Making kit tires more realistic.

Plastic tires do not look real....

That being said, there is a lot we can do to make them look the part.

Lets look at a kit tire right out of the box.

This is one of the slicks from the 66 Nova kit. using a larger width tire for this so it is easier to see the results.

Now basically there are 2 different ways i could approach making this look better.

1 sand the tire until sufficiently dulled.

2 use a flat dull coat to hide the shine

i will show the results from both so you can make your own choice what you want to do.

First thing i do is mount the tire in a simple jig made up of a 4 inch 3/8 bolt, 2 washers and a nut. then i chuck that in my drill press. you can do the same with a hand drill, i only used the press because i had it available.

Now with it spinning at its slowest speed, i use a piece of 80 grit sand paper to rough up the surface.

It made a big difference already after about 30 seconds per tire.

The side walls need some attention. on tires with raised lettering it is difficult to sand them to dull them. depending on how glossy they are would determine if i was going to knock some of the dull off with a coarse rubbing compound or finer grit sandpaper. These will get some hand sanding with the paper just to dull them down.

i use a white gel pen for the raised white lettering. For this set i simply used the gel directly from the pen to pull out the lettering.

The sidewall sanded and white lettering detailed.

Compared to the original, you can see the difference it makes.

Here are both rears done.

and i dulled the fronts using the same method.

Now for the second method i mentioned with the dull coat.

Thats what the original ones look like. too shiny for me.

I used 2 coats of Aeromasters acrylic flat clear sprayed through the airbrush to knock the shine down.

Already much better, going to do the sidewall lettering differently on this one. i will call it a reverse stamp method. you see the 2 items i will be using in the pic. a white gel pen, and a flat coffee stir stick.

Using the Gel pen, i transfer color onto a small portion of the end of the stir stick

Like so...

then i carefully press the stir stick onto the protruding lettering on the tire transferring the gel in the process.

Take your time , if you goof up, just wipe it off before it can dry and start over

This is the pair after i was done.

Hope this helps someone.