Hi all
I ordered some Airfix Stalins a week or so back (I know, but I got stuff from them for free if I got my order up a bit) and while waiting for them to arrive I went to a local model show. One of the traders was selling plastic tube; I Googled the size of JS2 / JS3 wheels, found they were 75cm diameter and bought a length of tube of the appropriate diameter.
The Airfix Stalins have now arrived, and looking at the wheels, not only are they are pretty crude, but they're also undersize I think. I can live with crude – I just cake them with mud – but undersize is more of an issue. So I am tempted to try to scratchbuild a wheel then copy and cast it. It appears a reasonably simply shape (famous last words), the rims are already made via the plastic tube, and it's quite big to work with. Alternatively, I could rob or copy the wheels from a donor JS-2 or KV-1, I guess.
Looking at these vehicles online, it looks to me like the idler wheel at the front corner is just another road wheel. It can be quite hard to tell because a lot of the time the camera angle or the sponson overhang obscures it. But is that correct? There are seven pairs of road wheels per side, six of them used as road wheels and the seventh pair as an idler?
I tried to see how far back this went by looking at KV-1s and KV-2s, but most of the pictures that come up are drawings or models on which some have a unique idler and some don't.
