I picked up a Tamiya Char B1 bis at Hobby Lobby yesterday($25 on clearance! Yippee!!). The kit looks like oodles of fun and I am looking forward to diving into it when I have gotten the workbench clear. But I am curious about the tracks. As you may know they are individual track links that snap together. OK that is fine, but how do you go about prepping and painting? Do you link them together and then prime and paint? Prime, paint, and then snap them together? Toss out the snap part and just glue them? So many questions!
assemble, then paint. I don’t prime, but that’s your choice. I think it would be a needless hassle to paint before assembly. So I’d just snap 'em (no glue) then paint and weather the whole thing.
I build complete runs of track and then I paint them. Careful what you weather them with. I believe it was Redleg12 who, when building his M40 weathered the tracks with a medium cut with mineral spirits. This concoction got down into the crevices and destroyed the track pins. The track run fell apart in his hands. Since I saw that happen I have switched to weathering my tracks with thinned acrylics. Sometimes I will use mineral spirits but, only very sparingly.
Why can’t all tracks be assembled so easily like this??? Bought the same kit at Hobby Lobby last summer for about $30 when they cut its stock on model kits in half. Saddening moment for everybody here… hope you will post your work as we don’t see Char B1 often here. Good luck! [Y]
No joke! I’m working on some hobby boss sdkfz 11 tracks right now and they’re SOOOO time consuming. Tracks like those would make the job of all armor modelers about a thousand times less tedious.
Nice vid Mitch This is the same way the tracks work on my current build (Trumpeter T-34/76) albiet in 1/16 scale… I also agree, why can’t the manufacturers use this same method with all the track variants?
I’ve warned people about this repeatedly when diluting oil paints. Mineral spirits will transform your plastic into candy cane consistency, easy breakage; doesn’t bother vinyl though.
I learned this several times the hard way. Use turpenoid from the Blue can.
Hmmmm… I’ve never had that problem, even on miniscule Pz 1 tracks. I guess I had a good solid metalizer (lacquer) basecoat, then I used the washes over a layer of Future. And [as Vincent would say] I “*ing drown 'em in that s”. So as long as you have a nice thick acrylic coat, you should be fine.
Uh… may have been said, didnt read all the replies.
If your having trouble when weathering, about the mineral spirits getting down and damaging things… What I suggest is before doing ANYTHING after you put a base coat hit it with LAQUER top coat or dull coate. mineral spirits wont eat through that stuff, atleast not in any significant way. Then weather with acrylics or enamels or oils
Completely painted in MM Acrylics (but no future), weathered with spirits - almost magically resulted in a vertical /diagonal crack from the gun mantlet down the glacis to the leading edge of the hull. Everything was a good fit with this kit so no press fits were required. Didn’t affect the band tracks.
Tamiya Panther, band tracks:
Completed in Tamiya Acrylics (but no future), weathered with spirits - resulted in the road wheel axles deteriorating in three different locations… just crumbled and would not respond very well to the same liquid glue I used on the rest of the kit. Since they were a major feature of the model, it just ruined it - I scrapped it out for parts (and some of THAT was useless). Tracks weren’t tight either …dead tracks. Again, it didn’t affect the band tracks.
Apparently the only thing in common (other than the spirits) was that they were Tamiya kits (nothing wrong with that) and the nature of Tamiya plastic is different than Dragon.
Maybe it doesn’t affect Dragon plastic in the same manner; it IS a softer plastic. But after several experiences with the spirits I have gone to turps and for the most part have built Dragon kits for the last ten or so years. I haven’t had that problem since.
!http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt84/SVT-GT500/smileys/judgesmiley.gif*"This is an attempt to help. As with any hobby, your results may vary, and will be based on your individual capacity, experience and level of expertise. There are no guarantees concerning the level of success you may or may not experience. The examples used had unusual results, which may not apply to all builders, and it is not* guaranteed that ever**yone will achieve the same or similar results. Each individual’s results depend on his or her background, dedication, desire and motivation".
In other words, in many instances two or more modelers can try the same identical procedure but yet come up with different results.
