Advice on painting and prepping wheels

Those are a bit unique, being molded in pairs, from my experience for clean up, and finish. I’d clean up the attachment points and seam lines with sanding sticks and needle files for the tight areas. For painting, paint the hubs first, with one type of paint such as acrylic. Paint the tires in a dissimilar paint type such as enamel, so any overlap can be cleared up easily. Then do your weathering and washes as you prefer.

Weight on the tires is easily replicated by some minor flat spots sanded into the contact points. It’s a bit trickier on the pairs due to alignment issues, but not insurmountable. Don’t worry about bulged sidewalls as that just means air pressure in the tire is too low.

Keep in mind that I only work on 1/48 scale aircraft. After cleaning the tires, I spray the tires and wheels with lacqure flat black. Next I spray them with clear flat to protect the black paint. Then I paint the wheels with an aluminum enamel paint. I used to use precut masks for painting the wheels, but I have steady hands so I stopped using masks. Don't put too much aluminum paint on the brush, this allows the inside of the wheel spokes to remain black in color. I then use a black wash to add highlights to the wheels. Finally I use a mud colored wash on the tire treads to highlight the tread pattern.. You can provide flat spots on the tires by sanding an area of the tire flat. This is a picture of tires on a P-38. I also use black and rust washees on the landing gear.

That wash looks great.  Oil paint or ?  I really like Gunze Sangyo H77 tire black for all things rubber.

keavdog

That wash looks great.  Oil paint or ?  I really like Gunze Sangyo H77 tire black for all things rubber.

 

This is a water based wash. It takes some getting used to. The product is the consistancy of BBQ sauce. It needs to be thined with water when using. It can be reactivated with water after it dries. Go here: 

https://www.wilder.su/ They have interesting tutorials.

just some basic advice here. Don't paint them black. Use dark grey and a lighter shade of dark grey for the area that contacts the ground. I chuck my in a drill press to paint the lighter grey, or alternatively , while in the drill press you can touch the tread area with a fine grit sanding sponge. HTH

Oooh awesome advice here. Will get started on these shortly and be back with results. hadn thought about not painting them black. Will try that as part of this as well.

 I’m confused about the dissimilar paint. can you guys expand on that?

edit - another question after rereading everything. Johnnyk how do you apply the wash and keep it out of the tread?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Check out these tires. The contact surface is dirty/dusty/chalky from dirt/dust or whatever it rolls over. The difference can be subtle or very noticable depending on the environment... 

For tires, I use Tamiya's Tire Black out of the rattle can. I also have some Vallejo Tire Black that I haven't tried yet. Back in the days when you couldn't get the Tamiya rattle can, I would mix up some Model Master Interior Black, Engine Gray, and some Red Brown until I got a shade I liked.  As for using dissimilar paint, the process allows you to use acrylics over enamels (or enamels over lacquers) and then use the acrylic thinner to clean up any mistakes because it won't affect the enamel base. I used acrylics over enamels because the acrylics are cooler chemically and won't attack the enamels. The same goes for enamels over lacquers. Most lacquers will attack and craze acrylics and enamels. I have used Tamyia's Haze Gray rattle can lacquer over an acrylic before (Polly Scale Deck Blue), but that line was virtually indestructable and no longer available, unfortunately.  As always, test before you try. Hope this helps.

Ah that helps for sure. Thanks lewbud.

just doing the basics now. Primered in lacquer, made some masks on my silhouette, painted the hubs white (Pics were good reference, but haven’t found any of the tires up close yet but sure i will).

Regarding painting the treads--I used very little paint on the brush to paint the treads. Kind of similar to drybrushing.

Tires are one of the only things I still paint with a brush.  First I spray hubs the appropriate color. Next I use Tamiya XF-24 Dark Grey which is a good rubber color to my eye. With some alcohol as a thinner, I use capillary action to carry paint around outside of rim and work my way outward. Then just paint the rest of the tire with XF-24 dipped in alcohol. I find the addition of the alcohol serves as a leveling agent and removes brush marks. For weathering I spray some XF-57 Buff in the treads. I like the effect. 

Just my take. Give it a shot. 

So I’ve struggled to find the treads lol. These are a bit flat. They appear to have tread but it’s so small nothing was sticking. Here I’ve tried Vallejo pigments held on with a mist of matt varnish. What do you think? If it were you, Would you redo them?

This one using the flash

I've found that I like using Tamiya's NATO Black for tires dusted with Tamiya's weathering powders. Oil Stain is my go-to for normal dust on tires, but sometimes Dark or Light Sand works depending on the subject. Simple and effective.

I use both a very dark gray, and also flat black with a dust weathering powder.  The weathering powder I use is talcum powder from drug stores, available in several skin tones, and cheaper than produces made for scale modeling.  The dust weathering allows me to very the tone between treads and sidewalls, but the dark gray is quicker and easier, so it depends on aircraft and scale .

Here we go, the final version. A little touchup needed around the rim under magnification. I went with Tamiya rubber black over a black primer. The rubber black gave it that softer gray hue. I went back over the tire with grimey black for oil type stains. I used Tamiya light gray panel line wash on the treads. Coated with flat clear. On the gear I used Citadel white primer covered with insignia white. Then went over the gear with a black and brown wash to show some wear.

Ordinarily I hand paint.  However, the L-19 I am building has hub caps, which need to be body color.  Since the body color is one I have mixed myself, the thinned airbrushing paint will be what I have to use.  I hate to hand paint with thin paint, so decided to airbrush hubs. I first sprayed the whole wheel/tire parts flat black (I will weather tires by drybrushing).  I found one of my wider Tamiya tapes covers the hub and then a little more.  I cut a square of the tape and placed it over the wheel, centered on the hub.  I used a que tip to press it down as best I could, then a sharp pencil to mark around the hub/tire groove.  Then I used my scalpel to cut out the hub area.  Then I finished masking the rest of the tire.  It is all ready for airbrushing today.