1/6th Big'n'Littles

[whodaky]

I guess I will start with the front tyres .
I am sure you have all seen those clocks that look like a mag wheel and tyre and have a spanner ( wrench ) and screw driver as the hands of the clock. They come in various sizes, the size I am using has an outside diameter on the tyre of 4" ( 100mm). These shots below are with the hands missing from the clock. This clock actually comes with 2 tyres. The clock/Tyre/wheel actually sits on another tyre of the same size!

I remove the tyres from the rims, which takes a bit of doing.
I then start to narrow the tyre. The tyre is around 1 1/2" ( 38mm ) to start with. I cut the tyre down to around 1" ( 25mm )

Over the years I have narrowed a number of different tyres in various scales. But never really came up with a versatile inner sleeve that was readily available in suitable sizes. But whilst doing these tyres I came up with a bit of a brain wave ( as I am want to do from time to tme! ). I had a piece of PVC tube 4 3/8" ( 110mm ) O.D. 1/8th ( 3mm ) wall thickness laying around and thought that could be the answer. But the diameter is to big, what to do?
Easy cut a section out and make it the right diameter to fit in as the sleeve to join my 2 tyre halves!

I actually plastic welded that sleeve, but you may find that is not necessary, as the inherent round shape of the tyre will let the sleeve conform to that shape. However with regards to the sleeve conforming to the tyre shape, don't try and make a sleeve from a 4" piece of PVC pipe for say a 1/25 th scale tyre. You need to begin with a much smaller diameter piece of PVC tube in that case.
Below is an image of a sleeve in one of the back tyres. Patience guys, I will get to the back tyres after we have finished dealing with the fronts!

Geoff aka whodaky

[whodaky]

Our next dilemma here is the fact that these tyres are a low profile tyre. Not what I want for one of my hot rod models. What to do, well I need to increase the side wall of the tyre.
Earlier in the year I had spotted some toy trucks in K-Mart and thought the rims on those trucks would be good for a big scale model. But at around $45.00 I thought they could stay there. A few months later when one of the toy sales was happening I bit the bullet and grab one of the trucks for around $23.00. A bit more than I really wanted to pay, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. When I got the toy truck home and started pulling the wheels off and apart I found that the rims would work fine on a 1/6th model, however at the time the tyres did nothing for me. But I decided to head back to K-Mart and buy another one of these trucks anyhow!

At this stage I had been going in another direction as regards the wheels and tyres I am doing for this tech article. But when I got these toys trucks things changed a bit.
What are pretty ordinary tyres on the toy trucks I could see as having their side walls cut out and used in the tyres I am working with.

[B]MINUS THE LOVELY SIDE WALL LETTERING OF COURSE!!!!![B]
Next I remove the inner and outer rims and cut the tyre in half.
Geoff aka whodaky

[whodaky]

For the first side wall I cut out I didn't remove the side wall letting until I had cut the side wall out of the tyre. As I was trimming the letting off with an Exacto, I was finding the side wall on it's own a little hard to hold. So the next time I actually trimmed off the side wall lettering before I cut the tyre in half as well as before I cut the side wall from the tyres. So much safer to be able to hold onto when manipulating a sharp Exacto. Trimming off the lettering is not a fun job, but it has to be done!
I measure the I.D. of the 'clock' tyre and increase that size a little to mark it out on the toy tyre. I sit the back part of the toy's rim back in the tyre , putting a small phillips head screw in the axle mounting hole and using a pair of dividers I scribe a cut line on the tyre. I actually over lap the cut out side wall slightly onto the clock tyre.

I actually had a piece of pipe the diameter of the side wall cut, that I used as a guide to cut the side wall out with the Exacto. This cut could be successfully done with scissors I believe. It would be a bit quicker also!
Geoff aka whodaky

[whodaky]

The next move is to clean up the side wall a bit. Sit it over the clock tyre, centre it a bit and from the inside plastic weld the 2 pieces together. I found that because these are 2 different types of plastics that it took a fair bit of care to weld them together, but they did join and I had little or no evidence of the weld on the outside of the tyre. You just need to take a lot of care! I am sure the 2 pieces could be glued.
When it is all done I give the tyre a lick of black shoe polish to get a bit more of a uniform color on the now joined pieces. In the image on the right I hadn't hit the tyre with the shoe polish when I took the image!

I will continue this tech a little later on, as I have a bit of other stuff to do this morning!
Geoff aka whodaky

[Don Garrett]

Thanks Geoff....got me scrounging through the parts box again. I'm going to give your technique a shot when I get back to my 1/6th stuff and you've saved me a bunch of head-scratching. I owe ya. Thinking I'll give it shot with wide white sidewalls for the '54......it's slowly working it's way back to the front of my the workbench.

[whodaky]

Just having a quick check in here. I have a bit going on here today and then the parts that I bought off Rick, 2 boxes just showed up in the mail. Resisting the temptation to open them at the moment. As well as a new book I ordered from Amazon. Almost like Xmas here this morning. But I will open them when I get off here.
Glad that this tech is giving you ideas Don, I hope to get the tech completed over the course of the weekend. As Monday I am hoping to pick up a lil something I purchased off e-bay a while back. I will post images when it is sitting here in my garage!
Looking forward to seeing the Big Chev happening again. You still need to send me that dash. Did you know I can plastic weld now? It is going to be so much easier to modify it and maybe do something a little extra to it!
Did I mention lately that [B]'PLASTIC WELDING RULES'[/B]
Geoff aka whodaky

[Don Garrett]

Cool, can't wait to see your eBay treasure. I'll drop the dash in the mail sometime next week. E me your addy again if you would...I lost a lot of data when the hard drive in my old puter took a dump. The dash is at your leisure sir...it's going to be a while before I get anywhere near the interior on that thing, the body is still babbling to me. Free hand buddy...make it a "whodaky" as only you can. I'd be thrilled if you'd autographed it!
I'll also toss in some bits out of the 1/6th Willys that I won't be using...buckets, speakers, spoke steering wheel, and the rear chunk of the coupe as mine decided it wanted to be a P.U.
That stuff has an odd way of morphing into something else if you look at it long enough.

[Deuces-wild]

This I gotta see.

[van454]

WOW! Nice work