Hey all. I am normally an aircraft builder, but every now and again I will dip my toes into building a car. I am currently building a Monogram Indy Car. My question is can any of you ace car builders give me tips on painting the raised Goodyear lettering on the Tires?
1 Like
I’ve seen folks use a white gel pen for this. Other option is sand off the lettering and use decals - a web search will give you options.
3 Likes
That’s what I’ve done more than a few times and it works just great. These are decals that I applied over the tire, flat coated over them and dry brushed ground up brown & black pastel over the decals for a worn/ dirtied look
On my Camaro I sanded off the raised Goodyear lettering off of the tires and then smoothed the tire with 4000 grit and then walk through the ranges of 6000, 8000 and finally 12000 grit until the tire sidewall was shiny in appearance. After that I applied the BF Goodrich decals to the sidewalls, applied a light flat coat over them and went with a light dry brushing of dark gray to put some road film wear on the tire sidewall and lettering to blend everything in.
4 Likes
You can find conventional waterslide decals or dry rub-on lettering versions in standard car kit sizes online, both work great!
2 Likes
Thanks everyone for the recommendations. Great looking models also!!!. Love the Camaro. I had one of these for my first car at 17.
1 Like
No problem and keep coming back bud as there’s more where this came from as far as tricks up our sleeves.
You are a lucky guy for having one of those at 17 years old. My dad wouldn’t let me have anything with that much power when I was that age. I did good to have my '66 Barracuda with a 318 V-8 with a 2 barrel carburetor on it. lol
@gregbale Good to see you!
@learmech64 I know this doesn’t directly answer what you’re asking, but contributor Jeff Bloomhuff wrote a Snapshot about what he does for more realistic tires on his scale auto models. Click here to see it.
4 Likes
That’s pretty darn close to the way I do it Tim and that’s a great tutorial!
2 Likes
That’s what FSM is all about! Lots of Snapshots on the website for anyone interested.
3 Likes
Nice!! I’ll be looking through those. Thanks Tim. 
drip a small bit of flat white paint on a post-it-note or a piece of cardboard. Dab the flat eraser end of a pencil into the white paint drop then lightly tap the cardboard/post-it-note until the eraser barely has any paint on it then stamp the letters. Practice is warranted here as to how much paint to leave on the eraser and aiming it toward the raised lettering. Work with good light and even magnifying glasses is helpful. You could practice with a drop of water instead of paint and pay attention to what gets wet and what doesn’t on the tire. Once you’ve painted your tires set them in a sunny windowsill to dry.
1 Like
I recently researched what silicone brushes are good for. In one YouTube video I watched on the subject, the guy used a fine tip silicone brush to paint tire lettering (among other uses). He used very tiny dabs of paint at a time. Seemed to work out well.
Cheers,
Mark
4 Likes
You’re the second person that has mentioned sillicone brushes for modeling, I think I’m going to look into that.
2 Likes
Thanks, Tim! Glad I stumbled onto the new-and-improved forum!
I totally forgot about those! I just got a set of those silicone brushes too. I suppose they’d work alot like the pencil eraser.