Dear All,

Apologies for the silly question but this is really a dilemma for me: how do I paint tractor treads? Tanks are fine; I can do those: they are usually dark metal, so normally I just use a brownish black, wash with rust colors, rub graphite/silver pencil to it. There are some exceptions, but in general, they are fine.

However, the D7 seems to have an aluminium/steel colored track- which I have no clue how to paint. I was thinking painting them grey, and then metallize them with graphite; the "aluminium" paint colors are normally too shiny for this sort of work. (They don't shine, they have a very dull, flat colour.)

So I would really appreciate if someone could fill me in how to do civilian tractor treads

Thank you.

I do not know for sure but I would be surprised if the tracks were made of aluminum as this would wear down in no time. I guess that they are made from stainless steel.

This is the scheme I applied for my 1:72 D9-tracks:

- priming with Mr. Surfacer 1200
- Field Grey XF 65 (Rinaldi used Nato black for his 1:35 D9 but due to the smaller scale of my Doobi I wanted to have the tone a bit lighter)
- adding some rust. I tried the sponge technique but did not like the result as I did not manage to place the rust in the corners and recesses where I think it should be. Switching to rust washes blended by a dark grey one lead to a more convincing result.
- final touches with metal pigments that were spread at the contact areas.

Here you can check the final result.

Maybe this comes close to what you are looking for.

Cheers Michael

Your best bet would be to drive out to any quarry, or construction site and look at the tracks on the equipment. The tracks haven't changed in years. If they are in use they will be shiny steel. If the equipment has been setting they will tend to start rusting.

I know what you mean. In your mind it needs to be darker because the aluminum, whether a true match or not just looks too bright. Maybe try a mixture of dove gray and steel for the track, then dry brush the cleats in straight steel or a mixture of steel mixed with aluminum. Once you dirty up the track some it should look good.

Thank you for the answers.

I do know they are not made of aluminium; I've said aluminium color. I was not sure how to describe that dull-grey metal color that they have. (They are high strength steel with manganese by the way).

I also know how they look I just did not know how to paint them. I ended up using a neutral, dark grey, and then just used some dark metallic pigment on them, with brighter metallic pigments on the areas where they are rubbing together. After some washes, they look the piece.

would you mind showing us the result. Sounds like an interesting technique.