I am having trouble with the vinyl tracks for my Tamiya Cromwell. In the instructions, it says to use superglue and attach it to the road wheels. I tried this, but the tracks kept popping off after a few seconds. Right now, the tracks are just floating in mid air and, to make matters worse, the way they were packaged has warped them so they're kinda twisted too. So the question is, how do I get the vinyl tracks to touch the road wheels on the top and have a realistic looking sag?

Nic

PS--Don't tell me to get AM tracks. I'm not going to buy them...so there

On an Italeri Tiger with the same prob I used thin thread looped once thru the track and then tied to the axle behind the outside roadwheels. Not the most hi-tech of solutions, but weathered up on a darkly painted track it was not easy to see if you didn't know it was there.
(of course when you Did know it was there, you just naturally couldn't help looking at it....... )

I don't believe the Cromwell has any sag on it's tracks. Tiny, tiny if any.
What I have done for the Tamiya M4 is to use white glue. Super glue does not like to hold to vinyl. I put a small amount on the top of the return rollers (road wheels in your case) and used a bent-up paper clip between the hull and the wheel to hold it in place till it dried...next day. Still holding for me.

What you could do to fix the twist in the tracks is pin them down, slightly stretched. Use a hair dryer on a medium setting for a few minuets. Not too close. Let them cool and check em.

Also, you can use little dowels that you can buy in a large pack at Walmart and place them inbetween each road wheel while they dry.

this site has a couple of ways to make sags

Sancho's link, that he was so nice to supply has a short ditty on the very same model kit you're working on Folgore, the Tamiya Cromwell. It's 'Making correct sag in AFV track's, version 2'.
Check it out. It's basically a combination of brno465's and Kenc's ideas.

Tread.

Now you know why we all go broke using individual tracklinks. clink clink I think I hear my money falling out of my pocket....... :-)

Josh Weingarten
aKa shiryon

I know how you feel, especially if you prefer Fruil's, as I do.

Tread.

Only then the "clink...clink" sound also happens while you're building them!

I know the feeling of having the superglue decide it won't hold. Depending where you are on your build or how the kit goes together, I use a few tried and true methods. The fine black thread method works well for dual wheels and no return rollers like the panther or t-62. I have tried hot glue from a glue gun. Not bad, but I found that the ones that use medium heat work best instead of the scald your fingers until they blister type. Gotta becareful to use this stuff sparingly, unless you plan to use the excess as mud material. And lastly I like 5 minute epoxy. It works good in sone case and not too well in others. The biggest pain is you need to "hold" your tracks in place for a while so the epoxy can cure. Stinks to all heck too!!!!! Super glue is just to brittle to bond to a flexible thing like vinyl tracks so it's best to find a slightly flexible bonding material...........too bad duct tape doesn't come in clear.....hmmmmm there's an idea.....or how about small pieces of clear double sided carpet tape........now I'm getting carried away.

Lee

Superglue and accelerator work fine for me when getting track to stick to road wheels.

Thanks for tips, guys. I have tried superglue before with success, but no luck on this one. I think just to much needs to be glued down. To clarify, Ken, I didn't mean I wanted sag between the road wheels, I just want the tracks to droop down and run along the road wheels like they're supposed to. I'm not sure which method I'll try yet.....

Nic

I've had good results in creating track sag by glueing a .200 x 1/4 piece of Evergreen strip on the inside of the hull and then drilling a 3/32 hole and inserting a 3/32 Gvergreen rod to produce the desired amount of sag.

Note: If you try the hairdryer to correct the twisted vynil tracks, please be advised that too much tension will stretch the tracks! I ended up having to remove 3 track links from the tracks of a Tamiya JapanesType 97 (new). In addition, gel super glue worked fine in creating the sag for this model.

I know some people like to sag on Pz lll and Pz lV tracks, that is wrong. They should be tightened, because those Panzers we notorious for throwing off tracks during a turn. They were too narrow and so according to regulations from the Waffenamt they were to be kept tight.

Chris Pig no.1

Chris, Thanks for the advise, before reading this post, I am one of the people like the sag. (See my Pz III, it was really sagged!!! Now I want to take it off from the gallery! ), So while we are at it, can you give us some idea of what German AFV usually have sagging tracks, and which didn't? Thanks!

Thanks again for all the ideas, everyone. I went to work on the tracks yesterday and got them looking great. I kinda designed my own method from your ideas, though, so I'll share it with you.

Once again, these were the vinyl tracks for the Tamiya Cromwell. The Cromwell has no return rollers, so I wasn't looking for sag, I just needed to keep the track down against the top of the road wheels. I'm not the greatest at working with thread, so I elected the glue method. I couldn't find 5-minute epoxy at the grocery store, so I picked up some Elmer's Fix-All, which requires no mixing, has a thick consistency, almost like glue gun glue, and sets in 20 minutes. I put small amounts of the glue on the very top of each road wheel. I had planned on tying the track down to the roadwheels with wire, but this failed, so instead, I used two spatulas, adding weight with coins! After an hour, just to be safe, I removed the weights and voila, c'est magnifique!

Nic

Al,

Does your brand of SG stick to painted wheels? I use cheap SG, and my experience has been that after a short while, the 'tension' on the track will lift the paint right off the painted wheels. Boing!

Thanks,
Kevin Keefe
Mortars in Miniature

Kevin,
I use green lable Zap-a-Gap with Zip Kicker. I have not had problems yet with them lifting from painted wheels.
Al

Cool man.. thanks for the ZaG pointer...

Thanks,
Kevin Keefe
Mortars in Miniature

I think it depends on how much the tracks tend to spring back. I used superglue to good effect on the Tamiya Marder, but it just didn't work with the Cromwell. I needed something thicker and less brittle than the superglue for this job.

Nic

I use the thread method or you could try drilling into the hull just above where you want the track sag and glue in a short length of brass rod to hold the track down
REMEMBER THAT ON THE CROMWELL THE TRACKS ONLY TOUCH THE MIDDLE THREE WHEELS

Hi Lord Folgore, I think your method is somewhat similar to the one that I used back in the days I still using rubber bands, I super glue them to the wheels (I was building the Tamiya 251, so no return roller, similar situation as your cromwell) then I use cloth peg to clamp them together, after a night long, they stick fine.

But now, I just replace them with Friul or modelkasten.