Started a little side project to create some T84 chevron track pads to replace my worn out nylon Tamiya track pads since Tamiya has discontinued making new tracks for the Pershing/Sherman. The T84 pads are those seen on the "FURY" movie Sherman but were more commonly used on the Pershing tanks of the 1950s.
What started out as simply creating pads turned into much much more. During testing the prototype T84 pads worked so well I decided to take the next step and make center guides and then they worked out well. Dare I attempt end link connectors...you bet and after a few tries darn it got those to work well.
So now I have all the working components and just need to print them. Well I dove in and had the all the parts printed on mass. JVM3Dconcepts did the printing and suggested I make the "production" parts out of a high strength engineering resin which I did.
After I received all the parts I though "What did I do, this is going to be a lot of work". A complete set of dual pin Pershing tracks consists of 1148 (+ - 2) individual parts and I still needed to dismantle my Tamiya Pershing tracks so I could reuse the metal track pins, that's means dismantling another 1148 individual parts. I will be moving around 2300 parts to make one set of tracks!! OK that sound like a lot of work but it actually was very easy and took less time then I expected.
(one of two print card plates of end connectors)
(center guide teeth print card)
I will not bore you with the assembly photos so here are the test run photos conducted on my Tamiya Sherman and the end photos of the tracks on my Pershing. It should be noted that these tracks work on Heng Long Pershing tanks as well.
If you have any questions feel free to ask. You can also view some of the video testing I did on my Instagram @ fsttanks
Testing on Sherman.
Final fully assembled tracks on Pershing. These tracks only use metal pins the rest of the track is all 3D printed. The white "scratches" on the pads is normally to see on black plastic as it starts the wear in process. It will soon take on the correct weathered and worn look of real rubber pads used on tanks.
What started out as simply creating pads turned into much much more. During testing the prototype T84 pads worked so well I decided to take the next step and make center guides and then they worked out well. Dare I attempt end link connectors...you bet and after a few tries darn it got those to work well.
So now I have all the working components and just need to print them. Well I dove in and had the all the parts printed on mass. JVM3Dconcepts did the printing and suggested I make the "production" parts out of a high strength engineering resin which I did.
After I received all the parts I though "What did I do, this is going to be a lot of work". A complete set of dual pin Pershing tracks consists of 1148 (+ - 2) individual parts and I still needed to dismantle my Tamiya Pershing tracks so I could reuse the metal track pins, that's means dismantling another 1148 individual parts. I will be moving around 2300 parts to make one set of tracks!! OK that sound like a lot of work but it actually was very easy and took less time then I expected.
(one of two print card plates of end connectors)
(center guide teeth print card)
I will not bore you with the assembly photos so here are the test run photos conducted on my Tamiya Sherman and the end photos of the tracks on my Pershing. It should be noted that these tracks work on Heng Long Pershing tanks as well.
If you have any questions feel free to ask. You can also view some of the video testing I did on my Instagram @ fsttanks
Testing on Sherman.
Final fully assembled tracks on Pershing. These tracks only use metal pins the rest of the track is all 3D printed. The white "scratches" on the pads is normally to see on black plastic as it starts the wear in process. It will soon take on the correct weathered and worn look of real rubber pads used on tanks.
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