Working with resin tracks

The last few years a great number of high quality resin tracks have appeared on the market, with Armory and OKB Grigorov being two of the major players. Quite a few modelers have been apprehensive about the method to use when installing these tracks on their model.

In this short article, I will illustrate my method, using the OKB Grigorov Hetzer Winterketten (which I was actually going to install on a PzKpfw 38(t) chassis).

Step 1:
Make a template in balsa wood copying the area inside the tracks. Balsa is very soft making it easy to work with and resistant to the heat I am going to apply later.
For me this was rather easy as I had already constructed another kit using the same suspension, allowing me to use that as a base for my sanding. If not a scale plan can be used.

Step 2:
Carefully bend the tracks to shape applying heat from a hairdryer.
The width of the template corresponds to the width between the track teeth, helping me to keep the tracks in place during the process.

Step 3:
Remove tracks.

The main advantage of the method is that the heat that is being applied won't affect any other parts of the model and that the template can be used over and over again.
The main drawback of this method (and I think of most methods using heat) so far is that the tracks have a tendency to curve widthwise.

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