Masking road wheels

While there are some handy hints and tips going around at the moment, here's one from me regarding the masking of roadwheels on tanks. Some of you (yes YOU) spend a fortune on wheel masks from aftermarket manufacturers especially if you make a lot of tanks, trucks etc so here's my method of doing them.

First of all for the price of a couple of masking sets you can purchase a digital vernier (or caliper), a compass cutter, masking tape and a cutting mat. You may think that a digital vernier is a hideously expensive item but the one I have was purchased from Aldi for the princely sum of £10 and before you say "for that price it must be crap" I have had this vernier calibrated for work in the aerospace industry (I will admit the calibration guy was surprised but hey), anyway the compass cutter is not that expensive either so getting these two will save you money later on;

Using the vernier measure the roadwheel across the diameter of the rim;

Put some masking tape on the cutting mat then using the measurement from the vernier set the compass cutter to the radius of the meaurement (which is half the diameter) and cut a circle;

Cut the tape into a square section;

Then apply to the roadwheel;

Once painted remove the mask and you should have a perfectly painted roadwheel!
It's as easy as that and will save you money over time. By the way don't forget to mask the rear!