Just a few pictures of my Academy Tiger I early that will be going into my Kelly's Heroes diorama featuring Oddball's Sherman coming up behind it in the town street. I will be entering this in my local club's July Group Build with a generals theme. This is my second attempt at home-made zimmerit and this time I used DAP pre-mixed wall spackle that I bought at Wal-Mart. It goes on pink and dries white. I used the Tamiya zimmerit tools to make the pattern. I am off on vacation and will be taking the Tamiya M4A3 Sherman with me to continue the project. While I won't recieve them after today for a while, comments are welcome.

Keith

Here's the 2nd pic:



Looks like a good beginning.

It looks soo nice so far... keep us updated!

Thanks for the comments. I am not sure what I did wrong with the pictures, as I tried to post four pictures and only two showed up and the 4th is no where to be found. I will keep eveyone apprised of progress as I move along.

Keith

You gonna put the fake gun tube on Oddball's Sherman to "look like a 90mm or something" ? If I recall it wasn't a plain old 75mm.

Apparently Oddball's Sherman was an M4A3 (with the standard 75mm turret) that had been modified with a 76mm gun and then given to Yugoslavia post WWII (which was where they filmed the movie). I have picked up a Jordi Rubio 76mm barrel as well as an aluminum tube for the barrel extension Oddball used. However, it was not on the gun at the time of this scene, so i will just attach it to the tank hull in some manner. For the speaker, I have appropriated a small plastic kitchen funnel which I will saw down to the more or less proper size.

Keith

Keith, very nice start on the tiger. I really loved your last dio you posted here and I cant wait to see this one done as well. Funny things about vacations, no one wants them taking them away from there modeling. I am the same way. Cheers Kevin

hiya nice tiger tank. but you are going to make a scene from kelly's heroe's me and faust was watching this movie the other day. and did you know that it was a reworked t34 tank you can see this because the hull was further infront and not more in the middle like the tiger.

it would be one hell of a job to change this but it would be movie accurate!

anyway enough babbling nice tiger

Hi Keith

The Tigers in Kelly's Heroes were based on a Soviet tank chassis (T34 I think). Are you going to simulate that, or just build a regular old Tiger?

And yes, Oddball's Sherman has the older style mantlet with a 76mm gun.

Cheers
Andy

That (T34 based Tigers) was discussed at our armor club meeting last week, and apparentyl there is even a conversion kit out there as well. However, I decided to just do a plain old Tiger (cheaper that way!).

Keith

Have you the decals for the tiger i think it was 114 in red with white outline.

How is the DAP working for the zimm?I have some of this stuff, I never though of using it in this way, thanks.

Sean

One of these days I'm GOING to do a Kelly's Heroes dio. When you get around to doing Oddballs tank be sure to do the things like the red cross helmet, the blue bucket, the loud speakers. These are all things I've noticed on his tank. Of course you'll also need Kelly standing outside manning the .50.

nice job keith, how well did the wall spackle work with the zim tool.
and did the wall spackle stay on the model whil u raked it.
i know in the old days they all used wall spackle for zimm
i was thinking of useing it its simple

Are you sure that the tank Oddball 'sprayed' the pink paint on has Zimmeritt ??

For what i know is that the Tigers that were on the square had not Zimmeritt .........

but i can be mistaken..

Never the less good building job on hte tiger..

I am back from my vacation and appreciate all the comments. I made tremendous progress on the M4A3 Sherman and will hopefully be able to post pictures soon. In response to some of the questions raised while I was gone:
Sean and Tazz: I liked working with the spackle for the zimmerit. On the hull (which I did first) I felt that it was not gripping real well, so for the the turret, I just lghtly sanded the surface and that helped a great deal. I highly recommend giving spackle a try.
Tigeriv: I am not sure if I have the decal for the actual number, which I think you are correct was 114. I should be able to put that together however.
Demodelbouwer: I am basing my conclusion that there was an attempt to imitate zimmerit on the movie Tigers from pictures on a website: www.salt6.com/kelly's_heroes.htm. Click on the Tigers and scroll down toward the bottom and enlarge the picture of the side of Tiger 114.

Keith