Tank tracks weathering

[AlanG]

Question to all you mud lovers out there

How quickly would WWII (German) tank tracks wear/rust. Given the (mostly) short life these tanks had before breaking down and being abandoned or destroyed. Most i see on models seem to be quite worn and rusty. Now whilst i love the look of them, i just wonder how authentic it would be?

Just trying to figure out how to do my armour kits in the future.

 

[scottie3158]

Alan,

I tend to agree with you the life span of these vehicles wasn't long. Although I applaud the modellers art I think many vehicles are over done with rust and wear. I tend to limit my chipping to areas where crew would cause wear edge of hatches etc or damage would likely occur. As to mud etc it would depend on the conditions, location and time of year as to how dirty it got. HTH and is obviously only my opinion.

 

[Tim Marlow]

With regard to tracks, I don't think they rusted anywhere near as much as they are portrayed. Apart from anything else, they were a high grade steel, not mild steel, so wouldn’t rust like a tin can. The same goes for armour plate. It oxidises yes, but not to a bright orange. The tracks on the tanks in Bovington, for example, are a purple brown colour due (I think) to the manganese content of the steel. Contact points were worn to bright metal in some conditions, and again this can be seen in many pictures. Road wheel rubbers are pretty distressed, with chunks missing. Again look at images for illustration of this.
As to colour, I find Vallejo black brown is a good starting point, with drybrushed highlights of various colours. I add wear points using an HB pencil, and distress rubber road wheel tyres by nicking them with a knife and cross sanding with coarse emery paper.

 

[PaulTRose]

agree totally.......tracks simply do not rust in the way some people like to depict them..............less is more

 

[Jakko]

Tracks would have rusted fairly quickly, because of the heavy wear they see so any paint or other protective coat would soon be gone — but at the same time, that heavy wear also removes (or prevents) a lot of the rust. And as Tim says, they were high-quality steel, so rusting would not be all that bad. (As an aside: I do question the deep brown colour manganese tracks are often painted in. New manganese steel is not brown, older manganese steel is — according to some research I did.) In the North African desert, tracks would often be lightly rusted in the morning, and be very shiny soon once the vehicle got moving through the fine sand. Which, apparently, also took the paint off hull bottoms.

The thing is that modellers too often base themselves on what they see in museums (or worse, on other modellers’ work) without thinking about what it would have been like in the real world. (Another aside: everybody paints German bunkers in dioramas in concrete grey. Come over to where I live and I’ll point out original 1940s camouflage paint that’s still on a bunker today.)

For tracks, I think it’s far safer to paint them as either bare steel that’s lightly rusted in the deeper areas, or bare steel that’s dirty — which will look much the same.

 

[AlanG]

Cheers guys. Think i already knew this all but it's nice to hear it confirmed. But as you say. It doesn't detract from the superb work some people do on their 'rusted' tracks.

 

[Ian M]

A thing I have often pondered when a really nice model in a period correct diorama, looking like its 70 years old.
Modern armour the 'paint' is much more resilient and very tough. So wear would mostly by a matting down of the finish.

 

[David Lovell]

This is a hard one tend to agree with Paul(scottie)it has been made a art form personally I like it we know its not authentic but to me it still more than looks the part , at the end of the day no one should criticise what ever your style authentic or ott if it pleases the eye job done ,on the other side look at the bits of old b+w film of me109's in the field stress rippled air frames and not just so spray jobs i think we've yet to see wingy things start to lean heavily this way some of the Pacific carrier born stuff looked to be worse for wear but its not often we see someone try to replicate i wonder if because although authentic its hard to make it look so ,what ever you go with if your happy its what its all about. Dave

 

[Jakko]

what ever you go with if your happy its what its all about

If what makes you happy is a model that looks like the real thing would have, you end up asking questions like at the top of this thread …

 

[Airborne01]

Sometimes I think that, because we work in sub-real scales, the 'perfect' colour or texture may sometimes just appear to be too loud, too subdued - or even just 'wrong' at the scale we are working in. I do not think for a moment we can compare with Old Masters interpretations of textures etc but if you study their works there is a very generous application of 'artistic licence' that contribute to the stunning effects they have produced. Maybe we should be content to produce even a reasonable facsimile of one or more of the artefacts we seek to portray. Just a thought ...

 

[Tim Marlow]

True Steve, but by critical evaluation we can always improve. Personally I think I’m guilty of not pushing contrast high enough on my figures, so try to improve on that, with varying degrees of success.

