I tried the process of airbrushing the black rubber on the road wheels for Tigers/Panthers etc and then using a circle stencil template (art stores) to paint the center of the wheel. The templates I could locate and purchase all the circles are way too small or way too big.

Any ideas or advice?

Hi Michael!
One of our members(Angela I believe) has had some success painting the rim first, then filling the center with Blu-Tac putty while painting the rubber portion. Looked good to me when I saw the results...

I've painted my road wheels several ways. I usually paint the wheels the color I want the center to be first. On a couple of vehicles I have built I was able to use washers that fit the center of the wheel to mask them. (I put a small piece of tape over the center of the hole of the washer.) On some of them I have put different types of putty in the center to mask them. I once used silly putty which is cheap, $1.00 at the 'Dollar Store'. On another one I used some small circle price stickers to cover the center. On all of these after covering the center I sprayed the outer edge of the wheel black.

On a couple of the tanks I've done, I painted the wheels and attatched them to the tank. I then put some Fold Art Brand black artist's pigment (Purchased at Wal-Mart, for $0.88) on a couple of folded paper towels. I spread it fairly thin. I then roll the tank in the paint. I let it dry then go back and touch up the black near the edge of the "metal" part of the wheel.

I've used the circle templates also, and that works pretty good. Like you said the hard part is finding one that the holes match up with your wheels.

I make my own circle templates the size I need them for the particular road wheel. I simply put a thin bead of paint around the rim of the road wheel and stamp it onto some 0.30 plastic sheet. I use this as my cutting template. I cut the inside circle out, a little shy of the paint circle to allow for smearing, etc. I them use a piece of sand paper around a wooden dowl to round the hole out till it fits snugly around the rim of the road wheel. I then use it to spray the metal rim through. After a while, you have quite the set of road wheel templates, custom made for each vehicle type.

I did the same thing you did, went out and bought the circle templets, and then found most of what I had to paint did not match up to well.

I bought a circle cutter from Michaels or Micro Mark. It is like a drafting compass with an exacto blade on the pencil end. Now I measure the exact size of the hole and cut my own templet. Works good.

John

Thanks so much to all of you, these are really good tips. Sometimes I feel stupid asking these types of questions but I am new to Armor modelling. I have been building models for 20 years but always was into aircraft.

I have never had more fun and enjoyment building armor kits. But at the same time so much frustration in paint colors, aircraft was so easy, just buy the FS color and paint, armor, so much mixing colors.

What I did was something like this:

1) I had each roadwheel on a matchstick for spraying the base color. I used a plastic-foam thing to hold them up.

2) After airbrushing I took the matches off and used them as an axis to rotate or even 'drive' the wheels in a puddle of paint. This worked well for some wheels and not so well for others. Needs a steady hand and a consistent amount of paint

3) In the end I had to touch up some of the rubber strips with a brush but that wasn't so hard because the wheels were still in the ends of the matchsticks

You can see the arrangement here in the background (see the blue foam):



Hope that helps.

how i paint my road wheels
i tape them on a pice of wood.
then i spray paint the middel.
then i would hand paint the black rubber

Hey Mike welcome aboard, nice to have you on. Here's another way of painting those road wheels.
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/41174&page=1

Enjoy your stay

I handpaint without any mask what so ever.

It requires a very steady hand yes

Oh, the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask.

hth,

Richard 'Snowhand' Renes

I find for me personally I just hand paint. So far it works great but I am sure when my hands arn't so steady and my eyesight gets poor I will have to try one of the above tips.

So far so good though.

Great tips guys. I will have to remember some of them.

I hand paint mine too. I use two different techniques that usually end up mixing together. I usually take a disposible brush (essentially a small piece of pipe cleaner, minus the wire, on a stick of plastic) and , pressing the tip against the raised part of the rim and tread, I rotate the wheel around, using the raised portion as a guide for the brush. This gives me a nice circle that outlines the rubber. I'll then paint in the rest of the rubber tread and then paint the rim.

The second technique is just old fashioned fine tip brush and a steady hand. The mixing of the two techniques comes when some of the paint "spills" over onto the 'rubber' area from the rim or vice versa.

Jeff