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Fruil Tracks.


Siggi

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I've just spent four-odd hours trimming and drilling and then assembling the links for one side (King Tiger), wore out one 0.5 drill-bit (flutes totally gone), had to straighten numerous ones that were bent. And for this joyous experience I paid £34. Another four-odd hours to go to get the other lot done.

While engaged in this act of apparent insanity I got to wondering...what advantage do they give? £34 and eight-odd hours worth? Tanks with top-rollers, you get to see some very nice sag, but on a tank with main wheels only...? I have a Tiger-1 I built some years ago that came with individual plastic links and they look about the same as I expect these Fruils are going to look.

Comments?

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I think fruil tracks are the dog knackers, if money is no object. There's a lot of plastic tracks out there which will look just as good and can be modelled with the sag and I use these as I can just about afford them!

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I used some Fruil tracks on a CRARRV and they looked the dogs danglies, must have had a good set as they took next to no cleaning up.

Well worth the coin in my opinion.

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I've got a few sets knocking about the stash, but I don't see them as mandatory, but more of a fix when the model you're building has crap tracks. The FT-17 that I'll be building shortly has horrendous looking band type tracks with sink marks all over the outer surface, so in those instances I'd be inclined to say yes... buy some FM tracks unless there are cheaper alternatives.

I notice that Bronco and Hobby Boss are starting to do individual tracks for various kits, and to me they can be just as useful and a lot cheaper - £9 for some for my AS-90 from LuckyModel recently(ish). If you shop around you can also find the FM tracks cheaper than £34 too :)

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The consensus appears to be they are worth the money (the price of the kit they're intended to enhance in this case).

These are only the second set I've completed. The first were for a StuG and they needed no fettling at all. These KT items have needed the works, and I've also discovered one of the sprockets has it's teeth out of sync, which has necessitated the removal of some teeth on the inner rim. I went ahead and did likewise to the good sprocket, to keep things looking even (might be an OCD thing going on there :D ). I have two other sets I bought previously, for a Tiger-1 and a Hetzer (both in my stash). I hope they turn out to be of better quality than the KT's.

Any road up...how does one paint these things? I have none of that fancy stuff (Blacken-It and Rustall) so I'm a little stumped. The StuG's were nothing to write home about, I pretty much just slathered them with muck. Any good techniques to get a reasonably clean look? :)

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Guest snipersmudge

I find fruil tracks to be a great addition to a kit, especially if the supplied kit tracks are poor. I have also found that the smaller size tracks, i.e panzer 3 etc are easier to assemble than the bigger sizes such as tigers or sws. As for painting just prime then paint with your chosen track colour, I can recommend vallejo track colour by the way, then weather using pigments etc.

panzer340.jpg

S8000448.jpg

DSCF0234.jpg

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I've just spent four-odd hours trimming and drilling and then assembling the links for one side (King Tiger), wore out one 0.5 drill-bit (flutes totally gone), had to straighten numerous ones that were bent. And for this joyous experience I paid £34. Another four-odd hours to go to get the other lot done.

While engaged in this act of apparent insanity I got to wondering...what advantage do they give? £34 and eight-odd hours worth? Tanks with top-rollers, you get to see some very nice sag, but on a tank with main wheels only...? I have a Tiger-1 I built some years ago that came with individual plastic links and they look about the same as I expect these Fruils are going to look.

Comments?

Your comment is spot on.

In my view, if you're building a dragon tiger or a tiger II, with magic tracks, you can easily forget about friuls tracks.

Because of the christie type rolling gear, with roller assembled very close to each others, there will be not much difference, and the friuls will not be worth their price.

On the other hand, for a T-55, who also got a christie type rolling gear, but with roller quite spaced, you really can't avoid buying friuls.

If you're building a sherman, vickers type rolling gear, with virtually no sagging, no friuls needed.

You can also try a tamiya B1 bis, and easily forget about them.

On most modern tanks, M1/challenger/Leclerc, I think you can deal with te vynil tracks.

Overall, each kit needs some reflection before deciding to buy friuls or not, and it's far from being a must buy each time.

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Thanks Sniper, I have that Valjero colour so I'll give it a bash. :)

Very nice paint-jobs on your examples by the way! What technique did you use for the chipping?

Antoine, I would use the supplied vinyl tracks with any kit if only they'd supply them with a bit of extra length. The problem is I've never encountered any that weren't so short they didn't need to be stretched on to the point they'd practically snap off the front/rear wheels, not to mention looking like they'd been tensioned by a crew on benzadrine. :D

I suppose one advantage of turning a £34 kit into a £70 monster (not including grills) is it focuses the mind on not screwing it up.

Edited by Siggi
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Antoine, I would use the supplied vinyl tracks with any kit if only they'd supply them with a bit of extra length. The problem is I've never encountered any that weren't so short they didn't need to be stretched on to the point they'd practically snap off the front/rear wheels, not to mention looking like they'd been tensioned by a crew on benzadrine. :D

You're right, but it really doesn't matter if you build a tank with side skirts.

For example, I have two dragon M1 (AIM and SEP), and tamiya's Leclerc and Chally II (desertized), and I'll certainly not bother myself with buying aftermarket's tracks (No friuls, but bronco or any other), as anyway the DS/vynil is ok, and most of the track will be hidden.

To come back to the friul subject, they're nice in general, but think twice before buying them, because the best choice is not always the one with the heaviest price.

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To come back to the friul subject, they're nice in general, but think twice before buying them, because the best choice is not always the one with the heaviest price.

Amen :)

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Guest snipersmudge

Cheers Siggi glad you like my examples, the methods I have used on them are the marmite method on the panzer3 and good old simple paint brush and sponge on the T55

pETE

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Cheers Siggi glad you like my examples, the methods I have used on them are the marmite method on the panzer3 and good old simple paint brush and sponge on the T55

pETE

Marmite? I've heard that somewhere before and I still don't know what it means. Used as a mask?

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yep as a mask of sorts check out this thread http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.p...hl=snipersmudge

pete

Bloody hell, all the effectiveness of rubber, none of the grief getting it off! :analintruder:

Rubber has a couple of advantages though...it can leave nice edges of lifted paint, simulating blistering/flaking, and the bits that can't be gotten off leave a nice textual feature to the surface under the paint. However, the grief of getting it off overall mitigates heavily against it when there's an alternative that comes off in warm water. Damn, you've really given me a rock and a hard place. :D

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I caved on my FT-17 last night & ordered a set of Fruils from Lou Stener. Sink marks in the kit parts, crappy sparkly rubber & horror stories of them not sticking put me in a panic. It's a good job I got the kit dirt cheap! :)

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I caved on my FT-17 last night & ordered a set of Fruils from Lou Stener. Sink marks in the kit parts, crappy sparkly rubber & horror stories of them not sticking put me in a panic. It's a good job I got the kit dirt cheap! :)

I'm amazed Fruil had tracks for a tank that obscure. How much were they, if you don't mind me asking?

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