What material would you recommend for using as the Zimmerit coating? I have never added a Zimmerit coating and am looking for some guidance.

Mike:

Hi! You should get several suggestions for this, being as you have many good options and all have fans out there (here) And if you do a quick search on this site for "zimmerit", you will find many threads and posts to it.

MY favorite route is DIY using spackling plaster mixed with latex wall paint. The fine plaster for surfacing drywall joints - "drywall compound" - works really well, as it is easy and cheap to get, easy to make up (or, if you want, you can buy pre-mixed compound) by mixing compound with latex paint (provides a little better coherence and adhesion to the styrene), easy to apply and sculpt (smooth on with a small spatula or plastic blade , sculpt with a small screwdriver or other small edged tool), and BEST of all, easy to take off and redo when you change your mind!

Each route and material has some pros and cons... the spackle route really mimics the real stuff - a cement-like paste - in that you can easily chip it to show damage realistically, and it's easy to get "in-scale". It also produces the cement surface of zimm.

IF you want to go with applying "sheet goods", my choice would be something like the ATAK resin stuff - nice scale effect and thin (it really wants to be only a few 1/100ths of an inch on 1/35, as the real coat was only 1/2 to 3/4 inch... or 2 - 3/100 when in scale), and pretty easy to work with. You can also damage it fairly easy. But this stuff is pretty costly, and you need glue. You trade some time and convenience for money

Here's an old Tamiya Wirbelwind I spackle-zimm'd (first try I ever did!) as an illustration: take a look at the mud-flaps and the rear plate to see zimm.



Cheers and Good Luck and ENJOY whatever route you go! Bob

Bob,

Thanks for the quick and through response. I do like the spackling plaster mixed with latex wall paint concept. I have both readily available!

For my Zimmerit I used miliput and a small screw driver. I like the miliput because is sticks to plastic and it does not dry fast, thus you have working time.

Mixing the two part of miliput, using wet fingers I would push the miliput onto the vehicle until it was the right thickness, you can fill in where needed. I used a round tooth pick to help smooth it and even it out. Once I was happy with how it laid, I would then use the screw driver to form the pattern. I did sections at a time, which helped.

Here was my finished product.




If you need any further help, pm me.

Hi Kevin,

What is the working time of the miliput? Are we talking a few hours or say 30 - 50 mins? How large of a area do you work with at one time?

I believe the working time is about an hour, I would basically do one flat surface at a time, I did to the entire turret as one, that was the longest piece. Just remember to wet your fingers, the tooth pick, and the screw driver with water.

Good luck with what ever method you try.

Ok I have another question about vehicles with zimmerit. Assuming the zimmerit was applied at the factory is the vehicle primed first and then the zimmerit applied or was it applied to bare metal then painted?

the first time i did it was well before i even ran into this site. i had to think of a way to get the outcome. i was a little hesitant to try it since ive never done it before, but its really painless.
i used the squadron white putty. mainly is used for filling gaps and dries kinda fast. but, with the proper thickness you put it on in sections and i used a pocket knife that had a screw driver head attachment. perfect size. i see people that have made their own tools by useing a gear from something and creating a rolling device. But, i dont like the way it looks because from the use ive seen a few of them creating verticle lines between the rows.
as mentioned, most of the tank can be done in small sections. the turret isnt really too bad because the work can be split in half if you have the cargo box already on. all of it is going to be tedious. the whole kit, you can get done in 2-3 days with doing about 2 hours each time.

Hi Michael- here's a link to the method I used
Tiger with Zimmerit

Hope it helps

@Jesse, I have the squadron stuff so that does leave me with another option. I might just have to practice both the putty and the Spackle/latex paint options to see what I like best.

@Pat, Great build thread and thanks for pointing it out to me.

if you have an old model, test it on that

Mike:

As a bit of follow-up: work-time with spackle / latex is adjustable - you can work it best after it sets up and dries (anywheres from several minutes up, depending on how wet, how thick, how humid and the air temp!). You can always add some water with a misting bottle if things are getting too dry, and you can always fan it to dry faster if you like.

Spackle / latex adheres very nicely to both naked and painted styrene - one of the reasons for adding the latex paint. Latex paint is pretty similar to acrylics and adheres as nicely...

Tooling (sculpting) works with the same things as the putty route - but I would not suggest using any oils to "lube" tools with spackle - some do this with various putty routes to reduce sticking of putty to tools. I wet my blade by dipping in water during sculpting.

Once completely dry and sculpted, the spackle zimm can be chipped and spalled just like the real stuff - and will chip out in small and very controllable bits with a toothpick or other implement. As spackle does NOT eat or bond chemically and damage the styrene, you can both remove it easily and start over, AND when chipping, easily expose undamaged "steel".

About Primer and zimm...

Zimm when field-applied went on over whatever coats and camo were extant at that time and place. Factory "re-furb" vehicles (like those StuPa IV which survived Kursk and were up-dated with zimm and re-issued) probably had the zimm applied after all additions and repairs had been made during the re-furb process . I bet that the zimm went on over the remaining old camo coat. It would make little sense for the Germans to re-paint or prime the entire re-furbed vehicle before zimming. Clearly, the re-furbs were repainted after zimm was applied.

So, if you are thinking of portraying either a "field zimm'd" OR a "factory refurb with zimm" tank, such as one of those StuPa early, or a Ferdinand rebuilt to be an Elefant (with hull MG and zimm), you could, I think, show any variation of old camo, old base-color (gray or dunkelgelb?), or even some combo with primer, when doing a spall or chip. Of course, naked steel and rusted steel work, too!

New "factory zimm'd tank" Hmmmmm. I THINK that the zimm probably was applied to new tanks after a complete PRIMER coat was done, but BEFORE any base-coat (dunkelgelb in 43-44) - it would make little sense for those Germans to have base-coated, then apply zimm, and then ANOTHER base-coat. So, if you are thinking such a "factory-zimmed" tank, maybe you can best show spalling and chipping in zimm with some exposed primer - or of course the naked or rusted steel.

That's my opinion and suggestion!

Bob

Bob,

Thank you for taking the time to write up a great response to my question. It was packed with great information and I learned a lot.

I think I will prime the model and apply the zimmerit over this. That will allow me to then paint it and do some chipping to reveal the primer below.

I googled Zimmerit and from the Wikipedia article I found information on what it was made of.

The paste was composed of the following:

40 % Barium sulfate - BaSO4
25 % polyvinyl acetate – PVA (similar to wood glue)
15 % pigment (ochre)
10 % Zinc sulfide – ZnS
10 % sawdust

The part I was most interested in was the actual color of the zimmerit and it appears to be Ochre. Looks like I could either mix up some paint to match that or find some at the local Hobby Lobby.


Again thanks to everyone for a great thread on this topic!