Roadhog Tyre Shoulder Piece Part 1

After looking into getting an actual tyre (The weight of this alone was enough to put me off) I realised I would have to make it another way. Polystyrene isn't the best of materials I'll admit. It melts easily and cutting the stuff makes the whole craft room look like a winter wonderland. Not ideal. However, for this make it was the only simple way I could think of to make the curve I needed.

You can see above I cut one half of the sphere down either side to start my tyre shape. I then added foam pieces along the outsides to create the lips down the side of the wheel. Using a lot of tape to hold the pieces in place, I was pretty happy with how this stage looked.

To start with I tired making the tyre treads out of more foam, but the curve of the shape made the pieces scrunch up in weird places and I wasn't happy with how it was looking. I spend a good two evening trying to make this work before admitting defeat and working out how else I could do this. Using a craft knife would be messy and the polystyrene particles of it was made of would mean I couldn't control the material as best I wanted to. If you've ever tried to snap polystyrene in half you will know what I mean. You can never get a good clean snap, it will always be jagged

because of the way it is made.

Instead, I decided to use my new wood burning took and see if I could melt the polystyrene away to make the tracks I wanted. I used a piece of scrap to see if it would work, and it did, as long as I didn't apply much pressure. The polystyrene literally melted away in seconds, meaning I had to be precise and quick with my melting.

WARNING: Wear a mask if you are going to do this, because melting polystyrene is not good for anyone's lungs I'm sure!

Then it was worbla covering time! I used one large piece to cover the outside, whilst pushing the warbla down into the tyre treads.

Next I worked on the 3 large spikes that go on the tyre. For this I started with a polystyrene cone (1). I sanded these down so they had more of a point. I wondered how I was going to make the correct shape and this is what I decided to do in the end. I got one of the thicker pieces of foam I have and cut out a circle, the same width as the bottom of the cone circumference. I then used a craft knife and a piece of sand paper to make a slant around the edges so the shape looked like no 2 in the diagram below and glued 1 and 2 together.

I then cut out two thick pieces of cardboard rings to make 3, a larger piece, and 4, a smaller piece. I first covered 1 and 2 in a piece of worbla. I then covered no 4 with worbla, though covered the top of the circle and down the sides so there was a flat surface of worbla along the top. I covered no 3 in worbla and attached it to no 2.

I then heated to the top of 4 so the worbla was payable and pressed no 3 down into the worbla. This made the effort to the left, where the spike is pressed down into the bottom ring with a nice worbla lip around the sides.

I hope that all makes sense!

I then headed up the worbla and stuck the spikes along the tyre in place.