Tracks, and Painting!! Question

How do you guys do Tracks? Every direction I have ever seen has you put on the Tracks midway through the Build. I have never done that, and have always waited till the end of the build (before weathering). I’m curious if there is a reason as to why the directions always show the Tracks on mid build. How can you get an accurate Paint job if you put them on mid build?

Any thoughts?

i put mine on after the main colours been sprayed on the tank and tracks, then i weather them together

it depends on what type of tracks

So far all of mine have been vinyl. I just wait until I feel like putting them on.

I don’t put them on until after the vehicle and the tracks have been drybrushed. Then I’ll add the tracks and complete the weathering.

I save the tracks for the end, because I hate doing them. The roadwheels get done just before them if they have rubber tires. I hate them too.

I learned the hard way that whent he directions on a 1/72 kit say put tracks on now, it’s alot easier in the long run to put them on. Normally I put them on 1/35 after I paint them and the tank, that being the vinyal ones.

I hate to sound like a lawyer, but it depends.

It depends on the weathering
It depends on the running gear of the tank (rubber road wheels or not?)

I built a Churchill several years ago. The best way to do the tracks was to put them on early in construction and then paint and weather the tank when completely built. It really was the best way, and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

To try to put the tracks on after the tank was competely built and painted would have been much more difficult.

hi
Just wanna ask details about steel chevron tracks of sherman (WWII). Is it all steel top(the surface that gets contact with the wheels) or bottom surface? Thanks!

WWII Sherman tracks that were “all steel” blocks were “all steel” blocks. Both top and bottom. Be careful, because there were also several “all rubber” blocks available for WWII Shermans too.

Putting the tracks on is almost always one of the last things I do right before I put on any stowage and final weathing

Latch - great point on the vehicles … sometimes I only think of Shermans [:I]

Joseph - Latch has nailed it with his comments. Here’s a site that may help you a little bit.
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/spoelstra/g104/track_vvss.htm

With me it depends on the vehicle, but most often I put them on late in the painting/weathering stage. My current build is a Panzer III, so the tracks are going on now, but I haven’t even put the upper hull on cause it interferes with track installation. Vehicle and track are painted, track will be weathered then the hull will be put together.