Hello everyone,

I'm getting close to fitting the wheels and tyres to my M1000 trailer from Hobby Boss.(See my build thread on this site). It has no less than 42 Vinyl tyres!!

I'm pretty new to AFV stuff, so am wondering if there any tricks you know of to make the glossy tyres look more realistic. I just want to flatten down the gloss and take away the "Blackness" a bit. I'm guessing acrylic paints will just flake off in time, so what do you do??

I am aware that Real model are due to release a set of resin wheels for the trailer, but, to be honest, I've put so much work into getting the wheels to look right, I want to use these horrible vinyl things!!

All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Nige

Nigel;

Hi!

Hobby Boss vinyl tires... Hey! I'm right with you - got me some of these things going onto a build, too But I only have 4 of them to fuss about (one of those HB German armored car kits)! 42 of the darned things... yikes! (sorry! ).

I think that the newer Hobby Boss items may be more stable and OK over time than maybe older items, such as some old vinyl tracks and tires which rotted kits and shed paint over the years. No data to substantiate this, but...

From this, here's what I do and suggest: first wash them well in warm, soapy water, and maybe follow up with an alcohol bath - get any oils and grease and mold-release agents off them. Make sure they are completely dry. Spray them with some good enamel paint - I use Floquil RR enamels, but others would be fine, I'm sure. This will give you your "right color and flat finish" (I use a "weathered black" color, which is really a dark gray, to get what I think is a better rubber color, but that's just my opinion). I actually use a light spray coat of really thinned enamel - not a solid coat. This leaves some variation and shading on the tire, and allows you to tinker a little with the finish - glossy to flat. The enamel should adhere well to a clean tire - you are not going to be flexing it, so it should not just flake off. After my enamel dries, I go on and "wash" my tire with some well-thinned acrylic dusty and earth colors, for the dust effect, and end with dusting on some pastel chalks to complete the weathering.

I also suggest doing the "base" enamel painting off the mounts, mount them, touch up IF there really appears to have been some paint-loss (probably none, but...), wash and dust them in-place.

Cheers!

Bob

I wonder why they still continue to produce such awful vinyl tyres

Anyway, if i were you I'd make some resin copies

Thanks for your tips there Bob. Most useful!!

I wonder if I use cellulose thinners with the enamel paint, will that give a better bond?? I think i'll try it out.

The tyres seem really nice to me?



And yes, there are a lot of em!!



Thanks again Bob, these are off to the sink now.

Nige

Hi,

I always use Tamiya Nato Black XF-69. It is called an acrylic but it is actually not. It is flexible, durable and will not flake. It also is not 100% black so it looks more realistic that a normal black paint IMHO. I've got models covered in this paint on my shelf for over 10 years and they all are still okay.

Mat

Thanks Mat,

Do you use acrylic thinner or cellulose with it?

Nige

Just sand them with a nail file, this will remove the glossy look and tone down the black color. I have done this on a number of kits before and never had any trouble except that this is a bit tedious.

Olivier

Steel wool will also flatten the gloss.


cheers

I always use their normal acrylic thinner with their acrylic paint range and that works perfect, although I heard Tamiya's lacquer thinner (the bottle with the yellow cap, not the blue cap that one is for enamel paint) is even better with their acrylics. So if you have any of those two you'll be okay

With such a large amount of tyres, you can shove them all together on a long stick or pencil like you are going to BBQ them, it saves a lot of time when airbrushing. I used this trick on the trailer of my Faun

I do this aswell. You might also consider using weathering pigments to get the right look, applying the pigments dry and then rubbing the excess off with a finger can be very effective. Some drybrushing with a dark rubber color can also work nicely.

If everything fails, you can still use them for a dio :



Frenchy

I have always found that whenever I painted them regardless of which paint I used the tires dried out, Cracked, went to dust or otherwise generally rendered them pretty useless eventually. Maybe they used other rubber since I had it mostly with older kits. Nowadays I only threat them with dry pigments. It makes the nice matt, slightly dusty looking and as far as I can tell the rubber is not affected in any way.

I've had tyre rot probs with the original Tamiya LRDG chevvy, painted with enamels & enamel thinner, seemed to melt them!

Paint the inside of the rims, to provide a barrier just to be on the safe side, such as acrylic paint, or Future.

You could then assemble the tyre & painted wheel, & spray with future that has 10% XF22(?) matting agent to give a flat finish, then filth up with filters, pigments, chalks, etc....

I can't recommend Tamiya paint for vinyl tires. I tried used Tamiya brand thinner, and Laquer thinner, and the paint could not stand any sort of flexing. Granted, these trumpeter tires may take paint differently than your HB ones. I would go with enamel and paint them only after the hubs are in place to minimize flex.

Your best bet is to replace them. Period.

You've got too much sunk into that great kit to risk lousy tires flaking paint....

LMAO!!!

Nige

I use steel wool and rub the tires. It's quick and provides a great surface for pigments.

If you don't plan on using them for your M1000, you could scratch yourself an MLRS resupply trailer. They look about the right size.

I don't really paint them, I just apply a thin acrylic wash. I then apply a good quality pastel dust which flattens the finish and also adds the right amount of weathering.

Like so:





I first run a thinned mud coloured wash into the treads, followed by the pastel dust and then a water-dampened cotton bud or my finger to rub some of the dust off for highlight. A dry one works well too, it just doesn't take off as much.

cheers
Bob

Hi guys,

Personally i always use Mig pigments nr.P 414 track brown.
Works perfectly for my, i've used several times on Trumpeter's Strykers !

Gé

Agree with cleaning and then sanding. I use a scotch guard pad to give the tire a bit of edge wear and lightly scratch up the side wall. After sanding I uses a bit of mineral Spirits to final clean.

Rounds Complete!!

Thanks for all your helpful tips and advice!! I discovered after washing the tyres they became a nice matt grey rubber colour, so that was a result!!

I had some pro-modeller Sand Pigment lying around, so I thought I'd try brushing that into the wheels and tyres.



I'm not at all happy with the result. These are the inner set of wheels, so I'm free to experiment with these.

Please advise what is wrong, and what should be my next steps.

Regards

Nige

Well, I think you have a really good start here and so far what you have looks fine. This is a first step though and there's usually more to come when weathering is concerned. After you finish the assembly, painting, weathering and any other paint/pigmnet effects you're going to use, additional pigment weathering to the wheels, tires and remainder of the underside of the chassis will further enhance the look and everything should work out for you.

Keep going, I think you're on the right track.


Bob