oh boy... flyboy with indy Tracks

Jeff the vacuum of the Dark Side is sucking you in. Muhahahahaha. Do you have Tamiya's Late Tiger I? You don't have to zim her up. Zim was stopped in Fall of '44. Squadron makes two kinds of putty, as well as Tamiya. Milliput is another alternative. The May 2002 issue gives some great ideas on how to zim a tank. Good luck.

Yeah shes the late Tiger I

Oh no, Jeff...you didn't really get THAT tank kit did you??? Oh man! That's probably the worst Armor kit Tamiya's put out since the '70's. Oh crap, I really feel sorry for you, man. I hope you didn't pay more than about $15 or 20 bucks for that kit. The tracks are warped and don't even fit together right, the turret won't fit down into the hull without a MAJOR amount of surgery to the hull, the main gun is a nightmare. They made it about 1/2 inch too short. They didn't even get the number of road wheels correct. There are only supposed to be 24, not the 36 in the kit. You really have your work cut out for you with that one. Wow! I wish you would have asked here on the darkside before you bought that lemon!
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LOL
In reality, it's a fantastic kit. There wasn't one word of truth in the top half of my post. Now you know why they call this the DARKSIDE!!!!! mwaa-haaa-haaa-haaa!

Welcome to the Darkside... Lookin forward to seeing your stuff....

Hmmmmm, Bill has developed a mean streak in him. Been working on indys lately haven't you Bill? The force is strong in you.

Jeff, if you're going to try zimmerit detail, I suggest you pick up some styrene card first and practice. There are peculiararities particular to the differnt puttys available and its much easier to practice on $1 sheet styrene than on your model's surface.

Practice your spacing, angle, how much you can do before a section dries out too much or you wear yourself out. How long you must wait before starting, etc. Basicly becoming familiar with the materials at hand.

A little time and a couple of bucks up front will save you in the long run from a potentialy discouraging situaiton and pay off big in finished results.

Wipw Wipw Wipw. I was reading that and looking at me kit, reading that and looking at my kit, reading that and looking at my kit.... Oooo I owe you one big time!!!

Glad to know I got a good one to start though. I am looking forward to it, first tank kit I ever seen the inside of is this one.

Renarts thanks for the sound advice, which I will take. I seen your stuff in the minitures part and great skills. What plane ya doing??? Whatever you do DO NOT build a monogram kit form the 70's unless you are well acquainted with aircraft kits. If ya are then ignore that last sentence. If ya can go with Accurate minitures kits. Go to the Group build A/C thread of AM and check it out.

Wonder what good 'ole Ausf is gonna say to me know...zimmerit ausf...zimmerit.

-Jeff

P.S. thanks for making a plane guy welcome in the tank area...area 51 that is

OOOOoooo Renarts... your advice implies I let whatever putty I use to setup a bit before I try any zimmerit on it??

Also for around 20$ you can get the cavalier zim. It is resin sheets that work great.heres a few pics of mine with it

Thanks Jeff. Working on the airfix 1/72 B26. I should stick to armor and figures....

Some putty's are very thin and sticky right out of the tube. Test it first before you start to work it. I like to let it sit for a minute or two and let the drying agents do their thing. Once it has a little skin over it, it doesn't seem to have the adhesive qualities to it and it works a little cleaner.

Woodbeck3, sure get some straight scoop from these darksiders!!. I.m building a jagdpanzerIV early model. it will need zimmert on it. thanks to renarts tip, I will use a practice piece of styrene to perfect my zimmerit application. wish that was the only problem I had with this project. I got some screwed up indy threads to fix because I did not pay attention to my wheel and sprocket alignment. hope I can salvage this baby!!. got it sitting on the shelf right now. needed to take a breath, and reacess how I'm going to fix it. good luck on your project. semper fi, mike

Bill, ya been sniffing the testors tube glue again. LOL

Oh man Oh man Oh man Oh man Oh man Oh man Oh man Oh man...is this going to be goooooooooooood.
Alright, what can I do to this Me109 to raise the ante on my side of this. You can't still say that the RevellAg kit with PE and resin will be that hard, compared to free hand zim?
Do I have to make this the cleanest plane in history, with the dealer invoice on the window or something?

Tell ya what ausf if you can make it with NO, I mean NO seam lines...ANYWHERE then I'll give ya props (spinning even) on that old Revell kit, which if it is as old as I think it is, is an old monogram kit. One of the other plane guys will have to make sure I am right. If it is and I think it is, it will have sewrious fit problems, PE stuff will be the leastof your worries.
Hmm is it me or did the treadheads just go out and buy planes without asking the "experts" on the kits, while several of us flyboys and gals asked first. hmmm maybe it's just me.
I will be doing Zim on her ausf, now make those seam disappear.

"who do the treadheads call when it gets ugly......wingy thingies that's who!!!!"

P.S. NMF is natural metal finish which is not silver like you would think looking at silver stangs or forts. Planes of that era where painted silver over nfm. In nmf the panels are different shades of there natural color. The uniform silver look is painted on. Go to the planes forum youll see a nfm 1:48 B-29 Superfortress underway in NMF. Name of the thread is "the target, the weapons" or something to that effect.

