OH BOY! I'm there! Metal replacement tracks from Friulmodel are always a pleasure to work with. For those of you who haven't seen or handled anything from them yet, you're missing out.
The tracks for the Mk.IV and Whippet come with idlers and drive sprockets like most of their offerings. I hope these are as well made and accurate as their other releases. See here-
They look amazing! Even have the correct spacing for the rivets.Â
For those who say why bother... well it opens up the possibility to make dioramas of tanks being repaired and maintained, with their track rolled out, like you see in in photos. Plus a tank wreck, maybe. It provides some interesting modelling options.
The Whippet tracks go together pretty well, all in all. Annoyingly, I had already glued the side panels on, so had to gouge out the kit sprockets and idlers. I had a spot of bother getting the track to go around the metal idler once that one was affixed, but since it doesn't show there, I solved the problem with a few cuts. The track run around the sprocket sticks out from behind the side armor plates, perhaps slightly too far, but there should be some spacing there if the wartime photos I've seen are anything to go by.
The upper rollers also don't fit the links very well, so some more work there might be necessary too. Especially since it looks like the upper track run should have a slight bump marking the location of the upper roller axles.
Can't fault the outward appearance of the links themselves, though. They are beaut.
-- Edited by Agamemnon2 on Monday 28th of April 2014 08:21:46 PM