Heller 1/12 LIGIER JS11 and Renault RE20/23 Tyre Fix

By Alan Thorpe

As you can see by the photo the kit tyre as supplied is pretty horrendous! Can't use the bloody thing in a fit. But on careful observation it can be seen that only one side is bad. So, just box in the 'good' side and get 'our' resident professional resin caster AKA Mr P. Murrie to do some moulds of the 'good' side. Then make some resin copies, and there you have it....well almost, you still have to glue the halves together.

Here's a photo of the boxed in good half of a rear tire, and its subsequent RTV mould. Did the same for the fronts. It's a fairly straight forward process I am told. (Yeah right! )

All Peter did was make four castings of each mould, then I Just glued 'em together, and ended up with these. I just puttied any irregularities, stuck 'em in a lathe and machined the outers to suit and the inner "hole" to fit the rims etc. They turned out OK but in hindsight I should have hogged the guts out of them too, because they were a tad heavy as is. Yeah! Too bloody heavy, still I've got the Heller Renault to 'do' yet. Those tires are just as bad. I'll get them right in the end.