Homemade Zimmerit

What scale are you wanting to zimm?

If 1/35, a lot of us use Tamiya Polyester Putty and their Zimmerit tool set. Others have had real good luck with Miliput putty, and I'm sure you will get a reference to a site on that real soon.

For 1/72, a few have tried embosing in the pattern with a hot screw driver blade or hot knife.

Welcome to the forum. You'll get many, if not all, your questions answered here. Don't be afraid to ask anything about armor. You will be amazed at what some of these guys and gals know.

Good luck.

It is Tamiya Panther A. 1/35th. Zimmerit tool? Where to obtain.

Welcome to the forum Loylein

Many ways to do this. Some people use the white (very Fine) Milliput, and roll it as flat and thin as possible using some talc to stop it sticking. Then they lay the milliput over the part of the kit and use an old Paintbrush to push it into corners. Others use the Tamiya two part Polyester putty ( Moses gets great results using this) or even normal putty like Tamiya gray or Squadron Green, etc. Some guys just spread glue over the plastic and scribe into the goo before it hardens, but personally I've tried this and was not happy with the result.

With the putty, they use a small screwdriver, Tamiya Zim tool or piece of a razor saw blade to scribe the grooves before the putty hardens. For the waffle pattern you can make up your own tool using styrene strip and piece of square sheet to produce a little tool with the indent squares stuck to the piece of styrene sheet. Just glue a handle to the back and press away.

Practice on an old kit or scrap plastic first, until you are happy with the result. Which ever way you go, remember do a small area at a time so the surface won't harden before you are ready. Good luck

PS The Tamiya Tool is a set of PE tools that look a little like a saw blade. They are produced by Tamiya and can be obtained from a good LHS or any good supplier off the net.

I do zimmerit the hard way, but it works. I use squadron white putty and I use Tamiya's Photo Etched zimmerit tools. For my method, you need Tamiya extra thin liquid cement, paper towls, squad putty white, a razor blade, masking tape (tamiya 3mm tape works great too!), and the zim tools. FSM's 2002 May edition has the works if you want to look up zimmerit how to.
SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE DOING THIS!
You need some serious ventalation when doing this. The putty and cement smell really bad, so your best off doing this outside. Another thing is you will want to cut or sand off all bolts and obscerities before applying the putty. You'll see why when you read this. Sand down the places to be zimmed so the putty has something to "stick" to. This is especially true when using epoxy putty, I'm told. Enjoy.
1)I mask off the section to be zimmed and I make it about the size of a large postage stamp-1/2 inch X 1/2 inch or so.
2)I blob a dot of squad putty about the size of an M&M candy in the center and smooth it out over the surface with the razor blade. Why the razor blade? Because it's metal and the putty doesn't stick too bad to the blade. After smoothing, wipe any extra putty off the blade by putting the paper towl on the edge of your table and swiping the putty off.
3)The thin layer of putty should be about 1mm thick. It's going to start drying fast on you, so this is were the extra thin liquid cement comes in. Coat the thin layer of putty with one brush-full of cement and the putty will become playable and it will absorb the cement. CAUTION! You need some serious ventilation for this and you might want to do this outside.
4)Now that the cement has acted as a retardant, you just bought yourself more zimming time with it. The Tamiya PE kit comes with to different size zim tools. One with .5mm grooves and one with .7mm grooves. I use the .7mm tools. It just looks more realistic for 1/35 scale armor.
5)Now slide the tool into the putty horizontally about 2-3mm across. Stop but don't take the tool from the model. Now move the tool up a little, about .5mm up and start over. Doing this makes the distinct colums of zimmerit.
6)once the process is done, swipe off the putty off the tool, just like the blade, and apply a little liquid cement to the tool to soften the putty and wipe it off.
7)Repeat and it will be done before you know it. I don't use epoxy or poliester putty because I've never tried them and I don't want to experiment with a model, but I will eventually switch over once I find it...

I'll try to get some pics up...

I just checked and greatmodels.com doesn't have any of the tools in stock. missionmodels.com might. You'll have to check.

If you take a look at the last page (108) on the Panther Group Build thread, you will see a picture of the back end of my Tamiya Panther A with the zimm I put on it. It's a different pattern than what Ryan was talking about above, but you just have to put some horizontal lines in the zimm. I hate to say this, but the Tamiya A is not a great kit. You might not want to put the time into doing zimmerit on it, unless you want to use it as a "practice" model. Yes, it's the kit I chose to use for the Group Build, but I changed the turret, and put after market tracks on it. Derek built one, too, and went so far as to scratch build a new turret for it. He did a fantastic job. But it was fun to do, and it does look like a Panther.

Here's the link for the Panther Group Build page 108.

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?page=108&TOPIC_ID=9124


If we can be of any help, let us know.

Good luck.

Nice panther wipw! I forgot to mention: you can use a ruler to put the distinctive lines in the zim pattern. Tanks like the tiger just had vertical columns, but Tanks like the panther had distinct lines or indentations between columns. Most tanks varied with zim, but you could research what tank had what.

Thanks, Ryan. It was an interesting experience!! lol (But not too bad. Got better as I went along.)

One advantage to using Tamiya Polyester putty is you don't have to rough up the surface first. Saves a little time.

QUOTE: Originally posted by ArmorMaster SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE DOING THIS! You need some serious ventalation when doing this. The putty and cement smell really bad, so your best off doing this outside.

And it's not just the smell. These compounds have stuff like Toluene in them, are highly toxic and should not be inhaled whether they smell bad or not.

Here is a link to the one of the many methods. I have never tried this but it looks fairly easy.
The Tamiya Panther A is really a bad kit unfortunately but the good news is that it is reasonably cheap and you can practice a lot of Zim methods on all those flat plates.

Bill: Thanks.