I'm building Tamiya's M4A3 Sherman and am wondering how to go about painting the vinyl tracks that came with it. I've looked at several pictures but still can't get a good idea of the base painting scheme, i.e. that done before weathering. Should the rubber treads be black? What color should the track itself be?

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

yes the rubber should be black or grey. I like to use dark euro grey by model master. the metal can be rusted or brighter metal depending on conditions. I by no means am a pro at sherman tracks but this is how I have been taught through talking to others on here and guys in my club.

Hi There Cary..

I too have pondered this question. examined the references, even a few that were in color to try and achive a good (to me) sherman track look.



the photo if of my M10 I did recently. The Tracks are Tamiya vinyl tracks from their Frontline Breakthrough sherman.

they are unweathered with pastels or mud as of yet because I left this a clean build for use in a possible dio later on and i'll want to match the weathering to the ground.

the connectors were painted with Model Master Oiled steel.. (which was a lot of work...).. then after that dried really really good.. I gave them a couple of light mist coatings of thinned Pollyscale "dirt" paint.. this toned down the steel for a dusty used look and gave the rest of the rubber of the track that dull used look instead of a shiny rubber look..

I don't know how "accurate" this look is for the sherman experts out there but it looks pretty good to me for an unweathered sherman track..

As a solid basis for further weathering, I think it's great. If the vehicle ends up portraying a tank in a damp or temperate climate, you might want a dab of Rust-all in the hollows of the end connectors as that's the only place that got at all rusty on an operating vehicle. After that, add the muck & mire from the groundwork and it'll look even better.

Paul

Thanks guys. Delbert, your tracks look great. The track sections look to be a Nato Black color. Forgive my ignorance, but were the entire tracks rubber or just the chevron shaped pieces? If not, would it be correct to paint the chevrons black and the rest of the track a steel color?

Hey Cary:
The Tamiya kits come with two types of tracks. The one in the photo above are the T48 tracks and the entire tread (less the end connectors) was rubber. The others that come with the older M4A3 kits were all metal.

It's good to ask because some were composites, too.

Hey Cary The track sections in the T48 shown in the photo were rubber and in the photo the track sections were left unpainted. I used a light dusting of thinned pollyscale dirt color to tone down the natural shiny black vinyl track color to a nice dull rubber black color..

Here is a website that shows the different tracks for the sherman its a great resouce.

Track Types For Sherman Medium Tanks and Related AFVs

and another one from the olive drab homepage which shows some of the track types in great detail.

Tracks for Medium Tanks

Thanks for the help guys, and the links. Very helpful. The tracks on my M4A3 look to be the T-48's. Hopefully, they'll come out looking as good as yours, Delbert.