I am wanting to start adding zimmerit to my german armor. Verlinden has a photo-etched zimmerit and cavalier has the thin plastic style. I was wondering if anyone has used any of these products and if you have which one is better and easier to work with?

thanks for any info!

Sargon,

Never used any of that AM stuff before. Have you ever used Millipur and a home made patter maker???

I've always used this, for normal ribbed pattern just make your own thin blade tool out of a piece of plasticard, mainly used on PzKpfw IV's, PzKpfw V's and PzKpfw VI's (takes ages to imprint each line, but you are not restricited in the direction of the pattern) or you can make a press tool for the waffle pattern (this is harder to make, but the results are good mainly used for stugs) the tool I made took fout attempts to get the look right. Don't forget that the Panther had rough scratched diamonds and small square patterns. check all your refernce material for all the types that were used.

When I bought the Italeri 'in kit stuff' I just totally ignored it. and used my olg faithful and plenty of patience.

What ever you end up doing, I hope your end reasult is good.

Hi Sargon,

I have also never used one of this producs, but I think that Etching is not the way to go, how to make damage in that stuff :-) about resin I have just recieved a set zimmerit for a Tiger late from Attack looking verry good and good valeu for the money about €17 or 17 Dollar I think.

Get the Cavalier Zimmerit. I have reciently used it and found the effects quite satisfying. The patterns are not perfect, how they should be while the PE patterns are perfect and as anyone who has looked at reference pics will say, zimmerit patterns were never perfect.
Andrew

I prefer to make my own zimmerit out of Tamiya putty and the Tamiya putty rakes. It is a lot easier than it sounds and it is much easier to work with than AM zimmerit IMO. If you don't want to try making your own, definately go with the Cavalier or Atak resin zimmerit. After the zimmerit is on the vehicle you then need to go back and attach tools and other misc. parts. You can scrape away homemade zimmerit and cut out small sections of the resin stuff, but the PE would be near impossible to deal with. You don't want to attach the tools directly to the zimmerit because it would look very unrealistic. In real life the tool attachment points were welded onto the tank and then zimmerit was applied around those attachment points.

I read that sometimes tool attachments were placed on pieces of metal stuck onto the tanks that stuck out slightly (the depth of the zimmerit). You could replicate these with plastic stock and place PE brackets on them.

Nic

Thanks for the all the info guys. I believe I will stay away from the PE stuff and just experiment with others and see which one I like the best. Thank you again for the
helpful tips.

That is correct, Nic. If you look at a picture of a Panther for instance, everywhere there is a tool attachment, there is a small metal block welded on between it and the hull.