If you want to try plain thin-and-cheap-as-you-can-get kitchen foil, then all you need is a bottle of Microscale glue for aluminum foil.


Costs less than 4 bucks a bottle and will do many, many models before it runs out. To burnish the foil down to the bare plastic you can use q-tip, wooden coffee stirrer, or a toothpick for fine areas.

Works for entire models, too:


Gaz

I was talking about an alternative usable in this specific situation. I didn't mean you could replace Bare Metal with aluminium tape in other contexts...

H.P.

Nice Idea but "Casting the tyre in place around the rim" pouring resin round styrene will damage the styrene with a heat or chemical reaction.

If you are casting anyway, assemble styrene rim with 'rubber' tyre as one unit & cast that!

Could be. I would still like to try and see what happens.
If I cast the whole thing I will have some spare styrene rims left over for experimentation

Miniart's (and other's) tire slices are not foolproof, in fact they require quite a bit of effort to get to what I consider to be an acceptable level of fit. (*) Considering how many people complain that anything more complicated that a 1971 Tamiya kit is "fiddly", I can see the manufacturer's reluctance to include them.

For a 4 or 6 wheel vehicle they need what amounts to an entire sprue and the associated mold cutting. So that in itself raises the price of kits.

(*) That is to say, presentable without "slapping some mud on it and no one will know."

KL

Miniart planned a whole series of vehicles using the same wheels so the extra cost for those sprues could be spread out over several kits.
/ Robin

Sure, if the economics of obtaining the cash for initial cost would allow it.

. . . And I say this while fully acknowledging that we modelers like to make all sorts of declarations about how these little (in scheme of business) model companies spend their money, run their finances, control their cash flow, etc., but the reality is we don't know dick-squat about any of them, and given that most are in foreign economic systems and countries to our own, any experience we may have from our own lives has almost no value.

KL

Actually, Kurt, while you are indeed, in a semantic and literally-precise way, correct, I am sure, when you say we don't know squat about these model-mfgr companies, we actually DO know a LOT of salient facts about some of them - and about MA in particular.

We KNOW that this rather newer company has brought out a LOT of really well-done and sometimes very parts-rich and complex kits within a rather short period of time. That means that they have either designed and built a LOT of new molds within that short time, or designed a lot of new molds and paid someone else to actually build them, or paid someone else to both design and build them.

Whichever option one likes, it is pretty obvious that they have had enough working funding to complete that effort to date - whether from their own pocket or from investors or lenders... and to actually continue on their path of new kit releases. And IF the funding does come from others, MA have been pretty successful at convincing those others that they and their current and anticipated kit-releases are actually VIABLE. Given the continuing stream of new and complex kits from MA, it seems quite likely that they really have continued to impress and assure any lenders and investors that their support is not some wild-eyed speculative gamble - as the funding stream evidently continues and apparently remains in place for at least some future. Funding a few kits and seeing what happens would be the prudent thing for lenders and investors to do. Continued support would mean either that MA has adequately impressed same of their viability in fact, OR that MA is a pretty good set of con-men (and the lenders and investors gullible fools. Admittedly, all of which is possible...). That we don't actually KNOW about - but the kits are coming out, so there MUST be some continued funding somehow.
And how costly are mold sets now-a-days? It has become much less expensive as computer-controlled laser machining has matured. Which may well have a lot to do with the huge stream of new kits we have been seeing of late.

And we KNOW that kit molds, while perhaps collectively pretty expensive, are composed of many sprues / runners. And one new sprue or runner is really just a tiny piece of the total out-lay MA has evidently already paid out, given the many kits and many, many sprues already done.

So creating a few tire mold sprues won't realistically break their bank. And the less so if the tire mold can serve multiple kits / subjects.

Just a thought.

Personally, I like the multiple-slice styrene tires put out by MA and by Dragon, and perhaps some others.

Cheers! Bob

I Guys, Thanks for the warning. I have just gone through the stash and the only Takom kit I have is the M9 ACE which thankfully is all plastic.

Would you happen to have any Dragon kits with their DS-material in tracks or wheels? You may want to check those as well ....

I went through all my Dragon kits and pulled out all of the DS track and the Saladin tires and put them together in one spot. I replaced the tires with resin and some of the track with Friules.
So far all of the DS tracks are still good.

The only tires I've seen go bad are Revell fire truck tires (Unimogs and those huge airport trucks) from the 1990's. Greasy, brittle and falling apart - and that's NOT from the paint as they did it in the unopened parts bags.

Takom's AML 60/90...as an example of bad vinyl.

The three kits I have of Takom's AML series: two AML 90's and one AML 60, all have had the rubber/vinyl tires eat their way through the zip lock style bag they come in, and have 'invaded' a few parts/sprues by 'melting' themselves in to the plastic. All three kits will have parts to fill and sand right out of the gate, even before they are cut away from the sprue. After all these months, anywhere the tire touch other plastic, it has chemically affected the areas to the point where the plastic has forever been softened. A damn near complete refinish, or rebuild, of parts is not how I want to start building a kit.

Needless to say, but I will anyway, those rubber/vinyl tires found their way into the trash heap. Other than that, the AML kits are nice!

Do yourself a favor...immediately get the resin replacement wheel/tire...there are plenty of aftermarket folks looking out for the AML.

The real con-men are the guys still selling this substandard melting vinyl for model parts after decades of experience among the manufacturers.

My melting Italeri kit tires were from the 1970s. Italeri has since fixed the material. Airfix had a huge problem with this in the 1970s too.

But now in the 21st century with so many car models with vinyl tires that doesn't melt or react?

There's this huge market of car models all with vinyl tires that don't melt or react. How do companies keep falling for this reactive material?