Since I had today off from work, President’s Day holiday here in the states, I’ve spent a couple of hours this morning finishing assembling my first set of Fruil white-metal individual link tracks for this Tamiya Wespe kit I’m currently working on. They’re not painted yet. Now that I’ve put a set together I won’t be so leery of trying them again. Tedious work, but not complicated. Now if I could remove this bottle of super glue off my right thumb!
Glenn
I’m glad it went well, Glen. I haven’t tried them yet, the price is putting me off. Gotta love that superglue though.
Im about to dig into my first set of Model Kasten. I know this is no where near the level, but any tips?
Ive done the Dragon Indies, and I didnt have a problem.
While I haven’t tried ModelKasten, if you’ve done Dragon’s ‘indy-links’ then you have the skills already to do the ModelKasten’s. Main thing is patience!
Glenn
thanks
I’m so glad you get good value out of them. Personally, I hate them. IMO they are too heavy and go together badly. I spent countless hours building and painting Panther tracks that I could not use, as they curve too much, and it was hell getting them off the the chassis, as they are overscale thick and it was hard to get them off the wheels.
Others have great experiences with them though, and I’m glad you are one of them!
id love to try fruil tracks, i know they look great but they are way too expensive for me (usually they cost more then the model itself!!). glad u took the courage to try it. maybe i will one day too.
MurderDogg-
I agree with you on the price. Wish someone here in the US would get on the stick and make a comparable product and then sell them online for 2/3rds what Fruil’s cost! Dream on!
Glenn
I love Friul tracks. It’s too bad they are expensive as I would use more of them if I could afford the cost. I have one piece of advice to offer. I use .020 brass wire instead of the kit supplies wire. It is stronger and will push through any flash in the links whereas the kit wire isn’t strong enough to go through the flash.
I’ve also heard from somewhere that you could also use those needles with plastic ball ends(I dont know what they’re called) that they use in dress making and just cut off the excess. I’m pretty sure this would cure the curve problem [:)]
I’ve only used Fruil tracks once before on Panzer 38T, and gotta say they do look good once they’re on the model. It took me about a week of on again-off again work to put them together, but that’s probably because I had never done it before.
PINS FOR FUIL TRACKS.
Check to see the size of the pins. I don’t have a micrometer, but some can be too big and split the Fruil tracks. Also they are harder steel and those cutters for plastic WILL be damaged. I have found some mild steel pins that are just a bit larger then the wire in the Fruil kits.
I picked up a partial box of Fruil tracks and played with them before I screwed up the ones for my Bergepanther and Bergetiger(P). They look so good and flex like the real ones, I almost want to motorize my kits like the old Tamiyas.