Fabian's Modelling Mayhem: Techmod Soviet T-50

Now, this is what sets this little kit apart from any other I have done so far, not the individual track links themselves but the separate guide horns for the track links - tiny little loops that have to be cut from the sprue and glued to each link , (big sigh here) I started cutting them off, placing my finger over each one so it did not fly off to be eaten by the monster that resides in the dining room carpet. I used a scalpel with a new blade for this.

I trimmed each loop before I placed it in position on the back of each link with tweezers and touched it with a Tamiya Liquid Cement brush and held it in position until the glue had done its job. This was tedious work with a few of the loops being launched into oblivion and lost for ever. This took me a couple of nights to complete with many breaks to rest the weary eyes. After getting all the guide horns onto the links (I glued them on while the links were still on the sprues), I carefully cut the links away from the sprue , care must be taken here the links are rather delicate and can be easily broken. I found it easier to use the scalpel upside down and push the blade along the sprue through the joiners rather that cut downwards onto a hard surface. ( I must admit here the kit got the better of me and I had only done one side of tracks before shelving the kit for almost 10 years, to test my masocistic resolve I grabbed it down and restarted again)

Assembling the track links is difficult, because, they are quite small and fiddly, and they don't locate together very well. I put down some double stick tape onto a block of wood and used a straight edge metal ruler to act as a guide for each link.

I used Tamiya Liquid cement again so I could wrap the still wet track links around the sprockets and road wheels but everytime I tried I ended up with multiple sections of track they would just not stay together while I wrapped them around. Don't go overboard with the glue as it would be easy to end up with a melted mess of plastic - the links are very thin.

I re-assmbled the sections of link & length and left them overnight these were long enough to run along the base, from base to sprocket and ideler and along running gear (with a slight bend).

wrapping around the sprocket & ideler was a real problem and the bond was too strong and the links kept snapping. Same result, they were still flexible but kept breaking into small sections. I pulled them all apart and left them for a few days while I thought of a way to get them onto the model.

I came up with the idea of placing the track links onto masking tape sticky side up and then glueing with the Tamiya glue, when I had enough links to do one side I simply turned the tape over and placed the run of links onto the sprocketand glued them into position while still on the tape.