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I have arrived as per your request, Vic.

And I fixed the problem with the pic in Shaso's thread by replacing it with a different pic that shows much the same thing. Anyways to do treads like Caterpiller treads you just take a piece of plasticard, figure out how wide you want the treads to be. run a knife blade down the plasticard and snap it, from there just cut and snap sections to form the tread plates from the small strip you just cut from the main plasticard batch. Use anything that will form a ridge once it has been glued to the plate, plastic coffee stirrers is a good one, strips of plasticard , T shaped plasticard would be easiest but could cost you more. strips of popsicle sticks would work also.

Here's a quick draft image of what I mean:


Edited for typos

I use plasticard that is 1/8 of inch thick, not sure what that is in mm's. at any rate it seems to do the trick quite nicely for a lot of different things. in this case, i would use a 0.25mm piece of very flexible plasticard for the strip that actually runs over the wheels, then use the 1/8 plasticard to make the plates that glue onto the strip, take plasticard rod and place it between the plates and then attach the t shape plasticard, or whatever you have for ridges.

this will give you treads that look like they are hinged, and ridged. and the strip card that the plates are attached to will allow you to position each plate properly and aligned correctly as you'll have something to line it up with as you place the plate on top of the strip. From there it's just a simple matter to add detailing to some of the plates if you wish like on landraider treads.

so in essence the first strip of plasiccard is just a means of putting the treadparts ON...so to speak, just a medium to use to get the rest of the things to hold onto something...

Exactly, but it also serves another function as well, if you look at GW's models some of thier wheels, the old ones anyways, look like an empty spool of thread. IE the edges of the wheel are raised slightly, or at least i think they are. anyways, the thin strip will help you align the treads into the wheels better, since the thin strip will butt up against the edges of the wheels where everything else rides on top of the wheels.

does anyone think this thing looks like it was built by Orks?

Sorry, some terminology issues. The individual 'track plates' are called 'Shoes'.

thanks brahim, I don't claim to know everything there is to know about tanks, so i just used what terms i could to clarify what i was talking about, but now i know the correct term. so, can you tell us what the name of the tread part is that the shoe is attached to? i'd like to know.

@vik it can still be done using the cardboard you have, what you may have to do is to cut several pieces the same size and layer them on each other in order to get a decent thickness. then you can add in the ridges to the shoe. but if your going to do this then i definately suggest either a fully closed side plating, or going over each shoe with some kind of filler, because the layered cardboard will show as layers and you will lose the effect of a solid plate.

as you stated what you have there is merely a will this work or not and you yourself can see that it has the potential, even that piece itself has the potential to make for a decent model. After all Orks don't exactly build in straight lines like Imperial Guard and Space Marine do. so you could take that piece and slap some scewed armor on it and it would work. The main problem is going to be that unless your very careful, and pay a lot of attention to detail, it's still going to look like styrofoam. Now don't get me wrong, Styrofoam works, hell i made several ruined buildings out styrofoam coolers, and they look great. Imade an Ork fort for gorkamorka from foamboard, spice bottles, cardboard, pen tubes, and styrofoam packing material, and the fort is awesome. so styrofoam can be used, but if you really want a piece that jumps out at people and says look at me, then you need to use something else. Orinoco and Shaso have a point, you could cast your treads rather easily. there's some stuff called instant mold that works really well with press casting of greenstuff. You could also make your tread design, and then use alumilite to make a mold of the read and then resin cast as many of those treads as you wished.

here's the links for both of those items:
http://www.alumilite.com/
http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/tools-and-misc/instant-mold.html

if your not comfortable doing this kind of stuff yourself, then just talk to me via PM and let me know just what you want the treads to look like and i can do it for you, for less than $50, because i myself am soon going to be in need of a bunch of treads as well, so it wouldn't hurt me to cast some for you and ship them to you along with a mold for your own use.

Edit: forgot to paste in the links

well, whatever you decide to do, best of luck to you. being unemployed sucks ass, i know this becuase i was unemployed for almost a year and half not long ago. It's in this last year that i have had a job. fortunately, I have only myself to take care of. take a look at this to inspire you, it's not a tank but it is a ghetto project winner:


and here's the gallery link so you can zoom in
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-39343-15309_Commissions%20Work.html
this thing is made from cardboard, straight pins, pentubes, excess sprue, paper, and elmer's glue. so just because itsomething is made from scrap material doesn't mean it can't look good.

at sebastiansynn:
that looks sweet! and it is it made from cardboard? cool stuff ! and i like the fact that it is workable! this shows what can be achieved when working precise! i will take that as a means to inspire me further^^

thanks for the compliment. yeah it's made from Cereal boxes, macaroni and cheese, and other types of boxes like that. the first pod i made, the doors wouldn't open, but in the process of building it i figured out a way to have the doors work. In making the second one with the working doors, i figured out a way to make the interior open a bit. in making the one in the pic, the third one, i have figured out a way to actually have the interior completely open, and add in some of the details like the command console and the autogun/missile launcher system.

what i really need to do is come up with my own design altogether and start producing it instead of making GW knock offs, but i'll keep doing these for now until i have everything worked out for the doors, the interior, and so on, and THEN i'll start making my own unique design for an "E.V.I.L. = Extreme Velocity Insertion Lander" for lack of a better name.

