Replikant Technologies presents two new references.
They are airless tyres that US army is checking for humvees.
To make them, we have developed our own production process, we call Resin Injection System -RIS-, which allows us to make copies nearly impossible so far, and with a full HD reproduction quality.
Take seat and see. Hope you like them!

https://www.replikanttechnologies.com

Very interesting.

Mario

In detail and real item

Were these tires ever in production? I've been browsing the net to find some more info on them and it seems little news have been published since 2008. I've seen Polaris and some other ATVs on this type of tire though.

Mario

PS Very impressive that you managed to achieve the honeycomb tire in 1/35 scale.

Interesting photo Jaime... I have never seen this type of tire before. And nice job on the resin model tires as well.

Hello Mario.
We have no news of this type of tire on operational Hummers in theaters of conflict.
However, it can be seen on the net, some civilian vehicles with the same tire (pickups). You can also find images with a similar tire in Polaris Quads, like you said, but not the same pattern tread, nor the same dimensions.
Thanks for your kind words, and we are proud of your recognition for this work. What was really very difficult to get reproduce of the honeycomb in the casting. As mentioned above, by traditional casting systems was completely impossible to reproduce it. After many attempts, and with a new resin formulation developed by our chemist friend Javier Sainz, we achieved by injecting resin into special molds, with a large percentage of perfect pieces.
There have been four very long and hard months of research and development to get here.
I leave you with another picture of detail on the other tread pattern.
Greetings.

Video of military testing at military.com website:

http://www.military.com/video/combat-vehicles/armored-personnel-carriers/humvee-airless-tire-test/1350719708001/



Production unit may still need some sort of sidewall just to keep the voids from filling with sand or caked mud affectively taking the "spring" out of the tire.

The rim with 12 nuts and large bolts is developed on traditional scracht techniques, and you can see the process in our Facebook page.
here is the picture album:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1547266072196346.1073741833.1408085986114356&type=1

Thanks Patrick for your kindy words.
Thanks Michael for the info. In you tube searching "airless tyre" it is posible to find this and mor videos.

These would definitely be a great focal point on any Humvee. Now that you mastered the resin casting process perhaps one day we would see Polaris tires as well... I know Live Resin has shown Polaris in their pipeline.

I do wonder about the process. I've heard of "dissapearing molds", perhaps this would be the solution for such complex resin pieces, but the price of the set would be insane.

Keep up the good work.

Mario

Also known as the "Honeycomb" tire. It appears the military is not all that interested in the product, cannot imagine why not!

I guess all is not lost for the manufacture of the Honeycomb tires as they apparently are finding civilian applications for the tire. Yesterday I saw one of those 4x4 high reach fork lift trucks that has a big arm that can put the load up on the 3rd or 4th floor when necessary. It had 4 Honeycomb Tires!

On a rough construction site regular tires could pick up 20 nails a day easily.

On a side note, French tire manufacturer Michelin has release their own version of the airless tire called Michelin X TWEEL :



Seems like it's not exactly a "new" idea



H.P.

Seems like an odd choice, can't see much of a market for these? Maybe sci-fi/what if I guess. But it is interesting technology, so the possibilities are there for future items.

Jim

Thank you all for your comments.
To Replikant Technologies, this work was conceived as a challenge due to the difficulty in reproducing the honeycomb, the long screws attached to the rim, and trademarks spiral screws (not smooth walls), to see where we were able to get in our commitment to provide the modeller the range of highest quality level. According to our company policy, we always show real images, we questioned this because in Facebook we have asked whether the images corresponded to 3D renders -so that the modeler can check exactly what they are buying.
I reiterate our thanks to all who are supporting us with their recognition, we will continue to work for you all with the same idea of quality and service.

These tires have a big "wow" effect and would turn a simple Humvee model into a show-stopper for sure. Besides, the technology behind these seems to be a real revolution in resin casting.

We're going to have the honeycomb tires reviewed on Armorama, so you will be able to see our verdict on these very soon.

Mario