Hi all…
Post 500, hurrah…
Anyway, this is how I got cross eyed and sore fingered…
Behave…
This is Revell’s 1:72 Panzer IV ausf. H. I got this kit to practice my zimmerite skills. What I did was apply a coat of liquid cement and then press the zimmerite into it using a ultra small flat screwdriver for electronics…
Forgive the pic quality, I don’t have anything much better than my trusty webcam…
Looks great!
It’s worth the pain!
Oh, hey, just for scale… In the second pic the orange thing is the handle of my rather small file, and in the third the white blotch is the lid of my bottle of liquid glue, which is about 20mm diameter…
Congrats on your 500th post Mike. May you have many more. The zimmerit looks really good. Thanks for sharing the pictures with us.
mark956
Sorry Michael, I get X’s. Congrats on your 500th.
Looks great, Mike. For a small kit it is very good.
Thanks guys… Tackling the tiny seperate links now…
tigerman, try this: http://www.armorama.com/modules/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=3806
My work here is done.
I’m off to bed.
wow, its going to look awesome!!!
Congrats on 500 posts Michael.
Nice looking work on the zim for that scale … you’re much braver than I would be !!!
You can say that again Robert. I would not have the courage to build the most simple 1/72 scale model.
mark956
Wow, good job Michaelvk! That’s impressive in a 1/72 scale for sure. I can see why you’re crosseyed!!
Eric
Thats impressive, I am still scared to try that on a 1/35 scale tiger so I bow to your superior hand and eye skills
Man I’m bummed. Sorry Michael, that link didn’t like me either. Sounds like a super job done.
Thanks for the kind words, guys.
Not much bravery involved, to be honest. I now and again get kits just for the purpose of practicing. And the fact that its a 1:72 kit and not a 1:35 is that its easier to hide when the missus gets back…
I originally intended on using the putty method, but as the shop didn’t have any, I picked up an old stug III I had lying around that I had built years ago and slapped on some polyesther biddy filler and went to work on that. That worked reasonably well and looked very realistic, but dried waaay to fast to work with and I couldn´t get thin enough layers (then again, I´ve been thinking about it and it might have actually been okay at a scale thickness of about 20mm). What did I love about it though was that it flaked off during zimming in such a way that it looked battle damaged.
After I decided this wasn´t going to be the way to go, I looked around the house for an alternative. No putty available, and certainly no zimm-it-rite stuff… So I ducked into the kitchen. Cornstarch, white glue and a dash of water. Didn´t work either, probably not enough white glue and certainly too much water. It just ended up a runny mess that only really adhered to my trousers. Back to the old drawing board.
So I remembered on the instructions for my 1:72 Tiger I. It said to coat the kit in liquid cement and press a file into it. As I thought the idea was completely potty and would look horribly fake I left it nice and smooth at the time… But now I was sitting there thinking about it. I grabbed the kit and did a few practice runs on the inside of the floor of the hull. I tried to drag the screwdriver through the molten plastic, but that didn´t quite work the way I wanted. Then I pressed the screwdriver into the soft plastic in vertical rows. That looked just the ticket, so I just went for it. It was why I had got it in the first place, anyway. I put down a coat of liquid on the front of the lower hull, waited a moment for it to sink in and started. After a good 20-odd minutes, I had put down a reasonable convincing layer of zimm, albeit with somewhat large blocks. Reasonably happy I continued… Turns out that there is another piece that goes over the front of the hull, so I had to re-apply zimm to the front. Needless to say I was in two minds. On one hand I had the opportunity to reapply the zimm in a tighter pattern, on the other I had to do the sodding lot all over again… The front wasn´t really the challenge. small, flat even panels, easy. It would be the sides of the hull that were the most daunting. Compared to the front they´re huge monstrous plains of barren plastic, not too different from a huge sand coloured salt lake… And to be quite honest, after doing the turret, the back, the gun mantlet and the front twice I was quite fed up and had a rather sore middle finger on my right hand from pressing into the plastic for the last 4 hours (on and off)… But I persevered and they´ve turned out pretty well, because once you´ve started you can’t really go back. You can´t just sand it all off, because its set into the plastic. One side is better than the other, so I´m going to kitbash the side skirts to have one fallen off during combat so you can see the pain and suffering I went through (oh woe is me…). Now the funny thing is that when I posted these pics on armourama, somebody else had also posted pics of exactly the same kit at almost exactly the same time, but this guy did his with PE zimm… All I could think was ‘wuss…’ (I was pretty tired and somewhat bitter by now)… That and how big an idiot I was. But I think I did pick up some experiance here, which is always nice. All I have to do now is ruin the whole lot with the paint job…
So kids, thats the whole story… My apologies to Robert and Jon who had to remain polite and awnser my daft questions. I raise a glass to your patience.
[#ditto][#ditto][#ditto]
No need to worry about the quality of the pics. We can definately see how much work, went into the Zim, on the braile scale.
Very nice!
Splendid work, Michael! We could see the pattern quite clearly. Thanks for sharing that and keep us updated please.
Micheal, Exellent! What a load of work… I’d have to add blind (and maybe ‘insane’) to that too if I tried it!
Ron
Michaelvk:
that’s a killer job on the zimmerit ![tup][tup][tup]
thanx 4 sharing ur technique…
sooner or l8r i’m going to have 2 try & zim, but nothing on the
production line calls 4 it rite now.
but one day…[;)]
and congrats 2 u on ur 500th post !!!
frosty[:)]
Impressive zimmerit , I must say ! Thats exactly the technique they suggest for that scale and it is very well done ! Can’t wait to see the finished product [8D] I will have to try that scale … what a bargain on the kit price … like about 10 bucks here . you have inspired me thanks ![:D]