White Lettering on Tires

I've never been a fan of painting the bodies on my cars, so painting the tires never even crossed my mind, at least until I saw fellow modelers do it on their cars.  It is practically expected nowadays.  For example, after I built and painted a re-re Tamiya Sand Scorcher and posted pictures of it on TamiyaClub in 2010, a couple members replied that I needed to paint the letters on the tires to make it look complete.  I agreed with them, but at the time I did not have a method for doing so that did not seem completely tedious or error-prone.  Threads have popped up every so often where someone asks how to paint the letters on tires.  The responses are usually limited to using white paint and a toothpick, or a pin or similar and just letting it flow into or onto each letter on the tire.  I always considered that method extremely tedious and time consuming.  It is a time honored method, but not one that I felt that I had the patience or skills for.  I guess I am not a true "modeler" in that sense.  I always imagined a drop of white paint splotched in between two letters because I put too much on the end of the toothpick and it dripped before it got to its final destination.  Or the paint would dry on the toothpick too quickly and wouldn't flow into the letters.  With these thoughts in my mind, I gave up before even trying anything.

But, a recent post on TamiyaClub (http://tamiyaclub.com) that described a white ink pen that can be used instead of toothpicks got me excited enough to give it a try.  The pen is made by Sakura, a company headquartered in Japan, and it's called the Gelly Roll(R) ink pen.  Their US website Gelly Roll(R) product page (http://www.sakuraofamerica.com/gelpen) doesn't even list white as an available color, but it does exist.  I located a supplier on the net and had a pack of three pens in my hands a few days later.

Three-pack of Sakura Gelly Roll pens with white ink

The pen is actually a ball point, which I'd never thought could be used for painting tires.  The ball is 0.8mm in size which is considered medium point and draws a 0.4mm line.  I did not see any fine point 0.6mm ball (0.3mm line) pens with white ink when I looked, but they may be available for finer lettering.

Close-up shot to show the 0.8mm ball point

Armed with this new tool, I decided to try painting the Sand Scorcher tires.

It took me around 10 minutes per tire.  It isn't easy keeping a steady hand for 30 characters per tire.  The way I did it was to basically draw each letter, allowing the ink to flow in between the outline ridges that make up each character.  I was really happy with the result at first, but then I noticed that the letters were not completely filled in after they dried.

The zero and second one digit are not filled in completely

I had not allowed enough ink to flow into each letter, thus capillary action and surface tension made the ink stay in the corners of the letters and away from the flat bottom, much like water sticks to the inside corners of plastic containers when you wash them.  I could go over the letters again, but since it is only noticable up close, I'm not going to attempt to fix these tires.  I'll simply modify my method for the next set.

Next up was the Tamiya Subaru Brat and its Sand Blaster 915s. 

Now these letters are much larger and wider than the ones on the Sand Scorcher.  I made sure to allow each letter to be filled with a pool of ink by lifting the ball of the pen away from the surface of the tire slightly while following the contours of the symbol.  This caused the ink in the pen to flow past the ball point and fill in the letter.  Now this was impressive!  The ink is nice and opaque and flows very well.  The ink dries within about 10 minutes.

Lastly, I did another set of Smoothee and Padlatrak tires from my Tamiya Grasshopper.

This time I made sure to allow each letter to fill in with ink, and the result is that there are no dark areas in the middle of each letter.  So the key is to allow enough ink into the letter to create a pool.

As for how durable the ink is, I have not tested it to find out.  A toothpick or fingernail will remove the ink on the raised edges of the letters, so I predict that the ink will come off if it is scratched or rubbed inside the letters themselves.  On paper, the ink is very resistant to chemicals and is quite difficult to remove.  Rubber, however, is a tough thing to write on.  But I am not looking for durability here.  My cars are runners, and I don't mind the normal scrapes and bruises that happen during normal running.  If the ink comes off, I can always touch it up again.

I'm very pleased with the results so far.  If you've been afraid to paint the letters in your tires, give the Sakura Gelly Roll(R) pen a try.

