Hi all, time for me to pick peoples collective brains over a small question I have about T-90 road wheels. Are these metal or do they have rubber tires? I guess they are all metal, but I'm not entirely sure.

I need to know as I am painting and weathering my tracks at the moment and I'm not sure if I should paint the inside of the tracks with black lines to represent the rubber deposits left on the treads by the wheels (like as is the case with T-55's for example).

Any tips or feedback would be great, George or Jacques I guess you would be the experts on this sort of thing

I'm not an expert, but I know that the T-90 has rubber-rimmed wheels, you can use late T-72 wheels (6 spoke wheels, early T-72 wheels has 8 spokes). Miniarm has a set of late T-72 wheels for Tamiya kit. I think the late T-90 tracks have rubber pads in the inner side. Best regards.

José.

Don't worry about that as even rubber "tires" don't let deposits. In fact they act as a polishing agent and the tracks are really shiny where the tread is in contact.

Anyway, they have rubber.

Olivier

Jose thanks, yes I have the Miniarm wheel set already.

Olivier thanks for your feedback too, actually I've always wondered about that. I've seen a few articles in magazines that have shown darker marks for rubber deposits, I've often thought if that was actually applicable though as it seemed a bit odd to me. A polishing effect makes sense and sounds about right.

What would you suggest to represent that? What do people usually use to represent marked out areas on truck wind screens? I've seen that a few times where dust build up and "cleared" areas have been marked out with masking tape, but I'm not sure what product is used to represent the dust etc. and give the polished effect.

what I usually do with tracks is paint them in a dark colour first and then i give them a light spray with a muddy looking colour, depending on what kind of surface I want to display the tank. The polished areas are painted with Valleyo metallic colours. A dark metal coat first and some highlights with a lighter colour. I apply unthinned paint in a sort drybrushing action. I have a steady hand so I don't mask anything. When finished I apply a coat of dry pigments. Then I make those wet with some white spirit. I make sure not to touch the pigment powder, I let the capiliary action (is this correct English??) do it's work. when I see there is too much pigment on the bare metal areas, I brush them of with a small stiff brush

For T-72 I always use Friul so I skip the metal paint part. Unfortunately Friul does not make the more modern T-90 tracks.

Thanks Mat, yeah its a shame Fruil dont do T-90 tracks. I plan to do the metallic look with graphite.