Link & Length tracks in 1/72 scale

Hm for each set of link and length tracks I completed there were always spare ones. That includes 3 kits from revell. Sometimes the idler wheel can be glued in various posions that change length of the tracks? Maybe you glued it to maximize length? Anyway I guess that there should be always enough of tracks to cover all possible lengths.

Contact Revell Germany, they may "sell" you a set. Rumour has it they will do this now. I do agree that with L&L tracks it wouldn't be a bad idea to include some extras. Ya never know when you'll need 'em.

Doc

I remember building my ICM 1/35 scale T-35; I ended up with a very large number of extra track links (a lot are now attached to the exterior of the tank as "spares" in case of a damaged track), but I'm very glad they included them. To end up with too few for a model, despite its small scale seems like a major flub on Revell's part. I've done tanks with link & length tracks, and much prefer the individual link ones for the proper look of sagging on the vehicle, although in 1/72 scale it might by challenging to assemble the individual links, even with the heated Testor's liquid cement technique I came up with. My favorite tracks were the steel-colored polyethylene snap- together ones Tamiya used on there 1/24 scale motorized Tiger and Panther models. These were very easy to assemble, and sagged just right due to the self-lubricating qualities of the polyethylene at their hinge points. Combined with the working torsion-bar suspension for the road wheels, the whole effect was most convincing when the tank was on the move over rough ground.

Pat

Oh, that's nothing. Airfix was in the habit of including vinyl tracks which didn't go all the way around!

(kim)

Oh, yeah, I ran into those too as a kid. I assume they shrunk during cooling after being removed from the mold, or something in them dried out after manufacture and they contracted. Airfix decals were a ball also, basically shattering on their way from the wet decal sheet to the model. You want to build a real oddball tank model, get that Tauro Model A7V WW I German tank in 1/35 scale. The track is assembled by connecting individual links together with tiny metal rods that slide through them...but that's not the odd part... they decided to give the thing a working suspension using real metal coil springs....even though the tread is so structurally unsound that it will tear apart if you actually try to rotate it once the model is done, and despite the fact that the bogie units are only capable of moving a millimeter or two when finished, they are mounted on multiple compressed coil springs under around half a pound of pressure once the wheel housings are built...held in place by a tiny separate pivot unit. You can forget trying to assemble these with normal styrene cement. Even if you clamped them somehow under pressure and let them dry for a week, once the first warm day came around you are going to hear a "bang" noise and the entire tank model is going to go flying into the air as the glue softens, the pivot pulls out, the bogies disintegrate, and the terrible latent energy in all the tiny metal springs is released at once. There's something very Italian about the whole thing; they try to go the extra mile to add a unique feature to their model kit and impress modelers, and the extra mile makes the whole thing far more difficult to assemble than it should be, and actually works against its saleability. :-D That is the genius of Italy; which also gave the world this:

hey guys, are there any ways to stretch the rubber band tracks to have them long enough to sag out? i'm building the tamiya early tiger 1 and it just ain't got no sag. my best thought was hanging with a weight outside in our nice 110 degree desert heat. that certainly makes MY tracks sag!

where can i buy one? i'm not quite blind from kit parts yet.