Soldering iron Zimmerit

[Crispy]

Need your opinions on this effect. My brother ROCKETMAN bought a 2nd hand 1/25 King Tiger off ebay recently and it came with a rather nice zimmerit effect. Basically the previous owner had melted the zimmerit straight onto the kit plastic. I fancied having a go at this and as i have decided to turn my old knackered HL pre S&S Tiger 1 into a Sturmtiger, I have the perfect opportunity to give it a go.

Using a few bits of waste plastic from the kit iIve come up with 2 methods and wanted to know what you think looks better.

First and easiest is using a flat head soldering iron straight onto the HL plastic.



This looks pretty good to me but it isnt going to be easy to get that "chipped off" look that you see on so many zimmerit coated tanks. Also as Sturmtigers were built onto reconditioned Tiger 1's, and the zimmerit would've been applied to the original tank at the factory, its something a really want to do. So I came up with the second method which is to glue a thin piece of plastic card into the kit first, and then once its dry to use the soldering iron again to melt the zimmerit pattern into it without going too deep into the kit plastic. Once this has cooled its then quite easy to chip off where you want to get that well worn effect.



So which one do you prefer? I dont want to mess about with pastes or fillers and I really like the effect this creates.  Its actually surprising quick to do once you get going.

Here's another pic showing both methods. The glued on plastic card is the on at the top.



Let me know what you think.

Nic

[Matdragon]

hey nic,

i think they both look brilliant, and in the long run its up to you.

personally, i think for the amount of it that you are going to have to be giving that effect to, your better off going for the quicker version, which to i presume would be option A (the first) would it not

cheers, great work once again, and keep us posted on the strum!!

Matt

[971wright]

Hi Crispy I like both maybe you could leave little bits out here and there to get the chipped look ,or you could try making a new end for the solder iron and cross cut it to make the waffle look that would be good.


        regards pete

[tiger205]

i to like both ways of doing it, and i think its a great idea, i might give it a go when i get really bored

                    Tony

[BREL]

I see a big blob of plastic on someones work bench LOL

[[ICE]monkey]

both ways look great, but i would go for b for depth

[Mackem]

I agree with Ice. The styrene version looks much more realistic.
Plus it has the advantage that you wont destroy your tank if you balls it up.
Brilliant tip Nic, will definitely be giving it a go.

Cheers
John

[Crispy]

Thanks for your feedback chaps. Think I'll go with the 2nd option and add the plastic card first. As you say Mackem, that way if it goes horribly wrong i should still have a tank to work with.

I'll keep you posted.

Nic

[Crispy]

Few pics of how its going. I decided to use a thinner plastic card that i did on the test pieces and think it looks a bit more to scale.





Here it is after a quick coat of black paint:



and I just finished the rear plate today:





Its hard to see the finished effect until I get some proper coloured paint on it but I'm happy so far. It took about 1 hour to do the whole sponson side with the iron but the rear plate wasnt anywhwere near as long. The tricky bits there were cutting the card out and not melting any exisisting detail with the iron.

I'll keep you posted.

[tiger205]

crispy, thats looking fantastic, a hell of a lot of work youve done there, personally i think this way of doing zimmerit is as good as it gets, though i'm not sure i'm brave enough to try it

                Tony