Armortek

Hi,
I'm thinking about building a Mighty Antar transporter for my Centurion in the not too distant future.Has anybody made their own tyres with the room temp rubbers available?.Im thinking of making an aluminium tyre with the correct tread pattern and then making a mould for casting from that.Pneumatic tyres off eBay would be the easy way but I haven't ever seen anything even close to the pattern.Would the rubber be durable enough?.Would there be any other issues besides weight probably with using solid tyres?
Just mulling this idea over at the moment.
Chris

Dennis is your man for tank transporter construction but regarding:

> Would there be any other issues besides weight probably with using solid tyres ?

I would have thought something which needed to drag a Centurion around would need all the traction it could muster ?

Adrian.

Hi Chris,

Dennis did a cracking job with his Diamond T prime mover and trailer.

FWIW I have been working on a F.V. 2721 7.5 ton trailer for a planned AVRE 165 Cent. While I have arrived at squatter profile tyre by taking pneumatic, bar treaded, trolly tyres, removing the inner tyre and replacing with closed-cell foam inserts cut on a scroll-saw, it is not the perfect solution. The original trailer was made by J. Sankey and Sons c.1960, and a revised and updated series were made by Reynolds Boughton for the CRARRAV in the 1990s. The original spec tyres were 14.00" x 20" run flats mounted on divided type rims 10.00"w x 20". The modified trolly tyres will pass for stand-off scale, and are quite cheap. Granted I will have to make detailed inserts to get away with the fudge!

Regarding your model, I do not have the details of the Antar wheels to hand, but in photos they look pretty close to 14x20", however based on positive experience with 3D printing technology, you might consider making a really detailed 3d CAD model of the tyre, convert it to SLA filetype and get a hi-res 3D model printed. This could serve as the master pattern for multiple silicone RTV moulds to batch mould as many tyres as you need(at least 10 for the tractor unit!). I am sure others here can advise as to the correct Shore spec of rubber to use.

Cool project
cheers
Fabrice

Chris, I've been meaning to dig out some stuff for you on this. Apologies for the delay.

Firstly, if you can get hold of a copy of "The Complete Car Modeller" (Vol 1) by Gerald Wingrove, he covers making tyres in Ch 2.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Complete-Ca ... 1861266448

Fabrice put me onto Wingrove and his books are absolutely full of useful techniques.

Secondly, I've used MB Fibre Glass for RTV compounds here:

http://www.mbfg.co.uk/polyurethane-rubbers.html

I chose their Medium PU Flex 50 for my resilient rails on the Cent. It's Shore Hardness is 50A, which is supposedly good for tyres. I'd have said you need something harder, maybe Shore 70-80A.



Hope this helps.

Stephen

Hello Chris,

I#ve made rubbers for my 1:8 sWS roadwheels with Ebalta GM 973, you can find it here http://www.ebalta.de .
It has shore 90, I thought 90 is a little bit harder and better for running between the tracks. I think for tires a shore of 70 should be nice. It shouldn't be a problem to build a mould with a core, so you can reduce weight. My mould has a small core to make a groove for the tongue of the roadwheel.

Good info Stephen,Christian !
I think the project could be on.Its a future one at the moment as I'm still working on the Cent and will be for months yet!.
I have been pulling the spare parts manual together and collecting photos.An Antar would be a very impressive beast with a Cent on its trailer
Beautiful tyres Christian