A couple weeks ago I got in a set of Fruilmodel track links for Dragon's Elefant kit. Lovely. So today I start assembling. As any of you know who have worked with these tracks, the links usually come in two bags. One for the left side of the vehicle and one for the right, no instruction provided. I guess they figure if you opt to buy these track links, you have the references and common sense to build them correctly. Not so today for this child!
So anway, I open up a bag and start to get with it. Pinning and cutting wire and stopping every so often and add a drop of CA to the end of each wire to hold it in place. Well after I've built about 3/4 of a run of links I begin to notice that none of these things have any guide teeth on them. I look at the other bag and I see that they all have guide teeth.So I figure I got one bag that just didn't have the teeth formed. Well, I get kind fo upset, but that's just the way things go sometimes. Although I've never had this kind of problem with this maker's tracks before.
Then I got out some books on this vehicle and begin to look closely at it's track and start to notice that the guide teeth are just on very other link!! So in a nutshell, I've built almost one entire run of one kind of link!!!
Now comes the job of trying to remove all those glue-in pins without damaging the track. I've done this before just to remove a single link if said track is just a tad too long once I put it on the finished vehicle, but NEVER this many.
Luckily on this track design there is something of a 'duck-bill' protrusion on the side where the wire goes in and so there's just a bit of wire sticking out after it's been cut off even with the side of the track link. Evidently the model gods decided to give this poor child a break today for his ignorance, and I was able to remove about 90% of the pins without damaging the track. And about 5% with just some slight damage. And I did lose about 8 or so links that had to be totally written off.
Once I began to rebuild the tracks, correctly this time, and counting the remaining pieces I see that I will more than likely have more than enough links to do both sides. Man I'm going to pay for this kind of luck some place down the line, I just know it.
So a friendly word of advice for those out there who would like to build a set of these tracks for this vehicle, please engage brain and check references before using hands. Or then, maybe, just maybe, the main problem would be that I didn't take the time to do this myself. Better make a note of this and add it to the door above the work bench, in big bright letters.
Live well and hopefully remember to learn...Take care, sgirty #:-)
