Assembly.

Tyres indeed. On my last visit to my casting people, I was shown a protoytpe of a soft resin tyre. The prices mentioned were favourable so when I go and see the guys again later in the week, i'll do a little more investigation. If Scalextric can't for some reason supply these tyres, then I think we should look into it further.
On the assembly front here we have several photo’s showing fairly clearly how my rendition of a wire wheel goes together. The first picture shows the rim with one of the spacers attached. I would normally use Devcon for this kind of work, but in this instance I have used cyan. Not a good idea. Once the spacer is fixed in the right place ie central and concentric, I paint the back face of the wheel black.

Then the disc is glued in place with the other spacer fixed on top
The tricky bit of course are the two photo etched spoked parts. The rear one needs the spokes bending upwards and the front piece, the spokes bending back. More or less creating two cones.

The rear one is glued to the spacer on top of the disc.

Once fixed, the spokes can be gently pushed back against the rim.

The outer piece is the one that gives me the most problems. The spokes need to be dropped into the gaps between the spokes of the rear piece. In theory. Because the parts are very light it makes them very difficult to handle and control. Sometimes they just drop in. Sometimes they don't

The spinner is the last part to be added and the spigot need to be trimmed to be flush with the ring on the outer etch. The finished article is'nt bad in my opinion. A little bit of a 3D effect I think you might say and very much worth the effort.

Graham.