Wheel help

You know, this is a problem for me too and my solution: Lots of patience.
I'd like to hear other people's suggestions, though...

I've found that if you stick the end of a tooth pick in the wheel hole and put the brush on the wheel and then spin the wheel i works real nice.

First of all welcome to FSM Legion !!

Go to a graphics art store or even an arts and crafts store like Micheals and get yourself a circle template. Choose the cirlce closest to the size rim that you are doing, paint the entire wheel in black, then use the template to paint the rim.

Another trick is to get a Sharpie fine tipped marker. Paint the entire rim and tire in the rim's colour and use the sharpie for the tire. Works great and dries fast.

Enjoy the forums !!!

I mount the wheel on a wooden Q tip and airbrush the whole thing with the rim colour using acrylics. I then use a mix of matt black and white enamel, thinned about 1 part paint to 3 parts thinner to paint the tyre. Load a small brush fully with the thinned paint, and touch the brush to the tyre right by the rim. The paint will flow right up to the rim. when the first coat is dry, apply a second coat, then seal the whole thing with matt acrylic clear to even out the finish.

I just spent 3 hours painting the tyres on a 1/35 Tiger. 48 wheels!

Cheers

For models where the tire and rim come as one part I normally do the following:

1.) Paint the rim.
2.) Draw a dividing line where the rim and tire join, use a small permament marker or ink-pen for this.
3.) Paint the tire along the line I drew, visual guides make the job a lot easier.
With the line you don't need to bring the brush that close to the rim.
4.) Make sure that you don't have too much paint on the brush.

This works well for Plane are car-tires, which are normally painted either Gunze Tire Black or a mix of Tamiya colours.

In the past I've painted the rim, then thinned some paint in a tray just below rim level, stuck a spru or toothpick in the rim and rolled the tire thru the paint real slow.