Sorry ahead of time. I'm sure alot of my early posts will be under the "newb" heading

When painting tracks on lets say a Panther or Tiger tank, I realize that the tracks rust, but here's the question:

Should you paint the whole track rust then weather it? Put a base coat down and then apply rust, steel, etc colors for the effect?
I realize the more the tank was in the field, the more rust the tracks accumilated. Does the whole track rust eventually, most of it, just some, etc?
I have a few books on model building but I really can't find any help when it comes to how to paint/weather the tracks.

As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

Welcome Game!

I hope you get a lot of interesting replys to this question - everyone has a different method What I like to do with weathering tracks is to paint a base coat of flat black. Over this, I overspray flat brown - thinned up to 75% - this simulates rusting. Then, I go ahead and weather the tracks according to what I'm modeling at the time. :-)

Gunnie

This is a pretty controversial topic. From what I've heard and seen, most active military vehicles won't have rust on the treads. I was on an army post recently and noticed that a number of historical vehicles - shermans, chafees, pattons - that were permanently parked all had rust on the treads. Active vehicles, however, like Abarams and Bradley's didn't exhibit any rust. This of course could have something to do with the contruction and materials of the treads. However, I think a lot of it has to do with use. Rust is found on the surface layer of the metal - and will generally be rubbed off when a vehicle is moving. Personally, I think large amounts of rust would only be found on vehicles that have been sitting for a long time.

My favored method of painting treads for WWII vehicles is fairly simple. I paint them with a base coat of Poly-S "Grimy Black" then dry brush them with Testor's steel color. This keeps the tread dark (which I like) yet give them a nice metallic sheen. Then, of course, I muddy them up plenty. :-)

Basically, I think tread colors are entirely a matter of personal preference. Look at plenty of pictures, maybe get a look at the real vehicles if possible, then use the colors and methods that you like the best.

Good luck.

Rob and some of the others will attest to the fact that active machines do Not have rusting tracks. If a tracked vehicle sits around awhile like in a motorpool, they might get a touch of rust which will be rubbed off when the tracks get moving again. I looked at a parked Strv 122 (Swedens Leopard 2A5 SII) and the rust was just on the surface, very easy to wipe off.

I've never worked with single link tracks so I have no experience with them, but find nevertheless hard to get the vinyl tracks looking realistic.

Yeah, Hunter, that is one of the few advantages that single link tracks have over vinyl ones. They're a royal pain to assemble, but painting and weathering are much easier.

If you do have to work with vinyl tracks, do you guys know of a way to fill sink holes in vinyl tracks?
I mean, I can't always replace them with single link tracks (either not available or just too expensive).
I suppose putty and cyano would just crack and flake off?

I paint my tracks with mixture of Rust colour and Steel metalic, amount of each colour depends on that, how rusty u want them.
after that i paint surfaces that contact the ground pure steel metalic

BF47,

I would try melting a little of the vinyl sprue (mine were on a little sprue anyway) the treads came with into the hole! I didn't have much sprue to work with but the little hole I had to fill worked well. I was thinking that putty and the like would be too rigid for the vinyl track...beginners luck perhaps

A drop of thinned white glue, like Elmer's Glue All. I use the stuff for filling little sink areas, sometimes covering and entire track pad until it evens out.

won't the tank thread that does not have metal to metal contact sometimes show rust? secondly, how would I simulate dirt on the tracks when I am using the Hanomag in a street scene?