Hi, I am building the 50ton Tank transporter by Trumpeter and have 24 vinyl tires each with a nasty seam right down the middle of the tire. Any ideas on how to remove the seam?

Course sanding stick perhaps.




cheers

Yeah, what he said, but put them in the freezer first.

I run a razor blade perpendicular to the tire around it. This is done in the same way seam lines are removed from plastic.

R.L. I am finishing up Tamiya's Dragon Wagon and was faced with the same problem.I came up with a system that worked pretty well.Take a tire between your thumb and forefinger and squeeze it so that the sidewalls touch.Squeeze hard enough so that the tread portion of the tire bulges up and the seam is at the highest point of the bulge.Next,take an emory board and scrub the seam flash off.By pinching the tire you should be able to sand only the seam and not make flat spots on the tread.I found it worked best if I sanded with the tread and not across it.After I fine tuned a little bit I was able to do all the tires in about 10 minutes.Hope you find this clear and helpful Jeff

I absolutely second that, I've tried and it works!

Put your wheels in the freezer and wait overnight. Coldness will make the vinyl flashes so stiff that it will be incredibly easy removing them with a common #11 x-acto blade

Never tried the freezer trick, sure will next time.



cheers

I mounted the tires from the Tamiya Dragon Wagon on a sanding drum compression shaft and spun them on course sand paper in my Dremmel. It worked great and wore them down a bit to give them a used look.