King Tiger (2013) 024

[Stephen White]

Double tap - sorry.

[Stephen White]

Hi, Matt, as Phil says, it's a matter of personal choice, although if you intend to do some rough running especially in water, it can do no harm to prime the track links and most particularly the pins.

Tim Bowman did an excellent tutorial on painting tracks on one of his threads (Panther?) and I did one on my Pz III thread. It's also worth looking at Simon Manning's various threads and do have a look at Dale Jordan's threads with the painting by his mate Noel. State of the art painting all.

The sequence I use is:

- Prime all the parts separately with UPOL Acid Etch Prime
- Prime all the parts with red oxide primer
- Apply a light coat of Vallejo acrylic track colour
- Assemble the tracks and paint overall with a light coat of acrylic matt (I use Citadel Purity Seal)
- On the inside, spray the thin lines where the track would be worn by contact with the road wheels, I use Alclad paint in various colours
- Apply pigments and rust tones and fix with Mig pigment fixer. The best pigments I've found are by Promodeller, they're much finer and come in larger quantities that others.
- Final overall protective coat of acrylic matt.

I've found that the paints above give the most realistic finish and have been very tough and hard wearing - the tracks will naturally wear to bright metal where they contact the ground so some hard running on concrete will finish the job.

Paul Scott has just sent me some photos for my Cent and they coincidentally show some great track colours. Paul's tank doesn't run anything like a tank in service so the degree of rusting is perhaps more than you'd find.



Finally - the two big urban myths about tracks? - They're black and they rust - both easily overdone.

Hope that gives you food for thought. If you don't care about realism and just want to run - they'll be fine as they are but beware the effects of salt and small stones eg gravel.

Stephen

[Dennis Jones]

Hi Phil,

It's on the front page of the website with the other photos. Happy New Year to you and all our readers.

Dennis.

[Matthew Schwartz]

All,

Thanks for the fantastic input. I like the look and color of the tracks out of the box, but was concerned with wear and rust... but as mentioned it is normal.

Since we are on the subject of paint / primer, after the application of etch primer to the hull, did everyone apply a second coat of regular primer over it prior to paint?

Also - Phil - I was able to get the floor gaps to close up, once I tightened all the hull parts and did some fiddling. I think it will go together ok once I reassemble.

Again... Happy New Year all.

Matt

[phil fitzpatrick]

Hi Matt
I used light coats of red oxide and then U-Pol High 5,High Build primer Filler,I like
the colour for an under coat and I am doing a King Tiger around September 1944 the
last time they used the dark yellow as a base coat before the red oxide.
Glad you have made progress on your Hull.
Cheers happy new year
Phil