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there is tape underneath but i will be doing what you suggested in the next version...the ripping happens due to the curve the track take ...i will see if i dont cut the shoes how the foam will react...its all a matter of where and how^^

Do NOT Use super or plastic glue to make it stick together, it will eat the styrofoam!!! Carpenter glue or strong PVA glue is the glue you should use for the treads.

i know of the eating habbits of spray and superglue to foammaterials... this would be a true nightmare^^
i just looked at another attempt in the web to make scratchbuilt tracks and i think my links for the chain are if done outwards a bit to challenging?!? they mostly do the links in the middle of the two linked shoes...

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5094702

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

aye, the glue reacts with thy foam and it dissolveth.

No Nails works ok with styrafoam

The treads actually look pretty good. What you'll want, though, is to completely cut the sections that are going around the bend, and don't try to bend the tread itself.

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

so pic update time for the second time this day...

but first some answers to your comments:

at sebastiansynn:

yep saw his products on ebay too... his stuff looks quite good, lots of detail and such things and a really realistic look but in now way do i see me flogging money for any of his parts... money is needed elsewhere atm^^
the corner idea i had also and with the current design this might yet be easier than before...

at anvildude:
ha^^ your one step ahead of the game but see for yourself^^

at chibi: i haven´t bought no nails yet...but will do so i think in due time...seems there is just so many ways to use this stuff... neil creates muddy wastlands in abundance^^ with that...

at shrike: actually i have to try that once for the fun of it^^ some nice built up terrain pice and then ruin it by spraing it...^^ that could actually look pretty cool...don´t you think so?


so lads and ladies:

as promised i reversed the system of linking the shoes for the tracks and brought the link inside the system...sounds confusing? it wasnt really that hard...


as you can see my test piece is quite short...anyone has some guess as to why it is that short? because it looks totally dumb... so i cut if off short...

and went a step sideways and into for now the right direction...as anvildude so insightful suggested i made individual treads out of the foam...i think they give a much better looking version of the searched for shape than any try before...:




i have tried a test mounting some of those and with careful planning this might look quite good...a real test shot will have to wait till `morrow and i am feeling the gooy claw of a nice cold creeping over me...

so now i hope you see some good development in my work today^^ the work needless to say took some while. i guess if i used plasticcard it would have looked far better than that but atm i am not feeling in the mood to tackle plasticcard for that purpose.... so i will be rather sticking to the foamstuff for now...

so speak yer mind^^


vik

Tread in the thread! nice work! They look really good!

track idea is cool vik , nice attention to detail there mate.
last one looks the best by far.

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!

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.

thanks mates for the nice comments! i too had a good feeling towards the new treads. as of now i haven´t thought about adding pins to the treads, but you have a valid point there!
if i use actually pins (which i do have quite a mass of) i think they should be pinned from two sides? to make it look even?

a thought that crossed my mind: would covering the treads beforer pinning with PVA glue be useful? it could make the parts a bit more sturdy and thus the pinning lessen the danger of ripping the foam...

vik

A coating may help a lot.

so this opens another possible chain of thought...coating before cutting or after cutting?

I suggest after cutting.

probably better that way and it covers more sides that way...

Yep.

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.

you can pin from one side as the other side will be hidden by the body of the tank for the most part,

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

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

that was why i thought that way to pin from both sides...

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.

Started work on a new set of WWI style tracks myself!

hey cool...please do share^^ shaso, i am not ashamed to steal thoughts property at any time^^

at sebastiansynn:
yep, a change of perspective is always helpful, we tend to repeat errors and behavior thats not been corrected by others or even by us as we are mostly not able to do so by ourselfs... so a step back to watch from a distance or to get another perspective is a good thing in all aspects of life and not only hobby related...

in matters of pinning: i did my trial and error phase and while i still see the point of pinning to be a good thing i have to confess i stepped away from it...the point is, it didn´t work out the way i thought it should...the needed felxibility in the treads didn´t happen with some test shoes i pinned together...also to get the pins to be pinned in the foam by me on a even level was not working for me...ruined in the process some treads and so i choose to glue them directly to the pink foam ...i pried the whole pice before apart and now only used the "spacer" of the tracksystem to "mount" the treads on... later when done i will reglue the cardboard "shield" on the tracks again. for now the look of the first tried version of the tracks looks this way:




....

so what do you think now? i will however give later the shoes that riveted look again with holepunched pieces of cardboard ... so the look of the angled and riveted won´t be lost^^

vik

Excelsior! You have a working set of treads and tracks!

*wide grin* thanks mate^^

I will likely be using something of plastic, and making simple treads as well, I am unsure how much round stock I have to enhance it, and may have to add patterns of another layer on mine.

this will be very interresting to see a different take on the subject by yours...

Indeed it will. you have more an ides where I am going with my design now as well. The back of the sponsons, I have a pair of Heavy Stubbers that will go there, I also have a pair of clipped cannons, maybe even multilasers for the front sponsons, a heavy bolter for the back hull and front hull as well. Turret,,,I am thinking Annihilator patter there for mine.

How do you intend to arm your superheavy Vik?

well i do have a couple of heavy bolters still from the HW teams...this might be for the soponsons...but i am not sure about that... also lascanons and even sone autocanons still available... but maybe i doo everything i can from scratch... so i think more in the lines of making big guns out of some tubings i have and as i am a great favorer of vickers and gatlingguns i maybe choose to do so with Q-tips and such materials...also i have these a rather fantastic pices here from a special childrens pencil, they have lots of leadmines inside the handle...that could go for quite nicelooking heavy rounds....i wanted to make a special kind of amobelt from them...

True, I have tubes of various sizes that could also be a heavy shell tosser.