Tinkering with Zimmerit

Very nice zim work Rob!  Cavalier makes some good stuff!  I thought those were 1:35 until you mentioned they're 1:48!

Looks like  its coming along nice Rob

Nice work Rob! Cavalier makes good stuff and looks great especially for 1/48...shame about the sink marks though. Atak is another maker who also produces thin resin sets and includes 1/48 but can be more expensive depending. $10 for a full 1/48 set sounds more than reasonable considering the trade-off in time/effort/materials of a DIY attempt.

Yes, got a panzer IV minus turret passed along to me several years ago, so I looked for a conversion to do something with it. Rather simple, unimpressive conversion that I bought for $7.50 just to complete the kit.

I should mention that these are Tamiya 1/48 scale armor kits. I bought the King Tiger a long time ago when it first came out. I know a little about Tigers and knew this particular version requires zimmerit. I was tempted to try the hot knife method, but that it would not work on the diecast metal lower hull. I set the kit aside for quite some time because of this.

I had forgotten about it until Great Models had an end of summer sale in September. The Cavalier zimmerit set was mislabeled as 1/32 scale, but I knew it was for the 1/48 scale Tamiya Porsche King Tiger because of the kit number. It was $10 for the zimm, but worth not having to mess with a hot knife or putty.

I bought the CMK conversion at the same time. The CMK instructions are fairly worthless, fortunately, I have the ancient CMK bergepanzer IV that is a rebox of the old 1/35 scale Tamiya Panzer IV Ausf H. That set of instructions helped to determine where the 1/48 scale bits should go.

This is an exercise in reducing my stash of kits that are probably not worth what I originally paid for them if I tried to resell them, but are pretty good kits regardless. I am quite impressed with the King Tiger, I just wished it was the production turret so I could forsake the zimm.

Yes, this is my first experience with Cavalier zimmerit. I've used Eduard PE zimmerit in 1/72 scale, but have not used any in 1/48 or 1/35. The left side of the turret included a Cheshire Cat smile-shaped piece of zimmerit to cover the bulge. I had a few gaps along the seam where the bulge and turret zimm side sheet met. That's the Squadron green putty you see in the photos.

I used green instead of white so I could see it better on the light gray zimmerit. I thought white would be too hard to see when it got down into the grooves of the zimmerit. At least with the green I can see it and clean it up better. It was a total PITA to fit that bulge. I used hot water to make the sheet more pliable so it would conform to the bulge. I had similar issues with the front mantlet portion; it used three vertical strips of zimm sheet. I placed the center strip then the right and left ones. Again, a royal PITA to work it. More green stuff on the mantlet to see where I attempted to cover the seam between sheets.

                                     I'll give you a passing mark for your first? attempt. Cavalier is my usual choice.Do I seea bergie in the background?

                                                                  Greg"Detailfreak"Rowley

Looks good to me. Clever idea with the sharpie. I too have used two sets of Cavalier and have another in the stash for my Tiger I.

Rob - I have some of the Cavalier zimm for an elephant.  Really super thin stuff but it looks as if you mastered it on the first shot.....well done, it looks really good.

Bob 

Yes, very thin resin that comes preformed on a sheet. I used a sharp Xacto knife to cut it out. You've got to cut off some surface detail. I pre-marked some of the tool mounting points with a sharpie black marker. If you look closely at the bottom photo, you can barely see some dark points where I will drill through the zimm and mount the tools and other details.