I just wanted to thank Paul Owen (powen) for letting Armorma reprint his wonderful article on Zimmerit. Ron (pipesmoker) made the suggestion to me, that with Track Link temporarily down and since several users had asked about zimmerit techniques, that perhaps Paul would allow us to reprint the article. So thanks to your initiative Ron. Another great example of the community concept in action.

Hope everyone reads it. Some great reference and technique info.

Jim

Jim--that is a great article. Many thanks to Paul for his extensive research and fine writing ability. I dare say that someday I will try his process.
Thanks again
DJ :-)

I echo DJ too - thanks Paul for reprinting the article here. I'm gonna give it a try too...

Gunnie

Gunnie--I'd love to see your production schedule! How do you have the time to apply zimmerit? Do you have a day job?
DJ

It just came in handy, since my next project gonna be a Tiger I dressed up with Zimm coat, thx to all! :-)
Cheers!

Oh yeah - I've got my hands full. I'm an Operations Manager for Support Services in one of the largest hospitals in San Francisco. I get to jump in here between reports and e-mails. When I go home I'm usually futzing around with something, cleaning parts here, reading a book there when not paying attention to the wife or doing chores.

In school, I studied Physics and Astronomy. A favorite is Albert Einstein, naturally. He did a lot of his work through "thought experiments" - while working his day job. I do a lot of "thought modeling", going over what I want to do, again and again until I can visualize the model from start to finish in my mind. I actually don't start a model until I've built it in my mind - so when I do sit down I act out what I've gone over in my mind over and over again - kinda like training to do a task in the military - I don't spend a lot of downtime figuring out the next move. Since I've done it so many times in my head, executing it in reality is a breeze and I can work really fast. My wife says it looks like I'm sewing when I do that. Several years ago it took me eight hours sitting to do what I can do today in two. I had to get faster to have more time for "life".

I always keep the gears running in my head. I think following Paul's suggestions I could probably figure out how to do it as quickly as he says it can be done. While I'm doing that - I'll be dreaming out the next model on the workbench...

Gunnie

Darn, now I may have to do zimmerit...thanks alot!

Gunnie--here's my life. Kids are grown. One is in the Army. I am retired from the Army and now work from 0700-1600. I leave at 1600 and go home to putz around feeding the dog and doing honey-do's until supper. Mommy lets me model each night until about 2030 then beddie bye. The challenge this week is to get the AFV track completed. I do one complete fret a night so I should be finished by Friday. It really looks good!
DJ

DJ, I have to admit I've got it easier. I have a 14-year old from a previous marriage. My daughter does not live with me. No pets or other children - except for a menagerie of stuffed animals. Wife's responsibility there. I do have plants - I really like Bonzai - they're mine and do behave. Other than that, it's just me and the misses. She's a crafter too, so I can often steal time when she's messing around with her crafts. Sometimes we trade off and she takes on more of the household stuff so that I can play in the model room - and vice versa. She's a good tag-team partner and seems to know when I'm missing the plastic. Time really is never an issue - other than me just never having all I want

Gunnie

I am glad my article is appreciated, I like to help other modellers out. I plan to take some better step-by-step photographs this weekend (if I don't go hiking... depends on the rain). I find that applying zimmerit is not that hard, it is a good idea to test it out on an old model first. Also instead of a sheet styrene trowel I now use a polypropylene trowel that I carved from a chunk of this material I got off a friend who works at a plastic supply house. Nothing sticks to polypropylene.

Paul.

Paul--well written article. I look forward to seeing more of your work.
DJ :-)