I'd like to get some wheels of my own design made, I've designed the wheel and the mould, but I'm struggling to understand which plastic to pick.

Old Tamiya TRF buggy wheels for example have a great finish and are strong, but are not acetone safe (they just desolve!) - I'm 99% sure they are made of ABS - so I don't want to use this even though it's cheap, tough and readily available.

The Schumacher wheels are too flexible for my tastes - but they are acetone safe, but I'm not sure what they are made from. They always look worse for wear after a couple of uses and have a kind of rough finish on the face even when new.

I really like the properties of the JConcepts Mono - they're super tough and always clean up well, and they have a nice gloss look

Does the rctech collective have any ideas for me before I start picking stuff at random? Polypropylene feels like a good start - but it's going to get expensive to get anything made - so I'd rather get in the ball park first time!

Many thanks

Hello BuggyFan21,

I made my own wheels as well. Mine is for 1/8th OffRoad application. As far as I do research that the Industry mostly use Polyamide or Nylon. To get certain stiffness You could pick Nylon with Glass Fiber filling, or even Carbon filling. Carbon Fillied will get the most stiffness but will be very expensive and Injector Screw might have less life due to abrasive nature of the material.

Cheers..

Bear in mind the wheel also absorbs crash impacts, especially in off road, so a softer wheel is better in regard. Too stiff a wheel would simply crack/shatter or start breaking other parts.

I've had good experiences with Xray rims. ^Nylon is good as mentioned, but carbon filled can be brittle. Much better to do what AKA did and have a secondary stiffener plate. AKA PRODUCTS, INC. Wheel Stiffener: Evo Wheel, Yellow (4) : Truggy | Horizon Hobby