First, I am a visitor/some time poster to the Aircraft forum and others. I tend to lurk here alot. I am in the process of several 1/72 armor kits. Right now I am about to finish a Revell 1/72 M1A1. I need to know what to do about the treads. They are molded in black. Do I need to paint them with a metallic first and then black on the little rubber thingies[;)]. Can I just leave them black and then dry-brush some silver on them and be ok. I know that in 1/72 you will need a magnifying glass to tell. I would like to be some what accurate though. Thanks for the help.
Welcome to the darkside forum. I will defer answering to someone who knows about M1’s and their tracks. But I’m sure you’d need to do something to paint them, if only to bring up the detail. Sorry I’m of no more help!
Speaking from experience from my own M1 I built, paint the tracks with a dark metallic grey, then paint the pads black. Afterwards, dry-brush some steel along the outer edge. If you want to put some rust, use a wash of rust to get the color between the rubber pads. That’s how I usually do it on all my 1/72 scale armor.
Since you are a “lurking” visitor, I should warn you that you have entered the mythical and sometimes quizzical world of ARMOR. We will over look your flyboy past and try to help. Maddog hit in right on the head. Good luck on your “TRACK” painting mission, and may you see the light and become a full fledged “Tread Head”.
Off the top of my head I don’t know waht color real M1 Abrams tracks look like or exactly how they are built.
What I did with an M3 Grant was to leave the tracks black, since the basic track blocks were actually rubber. I then washed with a brownish-tan, to simulate the dirt and sand from the North African desert. Lastly I drybrushed the edges and the guides with silver to simulate the metallic tread connectors. The effect was decent.
I used oil-based enamels for the washing and some difficulty with incompatiblity with the rubber tracks. I have heard that acrylic paints work better in that respect, but I have never tried them myself.
These are luckily the link and length variety of treads. revell does that with most of the 1/72 armor that I have bought. I plan to use some washes of artist oils and some pastel dust to weather the tracks as well. I will effort some pics tonight.
From my own M1, I left the basecoat black, the painted all the little detail parts a dark metal colour. However, that was in 1/35 scale, and this would be probably fairly difficult to do in 1/72, not to mention nigh impossible to see. Where is Frosty???
She built some M1s in 1/72 and I’m sure she’d have a much better answer.
Welcome to the Darkside. I like the weathering you did. I do notice a bit of a gap where the top part meets the lower part of the hull in the bow area. A little putty ought to cure that. Hope to see more.
Right now, the upper hull is not glued down to the lower. I glued the skirts on too early in the build. So in order to put the tracks on I needed to wait before glueing the upper hull to the lower. That is the reason for the gap. It will be remedied before it is fininshed. I will post some finished pics in a day or two.
