Aftermarket track links are not cheap. Let’s get that out of the way first. Often as much as 50% the price of a kit! Whether you think they are good value and will enhance a build will be down to personal preference. Although kit manufacturers have made great strides in improving what they now offer in their kits, whether it be individual tracks, workable, or the link and length type, there is no denying that the workable type have a huge advantage over the conventional fixed or rubber band type. The natural sag that a set of workable links exhibit is difficult to replicate. It can be done but it is not always straight forward. Whilst Friul metal tracks were once the go to aftermarket tracks, let us look at some recent additions to a rook of 3D printed tracks that have recently hit the market.
Catching up on projects I have just spent a weekend building purely aftermarket tracks, and whilst they are not all of the same type or even for the same AFV, it did give me an opportunity to see the differences in terms of both quality and ease of assembly.
I managed to get through two sets of Friuls (Pershing and a Tiger I), two sets of T-Rex (Panzer IV and Pz.I/Maultier truck), a set of Quicktrack (StuG III), a set of Panzerwerk Design tracks, and as a comparison a set of RFM's own kit tracks from their StuG III Ausf G.
Let’s start with the Friuls. I personally like these tracks and whilst they did stop trading recently, I understand a new buyer has been found and will start manufacturing them again soon. They have a reassuring heft and the natural tension sag they obviously exhibit gives them a very realistic appearance. Being made of metal they are strong and take well to lots of handling. Whether painting or utilising a blackening solution to start the weathering process it still gives a very convincing appearance. Exposing bare metal areas on surfaces where either the ground or road wheels have burnished them is also a simple task. There are however a couple of downsides. Firstly, utilising only a single piece of wire instead of a pin will often leave the inner side of the tracks with the exposed end of the wire showing. Some sets, like my Pershing set do offer metal pin heads to cover the exposed wire. Secondly, both my sets needed almost all of the holes drilling out. A tediously repetitive task, but one that thankfully goes relatively quickly and without any great drama. Whilst the Tiger I inner portion of the track has the exposed wire; the Pershing tracks did at least have that small metal shaped link pin end to hide it. These were incredibly tiny and difficult to apply but in addition every single piece of wire had to be cut to exactly the same length. Not too short as to prevent link to link connection, but also not too long as to allow the seperate end pin to locate in the link end hole.
Tiger I late type
M26 Pershing
T-Rex
I’ve built up around six 1/35 sets of these to date and once assembled they do look very realistic. Although nowhere near as robust as metal tracks, due to the nature of the two-half pin connection design, they also exhibit the same natural sag over road wheels that the Friuls do. Whilst the links all look incredibly well detailed and none of the pin holes in any of my sets required additional work, a fair percentage of the separate pin ends has been of poor quality. The first two sets I purchased built up effortlessly and although many of the pins looked like bananas, the resin was quite soft and pliable and very few were damaged upon insertion. The T-Rex design works by designing a taper onto the half pins. The pins in these first two boxings had visibly tapered pins so the friction fit inside each link was good and tight without the need for any adhesive. Both sets built up without any real incident apart from the outer pin heads protruding a little too far on one. I also had very few breakages of both pins and links in both sets. If a pin did break inside the link, metal wire could be easily inserted to remove it. Unfortunately, the second two sets could not have been more different. Both links and pins were very brittle and upon opening the box it was apparent that numerous pin ends had already been damaged. I realise that this could have occurred during transit, but it was interesting to note that these sets also suffered with quite a few links breaking when handled. However, the most frustrating part by far is that none of the pin ends appeared to have any significant taper. That meant a huge proportion simply fell out almost as quick as they were inserted. I eventually had to resort to brush painting the link ends of small completed runs with primer to keep the pins in place! I did eventually construct both sets (one with barely enough pins left) but I did consider contacting the retailer I purchased them from. The last issue is one I highlighted in my recent RFM StuG III Ausf G late blog. It was disappointing to find the links did not fit well over the sprockets! They were too narrow. Whether the kit sprocket was at fault I do not know, but the Quicktrack links fitted well.
The two sets I built up over the weekend thankfully had the quality and robustness of my original sets. There were far fewer pin ends damaged upon opening the box. However, once again, the absence of any visible taper on the pins made assembly tiresome and frustrating. I resorted again to brush painting the pin ends on each link. The Pz.I type Maultier set was, as you can imaging, extremely tiny, so that magnified the effort to assemble them considerably more.
T-Rex type 6B w/cleats. This set was only really usable by brush painting the pin ends on the links!
QuickTracks
I have purchased five sets of these to date and what I will say off the bat, is that they are far and above the quickest tracks to assemble. I think there might be something in the name😁 They do indeed simply snap together. If you take the manufacturers assembly advice and use the correct method and tool to assist you, a full run of tracks will take literally minutes to construct. Although I damaged just four links during assembly there were plenty more than enough included in the set to build two complete runs, and I had enough left over for additional spare track runs. I will admit I did receive one set last year that would not stay straight when assembled. There was obviously a manufacturing quality control issue, but they accepted the issue was theirs and replaced them promptly, free of charge. The replacement set had absolutely no issues. Whilst the detail is not quite as pin sharp as the T-Rex tracks, the ease of assembly more than compensates. The snap fit nature of each link does also mean that a natural sag over something like a Panzer return road wheel will not occur without a little bit of human manipulation. Once adjusted they do look just as good.
Quicktrack T-35018 (REV1) for Pz.IV late type
Panzerwerk Design
This is the first set I have purchased and built and TBH I really don’t have a single negative comment to make. They adopt the two-half pin design with well detailed inner and outer exposed ends. The cotter pin on the outside of my set being particularly well detailed. The links are nicely rendered and just as with Quicktrack and T-Rex tracks the foundry stamps are present. Due to the similar design, they take about the same time to assemble as a T-Rex Studio set and exhibit the same natural sag once fitted over a set of road wheels. The biggest difference and a most welcomed feature that sets them apart are the inclusion of a couple of minute ridges on each pin. This means they fit into place with a reassuring click, and just as importantly, stay there. My set arrived with one link damaged (recoverable with CA glue) and zero damaged pins. I also noted everyone of them was completely uniform in size and arrow straight. I do hope they continue to consistently produce a product of this quality as I am confident their range will expand as folks realise just how good they are.
Panzerwerk Design type 6B on Stug III Ausf G
RFM StuG kit #5086 tracks
Whilst these are arguably among the best of recent mainstream 1/35 AFV kit inclusive tracks, they still have their drawbacks. Unlike the Dragon kit ‘magic links’ of old the links still remain on sprue gates, and these particular links have three attachments per link that require cleaning up. RFM have included a handy jig and designed them to be workable, but they still instruct you to glue the half pin ends to the link. Whilst in theory this will work, it is still far too easy to stick links together, so it is highly recommended to use a thicker glue to avoid capillary action allowing a thinner glue to flow where it is not needed! These RFM tracks are a touch bulky, and I'm not convinced full runs will stand up to a great deal of handling without a half link failing, but they do look decent and do on the whole, work as intended.
The RFM kit tracks are good, very good but if I had to pick my favourite aftermarket set it would have to be Panzerwerk Design. You pay for quality and TBH I’m not entirely against that. They were not the most expensive, either were they the cheapest, but considering their overall quality and ease of assembly, in my opinion they were definitely the best value.
They were pleasurably free of issues to assemble, look excellent, with incredible detail, the pin design works reassuringly well, and they take well to handling. What’s not to like.
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