Hi.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before but I haven't found the post.

I usually model WW2 vehicles. Usually, the tracks of these vehicles and tanks are made of metal and they rust quickly.

I'm trying to duplicate the heavy rust found in those tracks (the kind of color of those tracks in excavators and power shovels rotting in junkyards).

For my sdkfz 7/2, I painted the tracks with a flat black base. I washed them in a mix of burnt umber and burnt sienna oils, leaning heavily on the burnt umber color. Then I drybrushed them with chrome silver then in flat black again. When the chrome silver dried, I washed them again with the burnt umber/burnt sienna mixture.

After it dried, I weathered the tracks heavily with burnt umber/burnt sienna pastel chalks. I think I made three applications, the third one having a touch of yellow ocher pastel to tone down the color. As a final touch, I lightly touched graphite to areas that are run over by the tires.

It looks very good but I'm still not convinced. How do you guys paint really rusty tracks? Remember that I live in the Philippines and I don't have Rustall, MIG pigments or any other weathering paint. All I have are oils and pastels.

Suggestions?

Angela :-)8

Pastels can do the trick.

Also you can use a wash of orange then another orange-red, red-brown and then brown wash

BTW, visit our small forum in the corner!

HI, You may want to try a couple light coats of red auto primer first off. This should give you a good deep rust color to start off with on the tracks and then just work on adding lighter colors and pastels/weathering powders to highlight what areas you want to stand out. Just a thought.

Good luck and take care, Sgirty

What I would do if I were you is take a bunch of different brown pastel chalks from almost orange thru the red brown colors to the dark browns scrape up a mix of all theses colors mixed together then add it to some tamiya thinner the pastels don't mix easily and will sink to the bottom . Just take a wide flat brush and mix the pastels up and drip it all over your tracks . This leaves a very realistic rusty look in all the crevises.

Rick
p.s. You do know that the Sdkfz 7 has rubber pads on the tracks .
p.s.s. Welcome to the site!

i usualy start by panting mine black, then i spray a light mist of rust color on them, then i drybrush silver to the high areas that would come in contact with rocks and what not, then i use actual rust, take some steel wool pads put them in water and let it evaporate under the sun. i use a very liberal amount of that, and when its all dry i brush off with a dry soft brust the big chunks, and sometimes ill re-drybrush the areas

Thanks, guys.

Darn! Yes, I know that sdkfz 7/2s have rubber pads on the tracks but I almost forgot about that! The tracks are now treated with pastels but i think I can just paint those pads quite easily. Thank you theBear.

SgtDinkyduck, that "rust in the iron wool" technique is great. I'll try that on my next modeling project.

Once again, thanks for the help, guys. I love you all.

Angela :-)8

Testors themselves have rust colored paint. But it really depends on what situation you want your model to be. Whether its fresh out of the factory or just coming back from a 2 week frontline duty in heavy rain. Pretty much subjective.

Though I picked-up an idea from somewhere. Take some old steel wool from the kitchen/bathroom/under you bed then soak it in a jar of water for a week or so. Judge for yourself when you see the rust that'll accumulate. Drain the water and let the wool dry. Shake or scrape of the rust from it. You then have authentic rust to rust up you tracks.