Okay guys this is the moment I have been dteading. as I said in my most recent post on Vinnies "why do you build armour over other models," I have been assembling my Stug III the since last Wednesday. How do I set the track sag? I have the chassis almost entirely assembled. Everything but a few minor details are now in place. I have the front drive sprocket and the rear ideler on and in place. I have placed but not glued the inner road wheels in place. My game plan is to assemble the tracks prior to installing the interior and upper hull sections. I want to start with the lower runs fo tracks and let that dry overnight or so then do the upper runs then paint them both at the same time. How can I set the track sag without installing the upper hull to the chassis? Please keep in mind that I have never done track sag, so I don't know what I am doing. The one way I thought might work was to assemble the lower runs and tape the chassis to a VCR tape and tape the tracks down so they dry. However I seam to get lost when doing the upper runs. Any help would be mostly appreciated. Forgive me if this has been threaded by others before as I am very new to this site as well as to armour in general. Thanks for any and all advice. I will try to do the bottom runs today or tomorrow and then check back on this thread in a few days.

James,
the easiest way to do it is to place the track link upside down against a ruler on your work surface, and make up a length sufficient to cover the top run. Then using a fine brush, cement each link to it's neighbour. After 10 minutes, lift the run, place it over the wheels and adjust until you have it looking 'right'. Of course, this only works if you're going to paint the vehicle with the tracks in place as I normally do. This is after you have already done the bottom runs, which are basically flat and straight and shouldn't present a problem. I always cement the bottom runs in place to the roadwheels, so I don't have to worry about these.

Vinnie

You glue the tracks to the tank before you paint it? How do you paint the rubber portion of the road wheels like that? And how do you paint the track itself without overspray onto the hull? What if the hull overhangs and gets in the way like most Tiger 1s do? I have been scratching my head trying to figure that out.

The way i do this is to paint all the wheels first, then install the tracks. With careful use ofthe brush i can paint the tracks, and weather them, without spoiling the paint on the wheels. Another way is to assembly the wheels lose on the tank, then put the tracks on. If you have this right you can remove the wheels, and the tracks, and they paintthe tracks off the vehicle.

Regards from the Swamp

Eth

There's some info about indy link tracks in the "Features" section of Armorama.

Click on Features, then on Armor/AFV and then on Total Articles XXX View all. You can now do a search with Ctrl-F.

Here's one example:

Make Tracks! by: Bob Lester

'Tanks' a lot, guys. I'm not so sure about how steady my hand is with my airbrush, so looks like taking the wheels off might work best for me. While we are on this subject, who makes the best tracks for the money? And I don't mean the white metal ones which cost more than the entire kit does. I couldn't possibly justify spending that much on one component. What's the cheapest available with decent detail? I don't mind having to clean them up if when I am finished I end up with a decent set of treads.