Tracks, for me, are THE aftermarket kit for models. Personally, I think that a good set of tracks adds a lot of realism to a model, and are the first thing I look for when I search for AM enhancements for a kit. Friul offer a quality product, but I chose to opt for the Spade-Ace offering out of curiosity. I appreciate any company that offer us modellers more choices in that field, so I decided to give them a chance. On the face of it, it looked like a good product.
Review
When you get the kit, you don’t notice any difference from the Friul kits. You get a bag filled with individual, white metal tracks along with a metal wire to connect them with. Upon examination I found the details to be quite good and crisp, and I was pleased with the purchase I made.
When I got home, however, and examined them further, I was really disappointed. No 2 tracks would fit straight together - and I have tried several, altering and changing between pairs. I could get the tracks to align for the first 2 holes, but that was it. The others would be diagonal to one another and would not coincide. This was because the cast wasn't perfect, and would require a lot of cleaning and dry fitting.
The worst thing is, this kit was $12 more expansive than the proven Friul offering! I have used several Friul tracks on my models in the past, and fitting was never an issue. Sure, I had to drill the holes to make the wire go in smoothly, but that was it. Charging more for an inferior product was like adding insult to injury.
In conclusion, from now on I will stick to the good old Friuls, until Spade-Ace can up their game.
SUMMARY
Highs: Crisp and clear details.Lows: Links would not fit together, be prepared for a lot of cleaning and dry fitting.Verdict: Not good enough. I would recommend to avoid this product.
Thank you for this review. I saw your first photo and the links looked really nice and my immediate thought was "I will have to get some of these for my Merkava III", then I read on...
I'm sorry you had such a bad set. I too have this set, I used them on my IIID and they look great and add weight to the kit. Other than a quick clean up of the pin holes with a drill I had no problems with my set. they went together very quick, I personally would recommend them.
I did a SpadeAce JS-2 split-link set a bit ago, and had to actually do some light clearancing on each "whole" link to get a good fit, same as these would appear to need. On the positive side, detail was exceptional
I just finished assembling their Tiger II/Panther II Transport tracks and had zero issues other than the wire was difficult to deal with. I used sewing pins instead and just cut them to length after installing them.
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