Juggernut

I used to love the TFE 731’s on my (as in crewchief) Lear 35. Didn’t care for the Aeronca thrust reversers though but they weren’t that bad. Very easy engine to maintain and the oil SOAP lets you know far in advance if something’s not behaving well within the engine. That way, the pilot(s) doesn’t/don’t get an unpleasant surprise. I think Garrett got acquired by Honeywell a bunch of years ago but nothing else changed from what I remember. The TPE 331’s on the other hand were a pain because every time the crew shut them down, we’d have to go out and spin the props to cool the engine down to prevent the rotating group shaft from warping.

Does your crystal ball indicate a Bf109G-10 by chance? I’d love a good ZM/Radu treatment of the G-10.

Thanks for the confidence. I really just made these for my own skills enhancement and my Tamiya zero's (I have three but only two will require these tires). I have some more testing to do on the tire to make sure it's viable and once the tire has been QA'd by my source, I'll see what I'm able to do.

Here's the first draft (actually it's the third but who's counting?) of the wheel 3D resin printed. I needed to make the text a little larger because it wouldn't print at the size it was.... At least now, it's legible (with a magnifying glass in my case - LOL). While you can see the layers on the tire, there is no step or ridge between them, it's as smooth as a.....(insert your preferred colloquialism). Again, these are for the Tamiya A6M kits and is intended to replace the kit "rubber" tires with more appropriate (and historically more accurate) ones. I may edit (decrease) the height of the characters a little bit if that's possible.... My source image shows them much more subdued than what I currently have. I'm torn between leaving like this and changing it as I can always take some sandpaper to them. Again, apologies for the crappy photograph. Apparently my camera skills need more work....

I found this: How to clean up layer lines I've also heard (but have no experience) that brushing with solvent can at least minimize the lines but lacking that.... Get a resin 3D printer....

Nice work! I applaud your progress given your limitations... I should be able to do as good!

Not if it doesn't fit; I, for one and I can only speak for myself, don't have enough patience for ill fitting parts. Rather than throw it in the bin after becoming infuriated at the poor fit, I'll just pass and save both money and aggravation. If I never get one from Hasegawa, that'll be ok; I just won't have a D3 on my shelf.

Sprues look good but the true test will be how it fits together. That’s what I’m waiting to see…. If it’s like their Helldiver, I’ll pass and hope that Hasegawa will eventually get around to doing one, slim though it may be.

Here's the pertinent view of the next higher assembly from drawing 247358. This view was retrieved from https://aircorpslibrary.com/, 06-29-2022 @ 08:37 EDT.

Well, the first experiment went - so-so.... The Tamiya parts E68 and E69 fit into the wheel just fine with one teensey-weensey issue...the hub halves did not meet; meaning the tire was too thick where the hub meets the tire. So, not to be deterred, I discovered that the way I originally created the wheel doesn't work and set out to find a better way! Hello YouTube! I found a good video of a guy creating a bicycle tire (and rim) and used that method to create an entirely new tire that I hope, will fit. I only used the tire portion of the video.... Below is the result of my latest creation (muwhahahaha...evil laugh - I know, corny but WTH). You may be able to see slight differences between the tire above and the one in this post...this tire has a sidewall bulge in it (looks better I think). On the down side, I had to destroy one of my kit tires to get a suitable cross-section to trace but I have other plans for that kit that don't require wheels (or landing gear for that matter) and it's not an A6M2-N (Rufe). Anyway, comments welcome as always. Thanks!

Here's the latest version that was created with a lot of assistance, some swearing, and a bunch of undo's (cntl+z).

Timmy! has been a gigantic help to me in creating these A6M tires! Were it not for his input, advice and guidance, I'd still be lagging out of the starting gate. Now I have a clear path forward and have a good idea on how to accomplish what I need. I cannot thank him enough. I did have to subscribe to the latest edition of Adobe Illustrator though....no big deal there, as I spend the annual cost in models anyway, so I'll just be buying a couple (at least one) less per year.

Awesome, thanks! I’m a super noob at this so I’m going to have to experiment with those instructions for getting the right Japanese characters.

It sure helps! Thanks for the tutorial. What character font did you use for the “T-38 tires are great” ? I may have to get that font if it’s not already on my system (which I don’t think it is) and it’s Japanese.

Thanks those wheel/tires look awesome! I did just that but imported it as a tiff image. I can import the image on a face (surface of the tire) but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how create 3D lettering from the image….If I can figure that much out, I may have found the solution. Apparently, Japanese is not a supported font in Fusion 360 as even though I have it in my fonts directory (TrueType font) Fusion 360 does not recognize it. If I need to import it as a dxf file, I can export it from illustrator in that format. I think I may need to do a little more “YouTube” searching.