I have been away from model building for a while. Picked up a soviet personnel carrier to build. Assembly is going good but I ran into a roadblock - individual track links!!! How do you assemble all those little pieces and make them fit on the road wheels and sprockets? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks to all who answer.
Hi,
are they in metal or plastic? it’s not the same method !
Well , in plastic make some smalls portions. It’s easier for the final mounting.
In metal it’s not the same thing.
First on each part there is a hole on one side and it’s closed on the other side.
Put all closed side against a ruler . Hold them togetehr with tape. Introduce the little axle in the hole.
If the holes are not good you should pierce them with a litlle bit.
Cut some littles axles in electric wire. Iintroduice them but not in totality. Cut you axle and with a screwdriver to push it inside.
As for the plastic one work by portions.
Sorry for my average english !
Plastic links do in small groups. Start with the sprockets and work from there. Supper glue will work fine, besure to give some sag to your tracks.
Metal or resin is a whole different animal. Patience, small drill bits, a third hand, copper wire stand and inventing some new words…make sure no children are around. Oh, and make sure you have a drop cloth to catch any fly aways.
Write back as to what type of links you have.
Away from modelling and dealing with Indy tracks on your return effort … now that’s jumping in with both feet. LOL
They can be a pain to build but the end results can be wonderful.
Not knowing exactly which vehicle tracks you are dealing with stops me from giving any anything but the simplest of advice.
- Work slow and always be aware of the allignment of the track pieces.
- use a slow drying glue (many use simple white glue for the building of these tracks
- check your vehicle references to see if there is a sag in the tracks. Most armoured vehicles do indeed sag on the return rollers but vehicles like the Sherman, the M88 and others have no noticable sag to them.
- build your tracks up into workable lengths. When building mine I try to work towards 4 or 5 lengths of track before finally placing them on the model.
- use your kit’s drive sprockets and idlers for guides
- continually check, check and check again
Thanks for the replys. The treads I am trying to assemble are very small styrene plastic parts. They are molded in dark green and will have to be painted individually. I have a medium sized drop cloth that I place on the table and fold up the sides to try and catch any parts that decide to go their own way. The instructions are not very clear on the assembly process and it does not look like there are any extra track links. Right now the model is sitting on the shelf and I am working on a modern USMC amtrac vehicle, easy one piece plastic treads!
Regards.
Instead of painting them individually I would assemble them in sections, then paint and weather them as much as possible before placing them onto the model.
Wanted to say thank you to those modelers that replied to my question. With your tips I will be atempting to complete my armored vehicle. Thanks again for the replys.
sstcapt
I use the following technique to make assembling plastic
track links easier. I dry-fit a relatively long piece of track –
up to 5-8 cm or 2-2.5 in, length depends on where this
piece will go: highly curved pieces should be smaller –
on scotch tape between two rulers. Then I quickly apply
small amounts of slow drying glue to the whole track,
just to barely hold the links together. While the glue is setting
I position the track piece on top/under/around the wheels,
give it some sag if needed and fix it place. The scotch tape
does not allow the whole assembly to fall apart while I work
on it. After the glue has cured I take the piece off the
vehicle, remove the scotch tape and add some more glue
for a better hold. Eventually, the whole track falls into 4-5
separate big pieces (usually 2-3 long flat ones for top and
bottom and 2 curved ones that go around sprockets etc.)
which are easy to handle and paint/weather off the vehicle.
I’ve used this technique on my Dragon Stug III B model, the
first one with separate tracks that I’ve assembled. It worked
quite well and saved me the trouble of dealing with too
small subassemblies. This may not be the perfect technique
in terms of quality but it works for a neophyte like me 
Hope this helps,
Serge
serge i like your method
Here’s how I do them:
http://matt24.fotopic.net/c778272.html
The more you do the easier it gets. good luck.
Hi, first post here. I came looking for advice on the same subject, assemblying individual track links.
I have a panzer IV ausf H i started building in 1999 or 2000! I had almost finished it then got stuck on doing these links. The links kit is from Dragon, thats going on a Tamiya kit.
What I have been doing is gluing sections of a time, then gluing those together. So now I have a couple of straight parts, but now have to tackle the sprokets. Now these links are very hard to put together as they are, how am I going to glue the rest of tracks when they are on the model? There is no way to get your hands or tools in there to press them together!
Thanks for any advice!
[#ditto]
This is the most intellegent method I have yet seen, and I believe this answers shollow’s question as well.
Tom T [C):-)]
Cut or sand the connector pins and the connection points. This will allow them to go together easily and they will not need to be presseed together. Also, build them in an upper and lower run that connects at the sprocket and idler and it is easy to join them. Lastly, use some superglue for the final assembly and you will be set.
the best way is to have someone else do them for you[(-D] [(-D]