TOPIC:

I had this in mind for quite a while... My Samurai tires were too Tamiyaish. I had to do something. And I wanted some tires I won't care to deplete if I run them...

Few months ago, I did a CAD model for the Samurai tires... I had this in mind for quite a while... I got new printers, and it allowed for new capabilities




And then, after few prints


Time to show off...







I love the Samurai, and this one is a very unique model...

Woohaaaaaa!!! It's a gorgeous sam. I'm fan. 

As I want to test the tires, and I don't want to glue them on rims, I've reprinted rils with rings to have the tires maintained in position... 


I've some hope it will be fine for testing the tires a bit at least. I may end up gluing them, but I would like to preserve the possibility of doing another test run with printed tires done with different resins... The weather is very changeant here, so I may not do the test run now and wait there is bit of sun for this...

If it's only for a test, you could use double side tape. 

I may not be the best at this...


I could have probably made it cleaner... but this is the first time I'm doing this, actually...

I remember having an argument on lettering the tires or not, and lettering the tires with a very simple font instead of trying to reproduce the original Marui font...


What do you think?

I love them

Any letters is better that non 

I could not resist... The weather is not good, but trying to run on asphalt is not requiring too much of cleaning afterwards...

For memory, I printed 7 Samurai tires in total : 4 fronts and 3 rears. Two of the fronts (one of them which was lettered) had an issue due to cup suction effect, and there is a small cut on the side of the tire (you can see on the A of traction which is having a mark on the previous post). I've mounted the other printed fronts (with a hole in the thread) for the test run. The rears were not affected to the same level, so they are good to go. The rear seems to be seated properly, while for the front, I may need to review them slightly to get a better seating. In the meantime I put some double face tape in the slot to ease adhesion...

I started by running slowly inside, and it seems good : it grips nicely inside. Let's go for asphalt for a very short run...


First conclusions : 

it grips

it grips to the point I need to glue the rear

I've not pushed more, I'll found a solution to get the rear seated properly (it may be a question of removing half of a millimeter in the inside diameter, but what I could see while doing this test is already a good sign, and it's encouraging  

Second conclusion, dogs are interesred by the sam. Tires work fine.