Second article in a series Photos by the Author

This month, World of Wheels. While the instructions leave construction of the wheels and tires as one of the latter construction steps I decided to build them before continuing with the rest of the model. Since the wheels promised to be the most tedious and reiterative parts to construct and I wanted to get them done early.

Since I was going to be cutting out a lot of circles to construct the wheels and tires I decided to make a new set of circle center finders. I constructed the center finders by cutting out circles from thin 0.5mm clear plastic. The set of circles go from 10mm diameter, the smallest my circle cutter goes, to 40mm diameter in 1mm increments. On the circles the number marked is actually the radius not the diameter. This was just a matter on convenience for me when I was cutting them out.



Since the clear plastic allows me to see the underlying part it is easy to insure that I have the center finder correctly positioned. I find this especially useful when the part to be marked does not exactly match the size of one of the center finders. Once The center finder is positioned over the part to be cut I can then mark the center using the small center hole left in the plastic disc from the circle cutter.



Here we have the parts for a single tire laid out. The ring between the two circular end formers is a spacer I made. I found it easier to construct the tires by gluing the two end patterns (parts B6c) to the spacer then attempting to glue them directly to the outer skin of the tire (part B6a) as the construction diagrams suggest.

Since the outer skins of the tires (parts B6 and B6a) are printed in more of a charcoal gray color then black I would recommend painting the tires black after assembly. This was clearly done with the prototype model pictured in the photos accompanying the kit. The construction diagrams fail to indicate the wheel rims (part B6d) but their placement is obvious. I was dissatisfied with the fit of the thread patterns. They are slightly oversize so you will have to trim them to fit when you wrap them around the tire skin. Unfortunately the thread spacing is slightly off at the point of the joint. I also trimmed the width of the threads down by about 1mm on each side.


To align the circular parts like the tires and wheels I use a carpenters ruler. Here I am gluing the two tire end formers to my spacer ring.



Here are the parts to the tractor rear wheel assembly. Excluding the tires there are 20 parts to each of the four wheel assemblies. In all there are over 400 parts to the models 19 wheels and tires. As with the tires the construction diagrams for the wheels contain minor parts mislabeling. The formers marked B2d on parts sheet A appear in the construction diagrams for the wheels with different part numbers such as B4d and B3d.

Here we have the completed rear wheel assembly for the tractor. I considered the attachment of the tractor wheels a potential weak spot as they were simply glued directly to facing parts on the axle and suspension assemblies and I would expect this joint to fail over time. To provide better mounting I ran a wire axle through each of the rear wheel assemblies.



Here we have a photo of the under construction rear suspension showing where the rear wheel wire axles would fit. In addition to the wire axle for the wheels I also ran a wire axle through the differential and center rear axle. In the next installment I will complete the construction of the rear suspension assembly.



Borrowing a photo from the first installment you can see how I used the wire pivot to secure the rear former (part B1a) of the front wheel to the front axle assembly. After the brake assemblies and B1a were glued together the wire ends were trimmed to size then the remainder of the front wheel assembly was completed. As with the tires I have used a spacer to join the front and back of the wheel assemblies.



In the next article we will return to axle and suspension system assembly.

Summary:

Model:	Nr. 189 M25 "Dragon Wagon"
Publisher:	GPM
Scale:	1/25
Difficulty:	Rated 3 on a scale of 3
Number of Parts:	2350
Instructions:	Polish, English, German
Diagrams:	7 pages
Fit:	Very Good
Coloring and Artwork:	Coloring Very Good Artwork Excellent
Printing:	Excellent