A quick look and initial review of the AFV Club set of individual link T48 tracks with 'Duckbill' extensions. Why do I want them? How do they go together? Do they fit the Asuka Sherman sprocket ring?
East fix, wrap a segment around the drive sprocket, they glue the sroket together and it will then be a perfect fit, I do this with the miniart tracks and sherman drive sprockets.
I see what you mean - use the track link to set the width of the sprocket before glueing, rather than trying to add them later? What a brilliantly simple idea! Thanks!
Great vid. If I had watched before I purchased I may not have but after watching you I am excited. I purchased mine because my M4A3 is being used as a knocked out/destroyed tank for a diorama and I need the flexibility of destroyed tracks without having to cut up rubber ones. Thanks
Thanks, I am pleased you found it useful! I am filming a follow-up this weekend to add a little more detail to what I said in this video and to point out a pretty major hiccup in this AFV Club set - nothing that should affect your knocked out diorama though.
I have the RFM Sherman Firefly in my stash. It has link-by link tracks, but at least it has little jigs to build 5-link stretches and join stretches together.
I've not seen that kit in person but it seems like that way of construction is the way to go. These AFV Club tracks look OK when built up but they are a bit fiddly.
Very good vid, I believe the afv club tracks were the first workable plastic tracks back in the day and were always cheaper then the metal Kasten tracks which have always been grossly expensive as are the copycat Chinese made tracks. The best you can buy these days in my opinion are the Miniart or ryefield workable tracks (ryefield does make a set for the HVSS shermans as well as early ones) but care must be taken as they can snap or come loose easily. I do wish afv club would update these and provide a "Jig" part like all the other makers do now with their track sets as it helps assemble them, immensely. The newer track sets from other makers also have much user friendly ejector pin marks if at all and sprue cutting points in better locations.
Thank you. I didn't know AFV Club tracks pre-date all the others . And I agree, they really could do with a jig in their sets. I had seen other sets but I couldn't get hold of any of them, so I made do with the AFV Club ones. They're OK now they're assembled and painted but it wasn't the best experience getting there! I really must make a quick update video soon to show the result. Thanks again for your comment!
@@Startrooper5555 Already done that, but probably unnecessarily. All I needed to do was to push the links into place a little more confidently - they actually 'click' into place really well if pushed hard enough. I'm preparing a follow-up video to this one which elaborates on the building of this track set but also highlights one hugely annoying flaw....
Considering the fact you are gluing 2 adjacent links to a connector, I don't understand how do you expect the resulting track to be workable? No possible rotation between link1 and its connector (glued) + no possible rotation between that same connector and the next link either (glued) = no possible rotation between the 2 links. Meaning As soon as the glue has dried, your tracks are going to be as rigid as hell.
Well yes, that's why I said a friction fit would be preferable. With the very loose end connectors requiring glue the track is rendered unworkable. Take a look at my follow-up video and you'll see that some of the end connectors in this set ARE a friction fit but others are loose.
I don't think so. The spacing of the end connectors does not quite match the pitch of the track links, they are a fraction of a mm too far apart. They are also attached to sprue on the wrong face for that. The connectors are attached on their inner face - that is the face that needs to be facing inwards on the track. You have to cut them off the sprue to be able to slip them on to the track pins.
