hi
i’ve been building and M1 Abrams and i’ve wondered what is the best way to paint the road wheels…should i air brush em…or should i do it with a normal brush.
If you air brush them, you will need to mask them real good. They sell pre-cut vinyl masks for some tanks road wheels. Check cutting edge or Eduard for the Abrams. A small brush and a steady hand work too. Mount the wheel on a tooth pick for easy handling. Another way (the way I use) is I use a fine tip felt tip marker and trace around the hub a few times. Then I go back with one of those thick black markers and do the rest of the rubber. When you are done, you can drybrush a little dark gray on. The key is to spray them with a flat coat (I use acrylic flat). It kills the shine and irridecent look completely leaving it a dull black. Finally spray a little dust coat on to make them look dusty (I use Tamiya Buff)
Here is the Abrams I did using the marker method
http://jasonwest7529.fotopic.net/c441259.html
The method that I use is to paint the entire road wheel black first. Next get hold of a circle template. Art and office supply stores carry them. They are a plastic sheet with different sized holes per-cut. Or you can make your own out of styrene for the roadwheel you are painting. Find the template that fits the wheel rim, covering up the outer rubber portion. Place it over the wheel and airbrush the color of the rim through it. Works great and is quick. You may need to touch up a few places that the paint gets under the template if sprayed too heavily.
Good luck.
I just finished mine, i used a brush for the entire thing. I used my light (marines gulf sand) color first, painted every wheel… (nothing assembled yet) and then i used black with a VERY fine brush.
ALOT of work, takes patience. Good luck
thanx guys…all good suggestions…i’ll have to put them to use!!
I’ve used both masking and brush painting, and both methods work well. When brush painting, it is advantageous to paint with a different kind of paint than the base coat. So if the wheels are painted with enamel, paint the rubber with acrylic so you won’t be dissolving the underlying paint as you carefully paint up to the rim. Regardless of the method used, it is often very handy to leave the wheels attached to the sprue for easy holding while painting. You then just have to do a minor bit of touch up after cutting them free.
Rocker,
Use HeavyArty’s idea of a circle template. Don’t color the whole wheel black. Just paint the rubber outer edges, if you get runoff, don’t worry. The circle template will act as a mask and give you a perfect paint job. Try it, its the easiest and best way to paint road wheels.
TigerII
There are many ideas that everyone have given you. I say try them all and find what works for you. Bryan
This is what I do too.
If you don’t already have a template, might not be a bad idea to bring a wheel to the art supply store to make sure you get the right template – they usually have several kinds. I actually have two templates – an imperial-measure one (inches) and metric (mm) – together this should get you every circle under the sun.
I put masking tape all over the template except the one hole I need, so that the paint does not obscure the markings on the template and so the paint does not go through the holes and yuck up my hands, or the tire part of the wheel.
I just put the dark grey or black on the tires with a rattle can.
Say, M1 guys, is it better to use black or dark grey for the tires? This is a question I will need to address soon. I’ll be painting around 32 wheels all in one sitting!
Larry, I do it the same way you do. I leave the wheels on the sprue as well. I paint all my road wheels with flat black. Once I weather them, they get the more used look and the black appears faded.
Interesting – do you touch up once the wheels come off the sprue? I usually assemble them, but then it’s a pain to paint them.
Thanks. I’ll do that too then.
Yup, just touch up where the sprue attachment points were. Pretty easy. I find it much easier to paint them on the sprues.
Here’s a tip to consider also… M1 roadwheels have a clear plastic hub to inspect oil levels in each one, but most kits have the roadwheel hub molded the same color as the rest of the kit; For more realism, you could tirm the hub off flush with the roadwheel, and use successive layers of Testor’s window maker and clear parts cement… After it dries, paint a little less than half of the hub black to simulate the oil level, then a final seal coat of window maker…
Since i havnt seen it mentioned, i’ll tell you what i do. Since i work in 1/35, 1/48, 1/72 i needed a very consistent way to get results. I use tamiya paints as my base coat, let that dry a day, then i use a 50/50 mix of the road wheel color i want. This is 50 percent paint (enalmals) and 50 percent airbrush thinner. Then i simple touch it to the wheel and capliary attraction takes it almost perfectly all the way around. Once dry i paint regulary, since the outline is allready perfecly done. This has worked for me again and again.
Bill
Sounds like a valid technique, but that is not how the oil resevoir looks on a real M1 tank.
Basically, they are clear, but the whole cover looks black due to the inside of the hub being a dark brown/black color. The hole cover ends up being in different shades of dark brown/black. Here are some pics to show it.
The most effective way to represnt them is to paint the whole cover black and the center bolt the same color as the rest of the hub, either green or sand.
Gino…
True enough, I was going from references to my units tanks, the ones at the armory that have held the motor pool down and not moved in 7 months… [;)]