I have a question on how to approach painting the wheels of a tank, specifically the M4 Sherman. I've seen magazine articles where the modeler assembles most of the tank, including attaching the wheels, before any painting is done. This make sense except that on my Sherman I have to paint the edges of the wheels (I guess that's rubber in real life) black. This seems like it will be difficult after it's assembled. Should I paint hose sections black, mask the black sections, and then do the overall olive drab? Any tips for me on this (seemingly basic) issue?

TIA . . . Kevin

Hi Kevin, welcome aboard!
You can both, left it to be painted separately or paint it in place, for both it´s just a matter of personal oppinion....
You can paint the roads overall black (or the colour you want to the rubber), after dry, you can use a circle template (you can find it on most craft stores), just chose the circle that matches the road and mask all the side templates, so you just paint through the template to the road...very easy!
I use both methods,just depends the type of the model you´re building...
Hope to help

Kevin, Sherman road wheels can be a bit challenging, huh? I leave mine free to rotate, and go ahead and assemble the Bogie Trucks to clean-up the seams. After painting the entire model, I go back and handpaint the rubber portions of the Road Wheels.

Gunnie

Another method that I use with great success is with using a fine tipped black marker. I airbrush the wheels black first, than carefully airbrush the wheel centers OD green. Of course I get a little overspray on the rubber part, which I easily fix with the marker. I've even had some success with "painting" the rubber part with the marker after painting it all OD green.





Hope this helps a bit.

FYI, here is my article on a Modeler's Toolbox. Page 3 shows the circle template, but this technique is difficult with the Sherman boogies. I paint them first and then touch them up after they are attached and the whole vehicle is painted.