That being said, however, I was willing to give these tracks a try, wondering if their relatively small size and large amount of raised details would make the print layers less visible. And I am happy to observe that I can barely make out the print layers at all. Maybe just a little bit on the rubber track pads, but the fact is, these are very finely printed parts, and they should be quite easy to paint and weather so that any layering won't be visible on the final model.

You can see for yourself how they are molded, in two pieces, with the sprocket and idler wheels in place. Which means that there won't be any room for alteration, making this set very specific to only a single model. But which one? I originally had an entire paragraph written about this, here:

Since the title of the set is "M4A2", I measured the distance between the front and rear axles on my M4A2 kits, compared that with the distance between the center of the sprocket and idler hubs on these tracks, and it appears that this set should be a drop fit for the Zvezda M4A2. It would be nice if FCM would identify on their packaging which specific models these are designed for, because they are not universal. It is possible, perhaps, to alter the plastic kit parts in some small way to make these tracks fit on other manufacturers' kits, since it's not possible to alter these printed parts. The difference in measurements that I made for the Zvezda, Heller and Dragon M4A2 kits were only about a millimeter at most. Enough to guarantee that these parts won't fit out of the box, but small enough I think to do some creative sanding on the kits. Of course we also will have to worry about the fit of the tracks over and under the wheel suspension units. I assume that it won't be a problem for the Zvezda kit, but again, the others may need some modification.

But... After writing that, I wanted to confirm my hypothesis that these were not universal, which would have been easy to do by looking at the back of the sprocket wheel. Each of these three manufacturers (why have I not looked at UM? LOL) has a different way of attaching the sprocket to the final drive, and Zvezda is the only one that has the mounting peg on the wheel instead of the hull. So I snipped away enough of the print supports behind the sprocket to be able to take a look, and wouldn't you know, there is a large cavity on the rear of the sprocket, rather than a peg, or a small hole to receive a peg. Which means, that I think this set was in fact designed to fit almost any Sherman kit with a small amount of modification to the kit parts to make it work. But if that's the case, why limit the title of the set to only the M4A2? Theoretically it could fit any Sherman that had this particular combination of the open-spoke idler wheel and the solid sprocket plate.

So this particular design choice for the 3D print may or may not be limiting in regards to suitable models for use, but on the positive side of things, these will be an absolute joy to paint and weather prior to attaching to the model. I greatly look forward to building them just for that experience.

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