Weathering armor

You can give the hard rubber pads of tracks and road wheels a "road used" look with the tip of a #11 xacto blade. Scrapes, gouges and surface damage is replicatred fairly well and pops after dry brushing. You will see damage more on the edges than in the center, but it happens there too.

Go to your local DIY and look at the cart wheels on the big lumber carts and on the forklifts. The actual Shermans I've seen have similar damage.

Mike

i paint the whole track rusty brown/black and drybrush the highlights with polished steel. i only depict rust on the tracks where they would not come into contact with the ground....and my rusty colours i tend to keep on the brown side of rust red..unless depicting new rust.

I agree with Cader. If you look at bulldozer tracks, the metal is always silver in color (dry brush would accomplish this) because the color is worn off. When a bulldozer is new the tracks are always painted yellow (to match the dozer)and the color wears off. A tank or bulldozer with rusty tracks would indicate an inactive piece of machinery. Rust accent wouln't hurt.

Maybe a slightly heated pin to get the pits in the rubber pads. Go in at diffrent angles and widths to get a vareation? Just a guess

I actually posted this reply on another string a while back. My cousin is a mechanic in the 3PPCLI here in Canada, and he has worked on the C2 Leo tanks Canada uses. He saw one of my armor pieces, and told me this:
A) the tracks don't really rust; constant movement and the abrasive effects of sand and dust pretty much keep it wore off.
B) rubber pads are constantly pitted and such by objects on the ground. Don't know quite how to replicate that.
Those are my guidelines to painting tracks.

I paint my tracks in 2 different ways depending on the theater. I paint them either in Gun Metal, or a mixr\ture of black and flat earth. I will then give a hevy wash of burnt sienna and vandike brown oil paints, then dry brush in rust and steel. Then, if necessary, use rust colored pastels.

Hey thanks for the tips guys, i didn't realise how efficient you people are.

Agh! Upstaged again!

I knew I forgot something..

My method is really quite close to Michael's
1) Paint tracks with gun metal
2) Dry brush with rust
3) Drybrush lightly with steel
4) Burnish all metal surfaces with pencil lead
5) Complete weathering with a dusting of pastels with the rest of the kit
This method works really well for all steel tracks like that found on the Tiger / Panther. If you are building a vehicle with rubber pads just paint that part of it in black, don't drybrush or burnish this part of the track and move to the dusting of pastels.
Hope this helps.

1: Paint tracks gun metal
2: Wash with rusty-brown
3: Drybrush lightly with gun metal
4: Use a soft pencil and, er, dry pencil for that true metallic look..