1:35 Mercedes L4500A road wheels set with spare (weighted) type 3 for Zvezda

The wheel as the most overlooked part of a model

It tends to be a paradox: a modeler spends hours over the cab, adds wipers of etched brass and plays out the shades of the tarpaulin, and then stands the vehicle on wheels that look as though someone had turned them from wood. And yet it is the wheels the viewer has nearest his eye; they touch the base and create the join between vehicle and terrain. This set is the third of the four renderings offered and solves both at once, the tread design and the shape under load.

Which vehicle it belongs to

The heavy truck with drive to both axles was built from 1939 and became one of the most widespread workhorses of supply. It carried ammunition, fuel, building material and men, towed trailers, and its chassis served for building special bodies. The cabs were simplified during the war and the beds were built of wood instead of sheet metal, but the running gear stayed the same.

Painting a casting

Resin behaves differently from plastic: the base coat has to be thin and even, otherwise it creeps into the definition of the design and that is lost. A very dark gray proves itself instead of pure black, because in scale black looks like a hole. Once it is dry, go over the edges with a dry brush and finally add dust in the shade of the soil the vehicle runs over.

Before you start gluing

Check that the hole goes onto the stub without force, and think over the turn of the spare; it tends to be seen more than any other wheel on the vehicle.

Finally a small thing that often gets forgotten: a wheel does not get dirty the same way where it touches the road as it does on its wall. The bottom tends to be rubbed light, whereas in the hollows of the design a deposit holds by far the longest.