Here's Rick's secret recipe for making those huge metal King Tiger tracks look like the real thing. Now ya gotta admit, they DO look like the real thing. Top ones have been prepped for treatment.
"I was able to blacken an entire tread in 30 minutes! Now for the kicker, unlike your first set and my Sherman tracks, NO paint or oil based wash this time. If you remember on yours and then again on my first set of metal tracks I had to revert to the old ways for weathering and age. Not so this time my friend. ;-)
I've changed my process. Each group of tracks was submerged in 12 oz. of fresh fluid, no solutions were reused on the next group like I did last time. This gives the tracks in the soup the full strength of the blackening solution which they absolutely need given the mass of metal I'm putting in there at one time.
Every five minutes the tracks are "rolled over" in the solution but not removed. I found that removing them and letting them dry, then putting them back in the solution again is not the way to go. After a few minutes the tracks become very warm to the touch and the solution starts to bubble, this is very good.
When the tracks come out of the soup they are hot! Rinse with cool tap water as before and let them s l o w l y air dry. I was setting them in the sun before, they dry out too fast. When they first come out of the soup they are jet black now with almost no residue coming off them during the rinse, a very good sign that the metal will hold its color.
Now as they dry they start to turn a blackish brown color, the whites start showing up and the things start looking more like a set of used tracks. Not heavy wear mind you, but they look like they've been around. About the only thing you don't have are wear to the highlights and wear from the road wheels.
For that I used my own mixture now. On the last couple of projects I started experimenting with natural soiling, dirt from my backyard. We sit on some of the best dirt in the world so why not use it? Also, why do people always think this stuff has to be done in a certain order. I've tried their ways, too much extra work for nothing, its the finish that counts, not the order that things were applied. :-)
So, I add just a dash of natural pigment, in this case European Dust, to the natural Sandy/Lome soil that we have plenty of and apply with a dry flat brush. I added soiling where the road wheels have been running, to the holes where the sprocket teeth grab and to the areas between the cleats on the downside of the tracks and thats it.
Next I take clean mineral spirits and give the tracks a final wash. This is not a wash like used on the paint finishes as it has no color added. This wash has two purposes, the first is to act as a solvent to blend my dirt into the surface and second is to actually wash the last bits of debris from the track pins. Remember, they are in-place through the whole process, this frees up the tracks again without adding any form of other lubricants.
And thats it! These are clearly the best set of large scale tracks I've made so far. I'll leave it up to you to add the wear to the highlights. No steel wool for us, just drive it! ;-)"
