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Standardize Wheel Attachment


  

73 members have voted

  1. 1. Standardize wheel attachments ?

    • Yes
      38
    • No
      9
    • I like doughnuts
      26


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I would like to see there be a standardized wheel attachment across all the model companys world wide , my vote would be for polycaps , its of my opinion that its the best method for attaching wheels , and I would love to see the Big two US companys switch over to that.

And while we are at it, do same with the wheels whenever possible , no more paddle style wheels , those are just a PITRE.

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If you wanted your model to "roll" freely... I could see this being a good point... however, they sit on a shelf... I am past the point of playing w/ them lol... so zap-a-gap is my best friend when making wheels and tires fit right regardless of where they came from.

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Hmmm, even in the real car world, there isn't any such thing as a standard wheel mounting setup--if nothing else, think of 3-lug (yup, there have been cars made with just three lug bolts per wheel), 4-6-even 8-lug attachment. In the world of knock off spinner hubcaps and their hexagonal shaped predecessors, many, many variations as to how the wheel mounts, from varying numbers of splines in a hub and its corresponding wheel, to numerous layouts of pin drive..

If one thinks about it, adapting different wheels with their different mounting systems, as found in kits made by diffferent, competing model kit makers, just isn't that hard to do.

As for "paddle blades" for locating model kit tires on wheels, I rather like that, although I was quite unsure after being taken aback by the first time I saw that setup in a model kit. I see that system in this way: The old, traditional way of creating a wheel rim with at least a lip on the outside, and carried further in more recent years by the introduction of two-piece wheel rims in model kits clearly leads to wheels having the bead of their rims appearing as thick as 1/2" in scale (.5mm or .020"--take your pic, due to the limitations of injection molding, and a need to have a wheel rim bead that will withstand handling and assembly without simply evaporating (the bead on a steel wheel rim is seldom more than 1/8" thick in the real world, which scales down to just 5-thousandths of an inch in 1/25 scale. "Paddle Wheel" locators, even a raised rib around the circumference of a model kit wheel (something that diecast manufacturers figured out years ago BTW) makes for very positive location of a tire on a wheel, and if the wheel was tooled correctly, can leave a much more scale appearing bead to show--AND eliminates the possibility of a two piece, split wheel, coming apart down the road in the assembly process.

Art

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If you wanted your model to "roll" freely... I could see this being a good point... however, they sit on a shelf... I am past the point of playing w/ them lol... so zap-a-gap is my best friend when making wheels and tires fit right regardless of where they came from.

Its not about playing them, not ever sure where that came from. polycaps dont really allow them roll around, there are a few a that might , but its a rarity that they do.

Edited by martinfan5
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I voted no, but most cars I build are Revell/Monogram/AMT types so maybe I don't see the need. Heck, I still miss metal axles. :D

Got to ask, what is a paddle blade?

Thanks,

Russ

And thats my point, I would like to see Revell /AMT/Moeibus switch over to polycaps.

Paddle wheels look like a steam boat paddle wheel.

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I dunno, I can make anything fit on anything! I am a model builder

I have a Dremel , therefore I RULE the wheel-mounting Galaxy.

Awesome, so I am , but I could find better use of that time elsewhere , and not have to break out the power tools just to swap out a set of wheels, but to each their own, whatever makes you happy ;)

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Getting all kit manufacturers worldwide to offer the same identical wheel attachment system is about as likely as getting all the world's automakers to offer the same exact dash layout.

In other words... ain't gonna happen. Not no way, not no how. ;)

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Even among the Japanese companies that use poly caps there really isn't any standardization. Some mount them to inside of the wheel, some to the outside. Other have the caps mounted in the spindles instead of the wheels. I have also seen a few, one Fujimi and one Tamiya, that used poly caps and a metal axle

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I too, like doughnuts, but regarding the topic at hand- yes, I'd love to see some type of universal wheel mounting setup, or at least something in the same ball park. But like Bill said, even among the Japanese kits they aren't really standard. Two kits may both use wheels which attach via polycaps, but even then, they'd differ just enough that swapping wheels from one kit to the other wouldn't be a simple "substitute B for A" kind of thing.

For now, though, I'll just keep an arsenal of plastic tubing and rod ready for just such occasions... not to mention all those MRC wheel adapters I've managed to hoard over the years. :rolleyes:

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