Fabricating/replicating a wheel and changing decal colors?!

[Joe Handley]

I have two questions related to my 1/20 Lindberg ZJ project, one of the wheels and the other is the decals for the badging.

The wheel is probably a bigger issue since the kit wheels look nothing like the wheels my ZJ had. The first pic is what mine had on it while the second is the wheel design that came with both the glue and snap kits (as well as the XJ Cherokee I used to own, oddly enough).

 

I’m thinking that I may be able to use my Cricut machine to cut out the shapes out of sheet styrene and stack them to make that design turn either make all 4 that way or make 1 and cast it in Alumilite to get the 4 I would need.

 

The other problem is badging, the Limited’s had their Jeep, Grand Cherokee, and 4x4 badges gold plated instead of chromed and since these kits were only sold the Limited, that’s the only type of decal that was in the kits. I’d there a way to use a program like the Testors decal maker to take a scan or pic of these decals then change them over to a more silver finish? 

The rest of the decals aren’t a problem as I intend to paint the strips in the bumpers and side molding black vs gold and only really need the instrument cluster decal for the interior out of the rest of those. IIRC, mine also has a red and white or silver pin stripes running just below the upper character line instead of the two parallel gold stripes, but I may be able to use gel pens for those.

 

Any suggestions on the above would be appreciated!

[Mark]

Can't help with the decals, but as for the wheels I would definitely make one master in order to cast as many good ones as you need.

[FredRPG]

If you scan the decals in greyscale instead of color they may look close enough to chrome, possibly even more so with a touch of transparent blue.

[peteski]

Alps printers can print satin silver and also chrome-like silver foil.  The letters look like one of the standard typefaces (font), so they could likely be easily reproduced.

Edited December 21, 2022 by peteski