 

[Jakko]

Maybe we should be content to produce even a reasonable facsimile of one or more of the artefacts we seek to portray. Just a thought ...

Though I agree, the definition of “reasonable facsimile” varies between people. I regularly see models that I would never allow myself to build the way someone clearly has, because I don’t think they’re reasonable facsimiles of their subject. I also regularly see models that go way beyond what I consider a reasonable facsimile, that make me I wonder why they’re taking things that far. But I suppose they’re doing this (at least to some extent) because they consider these reasonable representations of the real thing.

 

[Airborne01]

True Steve, but by critical evaluation we can always improve. Personally I think I’m guilty of not pushing contrast high enough on my figures, so try to improve on that, with varying degrees of success.

That's a valid point Tim your phrase 'critical evaluation' is something I try to apply to all my output - perhaps sometimes though 'The best is the enemy of the good' (Voltaire) or 'Perfection is the enemy of progress' (Churchill).

Though I agree, the definition of “reasonable facsimile” varies between people. I regularly see models that I would never allow myself to build the way someone clearly has, because I don’t think they’re reasonable facsimiles of their subject. I also regularly see models that go way beyond what I consider a reasonable facsimile, that make me I wonder why they’re taking things that far. But I suppose they’re doing this (at least to some extent) because they consider these reasonable representations of the real thing.

Agreed Jakko; there appears to be a broad consensus here - should we agree on something along the lines of '... to each there own ...' perhaps? I've really enjoyed the semantics of this thread. Excuse me if I bow out now and thanks for your company (Edit: I would love to sit in a bar somewhere hospitable and chew the cud on subjects such as this with people such as these - alas, t'is most unlikely to be!)
Steve

 

[Jim R]

Interesting thread. I always thought that you weathered tank tracks to cover up the c*** up you had made building the tracks, you know things like gaps, twisted links, great blobs of glue etc. I never realised people did it to add realism!!
Jim

 

[David Lovell]

Alan apparently not too much ,as for the other this is a individual hobby just because some think look at that there's no way I'd do that ,you don't have to its your kit do what you want ,I do I dont care for nuts bolts dimensions ,who can say what accurately reproduced rust on steel steel tracks honestly looks like in 72nd scale just what does 4B0 look like in the same scale , as far as my own modeling thoughts go without exaggerating all the details a small boring green blob not much bigger than a match box ,look at how wingy things have become fantastic pieces of art pre shade panel linening all the diffrent products can produce a kit that blows you away a beautifull rendition of their chosen subject ,authentic no I dont think so but it looks good and you recognise instantly what it is ,a bit to much rust and muck authentic no but to most of us we take it for what it is and accept it as a combat vehicle covered in mud and rust ,its a individual choice please keep bringing your choice to the table its what makes this hobby.

 

[What?]

Regrets I have a few but then again to few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I sanded, painted, glued, each careful step along the byway and when its done it's on my shelf, I did it my way.

 

[dalej2014]

Interesting thread. I think this will depend (as mentioned above) on the time of day to a large extent. When I go to my car in the morning there's always a fine sheen of light rust on the discs, which quickly disappears on first braking. It will reappear the next morning, heavier when wet, foggy or "misty" overnight. i think you'd only see rust in between the track links, where it doesn't really show anyway.
That said, I do love the look of a well weathered, rusty tank track, so I think a fair dollop of artistic license has to be given. How else are we going to use up all those lovely washes and pigments!?

 

[Isitme]

Rusty tracks.....
Not as depicted in some of the 'modelling' publications I have seen. The tracks are coated with some protective covering be it paint or a tar based product. After the tracks are fitted the worn areas are polished through friction to a bright steel shine and not all the way across the link, there will be lines where the road wheels travel, even on a Sherman the outer areas inside the end connectors will remain untouched, a Challenger has distinctive 'runways' where the roadwheels touch and they form a line along the length of the track...

This is from my M113 Fitters vehicle.
Notice the lack of rust and dirt.

And from my T-72
The brown colour is to replicate the coating applied at the factory.
But as for great lumps of mud and such, from experience it was so easy to 'throw a track' when there was too much of a mud build up especially on the drive sprocket or idler wheel, and if you have ever followed a tank APC etc down the road it is like following a muck spreader....
Hope this helps
Mike.

Hope this helps
Mike.

 

[Tim Marlow]

Good looking tracks…nice one. Especially like the worn rubber on the M113 track.