to not be noticeable.

Call me Thomas, but this method doesn't address the issue of matching up the detailed tread blocks on each tire half, which is a reality for most post-'70s radials.

[hooknladderno1]

^{Hi Casey,
This posting was not meant to be "the be all/end all" method, but for those looking for a solution, in the right situation it might be helpful... Seemed like a creative solution...}

Edited by hooknladderno1, 06 March 2012 - 07:55 PM.

[Art Laski]

I'm in the middle of scratching some tires for a long-term project, so this will work great for part of the process (with some adjustment for my specific situation.) Thanks for sharing!

-Art

[Modlbldr]

I've got a buddy who does this using a similar method and the results always turn out beautiful. Some day I'll have to give this a shot. Don't forget to sand those treads for a used look.

Later-