This is going to be the new build. It has been sitting in the closet waiting to make up my mind what to do with it. Have decided to assign it to the Pz.Kp.(FKL) 316 / Pz. Lehr Div. They had brought 5 Kingtigers to Normandy with them but had left them in Chateaudun, France for defense of the town.
Hard to tell from some old black & white photos but have decided for painting I would try a two tone paint job. Chestnut with a touch of Burnt Sienna for the primer. A base coat in Panzer Dunkelgelb and then finished off with strips / splotches of Panzer Olivgrun. My real question is Zimmerit. I have seen the Henschel turret tiger with having and not having zimmerit applied. Did the Porsche turret tiger have both options? There were only 50 of these beast put out in the field leaving no room for error on the application of the zimmerit. I have some books showing the Porsche done in both ways but these pictures are not real photo’s and not sure if I should trust them. The black & white photo’s I will be working from appear that the tiger has no zimmerit applied but is not clear enough to tell for sure. If I have a choice I would prefer to do this kit without zimmerit for somthing different because I also have a Tamiya Porsche Kingtiger with an Eduard photoeted zimmerit set. Any comments or suggestions would be very helpful.
I have recently finished a DML Tiger I Late Production (3 in 1) and used an ATAK zim for it. The zim was very accurate with some damage spots making it very real. I believe ATAK has one for the Porsche Turret . DML after you bought this kit came out with a zim version. Do send photos as you go along. Wil follow your progress. Good luck!
Thanks for the insight. Looks like we will have Zimmerit. Thought these were done only with the zimmerit. Now do I get aftermarket kits or do i try laying putty? I have never used putty for this and have been wanting to try it for some time now. I have a Tamiya coating applicator tool and some Squadron putty. That is what I might try, I have seen good results of this (if you know what your doing). My fear is that the squadron putty drys very quickly not giving me much time to make the Zimmerit. Will have to practice first. Thanks again for the info. I will keep updating as i go.
Never tried but want to apply Zimmerit with wood filler. Read a article in FSM on this technique. The good point is its easy to change (water soluble) and chipping or removal is easy as it has a low hold strength to plastic.
Wood filler sounds like an intresting approach. Would you happen to know which FSM this was in? Is there one wood filler better than the other for this? I am preparing some spare parts now in order to practice with the application. I am willing to try just about anything. After market kits are great and that is what I had used in the past but I have always wanted to try this, so here goes. Thanks for the tip.
This will start my experiment. Will try putty first since I have some but that wood filler sure sounds a lot better. Might run out to the store and get some tonight.
This is experiment #1. I used Elmer’s wood filler and dabbed it on with a flexible makeup brush (stolen from the wife). I pulled the foam from the tip leaving just the plastic applicator. I also find these brushes work great in the right situation to apply dry pigment or pastel.
The problem I had is that the filler could not be spread. It would not stick to the plastic and would clump up. So I then soaked an old paint brush in water and smeared it into the filler. This seemed to work with a little patience.
I had to let some of the water evaporate but before the filler dryed I then used the zimmerit tool.
After the filler dryed completly I used a can of spray paint to put some paint on just to get an idea of what it would look like. I know not a very good paint job, it’s an experiment.
Next experiment I will paint the plastic first to see if the putty will stick better. Which brings up one more question. When zimmermit is chipped of, what color shows underneath? I have seen models with the red primer showing and some had the base color showing such as Dunkelgelb. Which would be correct? Any suggestions on anything above? Looking for any comments before smearing this all over my Tiger.
As for the primer underneath question, there’s some debate about that since the zimmerit was applied as a paste, given it’s shape/pattern/ridges, and then blow-dried until it dried like concrete…then the base color dunkelgelb was sprayed over the zim. Some take the approach that if the zim were to chip off, it would still leave a thin film behind that would’ve bonded to the primer (after all, that’s what primer is for) and others take the approach that it would leave red oxide primer exposed. Either approach is plausible IMHO and you could even go so far as to combine both…meaning you have a large-ish chip of missing zim with primer exposed in the middle and a border of “film” around the edges where the rest of the zim is still intact. Add in the fact that it wasn’t uncommon for crews to also repaint sections in the field if large portions of zim had flaked or chipped off and you have lots of leeway in terms of how you choose to depict it under those circumstances. [;)]
WOW! First attempt and it looks great already… good thing you had spare parts to practice on. I have the same Tamiya Zimm tool set you are using and I have to give it a shot one day. If I can help, while you use the zimm tool, make shorter strides if possible instead of making one long strides. Hope you know what I am trying to say…
Just imagine if you are in 1/35 and you are applying zimm within your arm/hand length at the factory. I personally haven’t tried this but apparently I will very soon with my Tamiya Panzer IV Ausf. H for GB I signed up recently. Yikes! So I will be following your process closely. Good luck buddy ![Y]
The time and labor intensity of zim application vs the limited threat protection it offered was one of the reasons it was dropped by the Germans. It had to be applied with hand trowels and added several man-hours to the construction time of new tanks. No coincidence that it was dropped the end of August '44 when things were decidedly not going well and vehicles were urgently needed on all fronts to make up losses. [;)]
Your zimm attempt looks a bit too rough to me…not bad for a first-try, but I’d keep practicing a bit more…the medium you are using may be a bit too coarse for the scale…
Been at work for the last week and have not been able to do any work on the Tiger. I agree with many of the comments made and spent last night scraping off all of the wood filler. I found the wood filler to coarse when it left the pattern and at times could not get it to leave a pattern at all and it looked like a soupy mess. Because of this I was unable to make short strides, as it should be. The wood fillercould not really be sanded or sculpted due to it’s poor adhesion. Still determinend to make my own Zim, I have had time to think of other alternatives. Since last night I have tryed different wood putties and spackling and was not pleased. Finally I found an All-Purpose Adhesive (Polyseamseal). This I have found goes on easy, sticks very good and is easy to shape. I have tryed this on some spare parts and it looks as if it came out to be the right scale. It also appears to paint nicely. This is what I will be applying tonight. I will post pictures soon.
Well work has began. I put the first coat of zimmerit on the back side and now waiting for it to dry.
While waiting decided to get the road wheels started and get them out of the way. They are my least favorite thing to do. I gave them some primer (50% burnt sienna, 25% chestnut, 25% thinner) and then sprayed the base color dunkelgelb. Then I applied a wash of burnt umber followed with dry brushing with the dunkelgelb mixed with some insignia white. They will receive some pastel powder when assembled.
Your posts have provided us a great dea of information… it has been very helpful. I have been hearing great things about the wood fillers in the forums mostly for diomaras but it may not work too well on plastic kits like you have shown us. It looks like All-Purpose Adhesive (Polyseamseal) is the way to go. But I was wondering how you can soften it up a bit before you can apply it on the kit?
Tim the wheels look great and the zimm texture looks about right too. Take another look at your box art and the picture I posted of the real thing and you’ll notice when the zimm was applied they used shorter horizontal strokes and by doing so created a vertical ridge at the end of the strokes.
I’m no zimmerit expert by no means but yours lacks these vertical ridges always present on the real thing.
