German Aircraft Tire Experiment

[Gil]

Hi Orazio,

A lesson in color and texture gone wrong. Below is the same tire but with corrected paint (black, red, & green poster tempera with white gloss acrylic).

+Gil

[pahorace]

Gil,
This is what you have done is truly the top.
It,s truly impressive!
Ok! OK!
But now explains to us as you did for this! :D

Orazio

[Texman]

Holy rounders Gil!

Yes, you have got to build the tutorial for this. That is the best
petal style tire work I have ever seen. Will improve the tires of
any model any one builds.

Ray

[Gil]

Hi Ray,

I'm getting there. I was also surprised at how well this technique worked. It's actually a bit of Trompe le'Oel as you'll see in the tutorial.

Below is a somewhat misguided attempt at making tire treads with embossing for a 1930's style tire. After taking the photo and blowing up it reminded me of a Starbucks coffee cup insulator. The tire base is from one of the first attempts. You might even call it a retread...,

+Gil

[B-Manic]

It looks pretty impressive scaled down.

[Gil]

Hi B-Manic,

Good point. It does look good to the unaided eye and is easy to make. I learned some interesting things about making the textured surfaces that will be invaluable for making other textures. Amongst them are diamond metal decking, woven basket weave and wicker furniture. Knobby tires are also on the agenda as is another go at diamond treads...,

+Gil

[Gil]

The following photo shows an embossed diamond pattern into 0.25 mm thick card stock applied to a stock petal tire. The tread was over worked in an effort to conform it to the tire shape such that much of the tread embossing was lost. The work also causes the tire to become misshapen making the method counterproductive.

I've reached the conclusion that embossing is a quick and easy way to apply a pattern to card stock but needs to be sealed well and cannot be worked into compound curves. It's the easiest method for making conventional auto and truck tire treads but they don't really require the open petal construction technique...,

+Gil

[Gil]

Hi All,

Work on the tire experiment was completed during the sites down time.

I'm happy to say that the experiment has been rewarding and resulted in techniques that afford building realistic looking high pressure aircraft tires that not only have fit the form factor but also the texture of rubber. People are surprised that it's not made of rubber when examining the parts.

The following shots show the original on the specimen in NASM compared to an interim experimental tire and finally the finished output of the experiment.

+Gil

[Don Boose]

I'm glad to see that the experimentation continued, Gil, and that this very informative thread is back. Don

[pahorace]

Hi Gil,
that is simply fantastic!
[...... but, above all very realistic.]
I am very interested in this.

Again thanks, Gil.

Orazio