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| Article ©2002 by Frank Smart. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission. |
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| I am a scratch builder of wooden racing cars and, since my favourite cars are from the 50's and 60's, I have had to come up with a design for wire wheels. I don't work in any of the popular scales so I couldn't purchase any after-market wheels - besides, that defeats the purpose of scratch building.
I spent a lot of time trying different methods (many quite laughable now) but finally have a process that produces an acceptable (to me anyway) wheel. This method could certainly be applied to some of the larger scales but I don't know about 1/43.
Here's a picture of my wooden 57 Testa Rossa ......
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| If you think these wheels look OK then read on and I'll tell you how to make them. |
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| Basically, the wheels are made up of two resin castings - a tire/rim combination and a piece that I call a wiring 'loom'. I'll discuss making these later for those who want to try it. |
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| Here are 3 different views of the rim/tire:
The trough is just a recessed area where glue (CA) or fresh resin will be applied to join the 2 pieces together.
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| Here's the 'magic' bit - The wiring loom: |
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| The lugs around the perimeter are used to wrap the wire around. Back and forth round the two different level hubs. (Details to follow).
Here's what they look like when the wiring is finished (a simple five minute job).
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| Depending on the scale of wheel being developed you will want to have a variety of wire thicknesses available. I use a very inexpensive wire sold for wrapping dried flowers. It has a nice shine and is thin and pliable enough to take the many bends required.
For smaller wheels there is a silver coated thread which would probably look good and be easy to work.
Now we insert the wired loom into the rim ..
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and you have a pretty nice wired wheel! |
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| Once the paint is applied to the tire, the rim gets a finish and a knock-off hub is attached. |
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| OK, that's how the pieces are put together but there was a lot to be done to get to this stage. |
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