...hope you have a fitting CSM army to go for this nice idea... if you currently are working at this very idea you could open up a thread and i could post some findings of alternative design for this project... i have been too thinking that when i would be about to do a droppod for my army i wanted to go a different route... the GW one is overpriced and not really my style... asa it looks yet again too small to fit in all the promised marines or heavens forbidd a dread^^

Nope, I hate space marines. Doesn't matter if their Chaos or not, their still marines. However, my idea above is basically because yeah, GW is overpriced, and i know that i can produce a model that is just as nice as theirs, but cheaper. there's enough people out there that if GW folded up and closed shop right now, the game would still never die as a lot of people who are afraid of GW and their lawyer dept, would jump on the bandwagon and begin producing their own stuff for our use.
also, if i can get my hobby to support me so that i don't have to go and work for some moron who has big bucks, then it's all the better for me, the way it stands now is that i spend a good 8+ hrs a day handloading trucks for their delivery routes, 5 days a week, $9.50 hr, so that health insurance and the government gets to keep most of it, but by the end of the day i leave work limping, and by the time i have gotten home which is a 10 minute drive to the house, i've stiffened up to the point that i can barely walk. so i need to find a way to generate income that won't kill me, and if my hobby can do that, all the better.

One must maintain the most positive outlook to stay healthy and sane. ^^

well i've already lost on half of that score then, speaking of which it's time I went down to the basement and had another heart to heart with my psychologist.

so scroll down a bit and tehre is a landraider with cast resin tracks as i understand...

Yes, those are cast resin tracks on that Landraider. I've looked at this guys work on Ebay and while the stuff he has is nice, it ain't cheap by any means. I priced it out for bogie wheels, roller wheels and the treads for my looted drop pod upcoming project and it would run me around $86 for everything I need just from him. So I've decided I'm going to build my own treads from scratch.

As for those treads your working on, they look great, now you just need to figure out the problem of them tearing on the corner. One idea is to make it so that the corner is not as sharp of a turn.

Edited for typos

YES!! Those individual links will work! not only that, but to hold them all together and be flexible, snipped paper-clip pins would do nicely!
track idea is cool vik , nice attention to detail there mate. last one looks the best by far.
Tread in the thread! nice work! They look really good!

^^what they said, the last version of your treads is exactly what your looking and to top it off you have also solved the problem of them tearing apart on the corners. but might i suggest instead of snipped paper clips, use straight pins instead, you know the pin with the head on it, using those does a lot for diff projects, for me i use them to pin stuff and make it look riveted by leaving the head on it. other places it can look like a decoration, in this instance it will look like a smoothed over track pin and i think will look really good.

you definitely want to coat the foam after cutting but before pinning it together. this way the foam will be protected from the spray primer if you use such stuff like i do, otherwise your going to end up with melted tracks. once you've done that then i'd suggest pinning, you can pin from one side as the other side will be hidden by the body of the tank for the most part, but if the pins don't go all the way through then it would be best to pin from both sides, also pinning from both sides will give you the track pin rivet heads on both sides which will make the tank and the treads just that much more realistic.

obvious reason is so obvious sometimes that the truth hides in mysterious ways^^ at least for my eyes^^

no worries dude, it sometimes takes a fresh perspective from another person alltogether to see what should have been seen in the first place. the problem is that being involved in a project you tend to see things as they will be when finished and not so much as they are. stepping back from the project and looking at from afar, or from a fresh perspective opens up a lot of options that at first would not have occurred to us. I'm guilty of this myself and that's the reason why i can't open my kustom bus into the funny car position unless the back door is let down, the pin that holds the door closed interferes with the opening of the main body, because the back door was hinged to the undercarriage not the main body. in the new one i'm building as a commission for Lakotawolf this issue has been solved and the back door is now back doors, and they are hinged to the main body instead.

and on that note it's time for bed, see you all tomorrow night.

starting to shape up nicely there Vik, keep it up. things goona be a beast when it's done.

Now that's a nice big, chunky tank coming our way
I really like the basic shape and the size of the tracks.
I look forward to the progress of this baby.
Cheers
Klaus

coming from this guy, that's high praise indeed, Vik

by the way baiyuan, i see an american flag in your avatarpic? is something wrong with dakka or have you changed your status?

