Track sag on my Stug

The easiest way to do this is to pin them. Push the tracks down between the return rollers with your finger to the position desired and mark the apex with a pencil. Drill a .021 hole (a #75 drill) through the hull at this point and insert a piece of .020 brass rod which is long enough to span the width of the track and into the hull, glue in place with CA. You can tweek this to get the track to lay flat against it and try to position the track such that the rod sits in the grove between the links. Repeat the procedure for the rest of the tracks. Paint to match the tracks or goober-up with mud to help hide the rod.

respectfully must disagree. no, unless you want to lose contests. tanks shouldnt have pins. glue them down to the return rollers with small dabs of super-glue.

Copterguy,
With respect to those that have responded, I have a slightly different version of Peridexion's method.
I use straight pins. For one thing, I think they would be stronger than brass rod. I also glue blocks on the inside of the hull for the heads of the pins to rest on. This will keep the traks from pushing the pins up.
Regards,
Joe

Well, the judges must have missed the pins holding down the tracks on my Panzer III J, because it has not only taken several first place awards, it has a Best of Show trophy too! Not to mention my Jagdtiger Diorama that showed up in Great Scale Modeling 2004, also with pinned tracks!

The pin or rod method as described by Peridexion is a great method for creating convincing track sag with vinyl or soft plastic tracks. Once painted, the pins are nearly impossible to see.

Simply gluing the tracks to the return rollers (as suggested by jc1000) will not only fail to recreate realistic track sag, but you might actually create "reverse sag" as the tracks strain to flex upwards.
Gluing tracks to returns rollers, however, is not a bad idea for tracks that don't have much or any sag, such as those on Shermans, for example. Just to keep the tracks from "floating" over the return rollers.

For the StuG, I'd recommend going with the pin method.

I use the same method (but I use pieces of paper clip, also painted to match the tracks). The trick to hiding it is to have it stick out a little more than half the width of the tracks and to get the paper clip/rod/pin to sit in a low part of the track, nestled up against the side of one of the track pads. It is really hard to see.

AM tracks maybe? the sturmtiger has fenders hiding the tracks, so you can get away with it. does the J have the extra armor also? in that case what is the point of modeling sag? i do not mean offense to anyone, just adding my .02

Similiar to these methods is to drill the holes before the hull top goes on, using the tracks as a guide to placement, and put thin dressmakers pins in point outward, using a block of styrene or piece of aluminium angle inside as a support for the pin as stated. Carefully push a pin in the side of the track pad (the thicker rectangular piece) so it goes in about half way (or drill it out with a micro drill bit is better) then remove the pin so that it is easier to put on the model later.

When you are ready to put the tracks on you can start by pushing the preholed parts onto the pins in the hull to get sag. Using 2-3 pins between return rollers should give you a nice curve to the sag, whereas one pin in the centre can result in a pointed V shape.

One other thing, vinyl tracks tend to have no sag, so you may need to move the Idler mount forward to give you slack for sag.

With AM tracks, there shouldn't be any need to pin them, so that's not an issue. No skirts hiding the pins either, just careful placement. The Sturmtiger in my sig is box stock link and length. While I don't generally build kits that require pinning the tracks anymore, I've never had any problem with the pins showing. And I have won more than my fair share of shows with pinned down tracks. Just my