I know Replikant make a few deflated wheels for the Schwimmwagen, but is there any similar set for the Kubelwagen out there?
I seem to remember someone else making a set for the Willys Jeep but for the Kubelwagen I can't find anything.



https://www.replikanttechnologies.com/gb/am-135-scale/21-schwimmwagen-deflated-rear-wheel.html

Thanks for any help!

That is weird that there are no sagged tires for the Kubelwagen other than a balloon tire in a Def Model Africa set. Lead Warrior makes a set of railroad track wheels which it would seem there might be less demand for than a flat tire.

Haven't been able to find anything... there are a couple of sets of different wheels from Def Model, also from Panzerart, and even a set of PE snow chains from Minor, but no deflated tires

If you have a regular vinyl tire, I have seen a technique for making flat tires that involves cutting a shallow but wide slice out of the tread, leaving the side walls intact. When you press it down on a heated surface the sidewalls flare out to make the tire look flat. I'd practice that on some spare tires to get a feel for how big a slice to remove to get the effect you want.

Thanks all for your input.




Interesting technique, I may give it a go. Thanks!

The heat-method can work but there’s no way back if it goes wrong. It’s not that difficult to sculpt it & I’d agree practice on a spares-box tyre first if you have one, as similar as possible to a Kubel one obviously so that if it goes well you can use it. Google a good photo-reference of a flat rather than imagination, get the rough shape puttied on & just patiently sand it down. Hard to go wrong if you take it slowly…

now THAT'S a blow-out!

Thanks! That is some very impressive work you have done there.

As noted above, model your flat from some photos (ideally of the same or very similar type of tire as you are working on), if it's realism that you seek.

The real challenge to a flat lies more in effectively representing how the tire details (emblemage, numbers, scrapes, tread patterns, damaged side-walls, etc.) wrap around the distorted carcass then in how to create the distorted carcass itself, IMHO.

The "detail-wrap" is usually best solved for by distorting an already-fully-detailed tire - such as reforming one of those vinyl or styrene kit tires with the heat treatment. Sculpting new details onto some un-detailed add-on material is always a difficult and time-consuming operation. While perhaps difficult and exacting to control, and yes, IF it goes wrong, your modded tire is trashed, heat-deformation is probably the best way to keep things like tread and label details equally crisp (or soft...) in the deformed section relative to untouched areas.

I have not tried this route yet, but it seems to me that one may be able to make a mold of one side of a kit tire and deform that mold (squash it down and out) to form the flat while that mold is still soft, and then cast a deformed tire using whatever medium one likes or has access to. This route may well nicely capture the tire detail, and effectively wrap that detail in the flat area...

Just my thoughts and suggestion on this matter.

Maybe those modeling modern wheeled vehicles with "run-flat" tires that generally don't do more then sag a little have chosen "wisely"!

Bob

Thanks Bob, food for thought.
I may go for the heated vinyl as step 1, then I'll see...

NICE Scratch building you have there