-Jeff

QUOTE: Originally posted by woodbeck3 Hmm is it me or did the treadheads just go out and buy planes without asking the "experts" on the kits, while several of us flyboys and gals asked first. hmmm maybe it's just me. -Jeff

I asked; no-one answered!

I just bought one I liked; that I thought wouldn't give me too much grief, an Academy Fiesler Storch. Not real sure of my logic, though, because it has lots of clear bits and lots of strutty bits. I expect I will be pleading for help pretty early on.

OOooo I saw ya post phroosh (what's a phroosh anyways?) and thats a great kit. You'll have a good time with it. You might have some wing root (wing to fuselage) seams or gaps but they shouldn't be too bad... Not like Ausf's bird.

Well after a couple hours of building I think, stress think, I have all the major sub assemblies ready for the paint, after the hand zim of course...which I am practicing too.

What are the colors for this one..the camo shows a tan, a rusty red adn a dark green kinda stripy. Whats the name of those colors so I can get some paint, switching to acrylics so I need em all.

-Jeff
"snap rolls are all in the wrist"

Jeff,
welcome! i see the gang has been much help.
i'll take this easy one.
if you are going to acrylic,
the 'tan' is really "dunkelgelb" (dark yellow) and Tamiya XF-60 is the common choice.
the reddish color is usually XF-64 (red brown)
and the green XF-61 (dark green)
typically, we wash the living heck out of (or on to!) armor,
so between giving yourself leeway for washes (which will darken the colors)
and some wiggle room for 'scale effect" you may want to lighten these around 20%
using white or tan to knock them down a bit.
some folks use them straight. there is a LOT of leeway, so do what pleases you.
you will find there will be folks who do the same thing, and folks who don't.

you will likely want to shoot the dark yellow base coat over the whole thing then apply the red & green.
that is something most here would agree on.

dirty pool, wipw!
i like that!

Ok,
Now I'll ask,
Say, hypothetically of course, You had a friend who had some kits,(not me, of course) and say, he said you could have one of these blue boxes, maybe. er ah which would you choose to build?



Note from 'friend who lends Ausf kits': The Me is the only one that I bought PE to use so I figured it would be the best for this shindig. This was a 'rounding out a Squadron order from a while back, must have been in a moment of dilerium.

The P-51B without a doubt. That's what I'd build

P51

The stang in NMF

i hate to do this to you ausf but i would agree the mustang in a nmf would be a sight to see. but dont take the easy way out. do the foiling method. hahahaha

joe

Nah too easy...Alclad applied with a toothpick.

the 51b for me too. I love 51 razorbacks, and I don't have one. (Got an A and an A36, though!!)

ausf, why or why did you get the Tamiya Panther A?? Haven't you been reading the posts on which armor kits to get, or at least, which to stay away from?? Good luck when you decide to build that one. (Talk to Claymore if you want some major advice on how to do it up right!)

Is the Tamiya Panther A really that bad? I picked one up the other day and have been keeping it aside for another project. I guess It can be used as a sort of blank canvas for some detail work.... but I hadn't realized it was such a dog per descriptions I've heard recently.

Everything on that pile besides the Tiger I and the pz III were 'last minute add to the order for free shipping' deals. Nothing premeditated.

Is there an acrylic way to do NMF? The box art is camo.

The Me's date stamped on the model is '96, so is the Fw. The 51 is 1997, maybe these aren't the kits that had problems. they're 1/72 if that makes a difference.

Detail is typical for 70's Tamiya. Turret is WAY too big. Rubber band tracks are terrible (again, typical 70's) Sponson bottoms are hollow (sound familiar??) The correction to the turret is the big thing. And replacing the awful tools goes a long way, too. Check out claymore's. He did a fantastic job scratchbuilding a new turret.

The 109 needs to be camo'd. If you want to have the nmf look right best way is Alclad which is lacquar I believe. DOn't know of any acrylic counterparts to it.

Dude!!!!! zimmerit!!!! OMG!!!
ok now that's outta my system. I like it!!. I am using squadron's white putty thinned with acetone spread on kinda think. Let it set a second then I took 2 flat toothpicks sanded them even and superglued them together. Once I got my fingers unglued from them I "stick" the putty and make the pattern. I let it setup then lightly sand the peaks off. It's too thick to scale but this being my first tank and first time free handing Zim I am VERY happy with the results. Even my wife who could not care less about my models noticed this one, wanting to know what the "white goop" is. I explained to her its called Zimmerit and the german applied it too keep...." and thats as far as I got before she shrugged and walked away .

OK OK I admit I like modeling tanks and will model more.... but never underestimate the power of the lightside because my first love is planes...but that challenger I saw might be next .
-Jeff

You'll be saying 'wing roots, sming roots' before long. NMF will stand for Nore More Fun and mud and dust will become your friend. You'll even venture out at night and in inclement weather.