I think there's something screwy with either Dakka, or the connections to the server, cause for me it's been displaying a swedish flag instead of US.
Anyways, that's a nice assortment of bits. I especially like the pencil nib idea, never thought of using those for large case ammo, probably because i don't have any hanging around in my pen and pencil drawer.

as for the dreadnaught if you decide not to finish then flip it on it's back and do a little bit of rework to it and use it for a main tank turret.

I agree, glas of any type is something best avoided where games come into the picture. However, you can use something similar which is the plastic cigar tubes.

heat shrink is a black tubing material that looks and acts like rubber, you can get it at most automotive stores, but it's not exactly cheap. Nice thing about it is that once you have wrapped it around something, you can then use a lighter or a hairdryer and it will shrink to fit really snugly. the more heat you apply, the the more it shrinks and the tighter the fit will be.

ok, here's how your gonna solve your problem with the gaps in between the foam armor plates:


click on the image of my fighta and then zoom in until you can see up close and personal the main fuselage, what you will notice is there's an area of brown along one edge where the primer has been scraped off. what your looking at is a cardboard strip from a cereal box that has been cut to width, and then scored ever so slightly down its middle to help it fold easier. do the same thing and glue them onto your tank and it will look like armor strips, from there you just add rivets. I used super glue on mine but you can't do that, so you'll have to play around with your glue to get it to work for you, but it's an easy and simple solution, as well as cheap, and by cheap, i mean dang near free.

Sponson, Sponson, Sponson, Sponson, Turret, turret!

Dakka, Dakka, Dakka, Dakka, Click, Click!

I fixed it for you, there Shaso.

the problem your having vik, is one that i myself had with that Ork fightta. the way i fixed it is that i now place the super glue onto the cardboard and let it soak in, and dry. That stiffens up the cardboard alot, but also makes it easier for the board to then be glued onto the plastic. you should also use a pen or a sharpie marker pen to outline the inside and the outside of the viewport before glueing, and then score the plastic inside the outline, this will also give the glue more depth to hold onto.

Now, on to the compliment. Sponson is looking really nice brah, excellent job so far, but methinks the Union Jack is gonna give you headaches if you try to hand paint it.

you should also use a pen or a sharpie marker pen to outline the inside and the outside of the viewport before glueing, and then score the plastic inside the outline, this will also give the glue more depth to hold onto.

if you could describe it differently to me... in terms of technics i am not very good in understanding... sorry^^

place the viewport on the gunner turret and then draw around the viewport with the pen, then do the same for the inside of the viewport. This will give you an outline of the viewport on the turret. then to score it, it's just like coloring in a coloring book, you do your best to stay inside the lines. scoring is taking your razor blade and cutting shallow grooves into the plastic in a criss-cross formation. this technique is used quite often as it provides a more stable grip for glue since it has a more uneven surface to grip to. It is most often used with metal to metal glueing, but i also do it often with plastic to plastic. can't really explain it any simpler than that except to show you pics, and i can't do that till the weekend.

.should i do this in overlapping plates or plate to plate with a weld seam made from a thick line of pva glue?

just place the cardboard pieces end to end, and then place a thin strip of cardboard over the seams, once you've done that you will know exactly where to place the rivets, as it will have the look of something iron bound. here's images to show you what i mean.




the ship has bound and riveted plating all over it, and i think your tank would look great like that. And for some reason that airship looks oddly familiar, I think there's a dakka thread on that thing that i'm subscribed to. I'll see if i can figure out which thread it is and send it off to you, might give you ideas you could use.

lest we not forget, during WWII, the Germans and the Allies would meet in the middle of no-mans land and exchange X-mas greetings and such.

looking good vik, the tank is definately a Ghetto Winner.

and

Vik, you should really rename this thread into "Viktor von Domm's and shasolenzabi's private chat room".

you left out - "With special guest appearances by - Sebastionsynn, Shrike, Manoknok, Hazzer, Niel101, Baiyuan, Chibi Bodge-Battle, and anybody else who may have dropped a line in the last 36 pages"

show you some rivetlooking pics

no, no, that's "riveting" pics.

i have to make every bit customshaped, cant do a single thing in batches...this will teach me for the next tank, whenever this may happen...

your looking at it the wrong way, Vik. It's not something that is hampering you, it is the creation process of making something that is truly UNIQUE.

.(er...you brits and american do eat alphabet soup?)

we do, but what i can't figure out is why my cheerios having stopped talking to me. Now all they say is "OOOOOOOO".

Hey, you ain't the only Steampunk on here. I'm doing Steampunk Orks myself. I just need a camera or something to get some pics up... Getting really annoying always saying "Well I did that once, on this one really cool model I can't show you".

i'm totally with you on this my friend, it is so hard to hold back knowing that i do have the use of a camera on the weekends, but that's not what a P&M blog should be about. and I have so many 'kewl' projects rattling around right now, like 40K Skaven, my looted Drop pod, converted deff koptas, 40 K black orks as 'Ard Boyz, and so on, and so on.