Turbo Ultima front end and wheel/tire modernization

I restored my vintage Kyosho Turbo Ultima during the summer of 2010.  For the restoration, I completely disassembled and cleaned every part, and then followed the manual to rebuild it.  I also bought a reproduction body, wing and decals from Marwan (see his new online store at http://www.marwanrc.com).  The body and wing were painted and decals applied in the original box art design.   I also kept the vintage aftermarket Tecnacraft tie rods because they still look really nice and a lot better than the original steel tie rods.

Here are a couple pictures taken after the restoration was completed in July 2010:

 

The tie rods were the only hop-up installed on the car at the time.  

Last week I installed a Kyosho Ultima RB5 front end and fitted RB5 wheels and Kyosho tires.  The point of this was to use modern wheels and tires in order to run the car without using up the original tire tread.  Plus, it seemed like a fun thing to do and maybe a little challenging.  It was actually very easy to do, which I found amazing considering the almost 20 year difference in chassis design.

For help in determining the correct parts to buy and also to aid in building the front axle assembly, I referred to a Kyosho Ultima RB5 manual in PDF format that I found on the net.

Here are the parts I used for the front end:

 These parts were used for the wheels and tires:

New tie rod ends and balls were used because the originals were too worn or were binding.  I should have replaced them when I rebuilt the car in 2010, but I didn't have the parts and at the time I was concentrating on keeping as many of the original parts in the rebuild as possible.  Now, however, since the front end is getting modern parts, I figured the ball ends should be redone at the same time.  At least Kyosho still makes some of the exact same parts as they did in 1989.

Here are some pictures of the RB5 front end parts mounted on the Turbo Ultima.

Some adjustment had to be made to the lengths of the tie rods for both the steering and upper links.  I had to find alternative lengths of Tecnacraft tie rods, too.  Luckily I had some in the correct lengths.  I kept the original front arms and hinge pins.  An aluminum spacer was used on the hinge pin that holds the hub carrier to take up extra space, but it's almost the same as the way the RB5 builds it.

Amazingly, the modern Kyosho rear wheels give plenty of clearance when using the original Turbo Ultima rear axle carriers, W5061 universals, hex hubs, and tie rods.

Here is a shot with everything fitted:

The new wheels and tires definitely give the car a more modern appearance, but I think it looks good.  And now I can run it without worrying about the original wheels and tires.

Reproduction Bruiser/Mountaineer Tires Part 2

I mounted the reproduction Bruiser tires on some RC4WD Classic Bruiser aluminum wheels that I had.  I think the combination looks great.  Check them out:

 The texture of the rubber is smooth and soft.  The foam inserts were used before mounting on the rims.

Reproduction Bruiser/Mountaineer tires

I recently bought some repro tires for my Mountaineer from eBay seller 'nowingu'. These tires are much softer than the original stock tires that came with the Bruiser and Mountaineer kits, but the tread design is very similar.  Many people complain that the stock tires these kits came with were too hard, so these repro tires are definitely worth a try.

Bruiser/Mountaineer repro tires by 'nowingu' on eBay

There is no sidewall lettering of any kind, so they are sort of plain looking, but the mold alignment and quality is very good.  The bead is uniform and the thickness of the rubber does not appear to vary much at all.  They do not 'wobble' or otherwise have any deformation issues that I've run into with tires made by RC4WD in the past.  However, I don't know how these will age over time, nor do I know how they will wear with use since I've yet to install them on my Mounty.  I am hopeful that they won't disintegrate too quickly (either by running or sitting on a shelf), but who knows.  The tires are sold in sets of 4 at the time of this writing.

The tires do not come with foam inserts so I spent a fair amount of time looking for some that would fit.  I believe foam inserts are a necessity for these tires due to their softness and the weight of the truck.  I finally found these:

JConcepts AND-1 Truck foam inserts (#3201)

The JConcepts AND-1 1/10th Truck Tire Inserts (part #3201) are a very good fit for the tires.  I chose the firm style because I felt that the tires needed the extra support.  While it could be possible to choose a slightly larger foam insert, I was unable to find anything that seemed close to the right size after I found these.  They fit inside the tire perfectly and the extra support they offer definitely improves the weight handling characteristics of the tires compared to no foam at all.  Note that you'll need to buy 2 sets of foams because they come in packs of 2.