Scratch built tires

[Lownslow]

anyone try it, i mainly want to make strech walls since finding them is impossible, a steady source would be nice as im making a few kits with those tires and stretching the wheels using GTIs deep dish wheel trick

[7th_skyline]

Cast them in Resin? Its the only way I can think of but I guess (don't know much about resin) it would kill the "stretchability" of them for using them with various rim diameters....

[exhaust smoke]

Chris at Scale Auto Style has made some, as he sells a set of tyres at SAS.

[Khier]

There is a special resin for tires. It is supposed to be soft and flexible. I do not know however how good it is. One thing is sure, it is not cheap. The modelhaus offers a wide varity of resin tires. Try to check their collection before you start inventing.

[mike@af]

I'll be scratch building my tires for the street rod with a unique tread pattern. The masters will be built out of styrene, brass, resin, and a little putty. Then I will cast them in rubber.

So it can be done it just takes a lot of time. Especially if you decide to do asymmetrical big and littles like me (yes, I like to over complicate things ).

[Jay!]

Somewhere in the depths of AF there's a thread w/ a link to a guy's page about fully scratchbuilding an F1 car. It's all in an asian language, but for the tires, he used some type of self-sealing plumber's tape. He wound it around a dowel of the same diameter as the wheel, and the tape fused to itself at each layer to become a "solid" "rubber" donut of a tire. In further steps, there was quite a bit of clean up, and he etched grooves into the contact surfaces by hand. Since they were F1 tires, the tread pattern was simple.

Wow, that wasn't much help, was it? You might have an easier time finding the impossible-to-find stretch-wall sets!

[Lownslow]

plumbers tape ey my brother suggested O rings for the tire seal them with black tape and just make a sidewall from a flat rubber seal

[mike@af]

Originally Posted by Lownslow

plumbers tape ey my brother suggested O rings for the tire seal them with black tape and just make a sidewall from a flat rubber seal

The method just depends on how realistic you want to be about it.

You can do the basics with PVC. On the other hand you can go super realistic, machine a tread pattern master to fit a tire blank machined on a lathe, with photoetched sidewall detail, to create the master, then cast in rubber.

It can be done with out machine tools and photoetch too and just use styrene, which would achieve a decently realistic representation of tires in 1/24.

[Lownslow]

how would i go about stacking the styrene on the rim the aoshimas and fujimis have that goofy taper towards the back

[nugundam93]

i just thought...what if you make a sort of resin master for the tire, then wrap clay or something around it...and use RTV rubber (of course, tinted black) for the tire itself?

or something like that.

[Lownslow]

Originally Posted by nugundam93

i just thought...what if you make a sort of resin master for the tire, then wrap clay or something around it...and use RTV rubber (of course, tinted black) for the tire itself?

or something like that.

i thought about that but i have neither. the o rings look satisfactory to me

[nugundam93]

i'll try to do scratchbuilt tires too...

[Lownslow]

found my source cheap and i just machine the sidewalls with the dremel i can go as steep as i want and i can get them in 2 sizes
19s


or a bundle for 6.99

[slownlow32tl]

Couldnt you use epoxy putty on a cylinder or the wheel and the spin it on a dremel on some fixed sand paper block to get an even diameter. Then go back and create the tread with either a small dremel bit or by hand with a knife or what have you. Then mask and paint. ???

[Lownslow]

i just used a bunch of washers on the wheel and bolted it to the dremel looks alright to me ill post pictures later