wheel hubs

There are some mask sets available, but for subjects where they are not available, here is what I do. I break off the tip of a toothpick at the right point so the pick will stay inside the mounting hole. The toothpick must be straight in there, so it acts as an axle. I hold the wheel by the toothpick so I can twirl the wheel while I paint.  That greatly eases getting a straight line with a fine brush.

I bought a circle template from a drafting supply,works well for roadwheels on armor

Don Stauffer

There are some mask sets available, but for subjects where they are not available, here is what I do. I break off the tip of a toothpick at the right point so the pick will stay inside the mounting hole. The toothpick must be straight in there, so it acts as an axle. I hold the wheel by the toothpick so I can twirl the wheel while I paint.  That greatly eases getting a straight line with a fine brush.

Now there's a great tip. Thanks, Don!

On some models, the line between wheel and tire is not raised enough for me to use my circle templates.  On those, I spray the wheel first.  Then, I thin the tire color until it's not much more than darkened thinner.  I use a good, pointed brush and hold it next to the wheel.  The thinner will flow around the slightly raised wheel edge.  I find it helps to coat the wheel and tire with a good gloss coat (I use Future) after painting the wheel.  This seems to help the thinned tire paint flow better.  You can then gradually make the tire paint darker and use Don's toothpick axle method to very carefully fill-in the entire tire.  I hope that makes sense; if you try it once, I think it will be quite intuitive.  When you've got the tire done, you can spray wheel and tire with a flat clear.

Gary

Ditto on the toothpick except I use a magnifying light with LED daylight lights when painting.

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Works like a charm if you take it slow using a fine point brush. I paint the hubs first then paint the tires last. Once that's all done, I weather the tires and hubs.

I use Old Tire color paint, I can't remember the name of the company but it's looks pretty accurate in color as the real thing.

I use a fluorescent ring light with a magnifier in the middle. I also make sure the tire paint is thin enough to flow well.  I think a good positionable lamp on the workbench is an overlooked but essential modeling tool.  Those folks into photography know the advantage of depth of field when your light source is bright enough to stop down the camera aperture.  The eye automatically does the same thing when your workbench light is bright enough.

I read an article about using a drafting circle template as a mask for painting wheels. I found one at Hobby Lobby. Of coarse one hole was just a little loose and the next size smaller was too small. The template I bought was standard English decimal sizes. I found a metric circle template on line and sure enough those circles fell in between the English ones and one was perfect for my wheels. I masked off the adjacent holes and using my air brush the wheels came out perfect.