Thursday 29 July 2010

Eyes front... And rear!

Hello again Zimmfans!

 Well without pause, I think that is best that we get underway again... Don't you?
I am slowly 'finding my way' with the Aves Epoxy Sculpt, normally I use Tamiya Epoxy Putty Smooth, and this goes down onto the surface with a little more 'tack', and is 'stiffer' allowing a 'rolled' or 'imprinted' pattern to be put down instantly. The Aves is extremely soft, and needs some time to part cure, before you attempt to place a Zimmerit pattern into it. Another drawback with this medium (in my opinion!) is that being water soluble, this negates the liberal use of it as a 'lubricant' (the most harmless in modelling!)  during spreading the putty, and stopping 'grab' from the Zimmerit applicators.

 The turrets 'Glacis' face on the 'Porsche/Krupp' prototype turret, has a really attractive, near aerodynamic form to it, whilst the production series turret has a far more brutal blunt aspect. As mentioned above the characteristics of the turret in DML KT #6312, and the properties of the Aves putty, created a little difficulty in applying an even surface ready for the patterns imprinting.

 So to the pasting parlour then folks!

Spread to a thickness of around 0.5mm, the putty is left to cure a little, (around 45-90  minutes depending upon your local atmospherics!) when you fell that a 'workable' soft yet firm surface has been achieved, you can start imprinting the pattern.

 For this aspect of the turret, I used a 3mm flat headed screwdriver. It is essential that the imprinted pattern is pushed into the medium starting from the top and at an angle of around 45 degrees. Like so!





With a steady movement of the screwdriver head, you can now move onto the next column, slightly overlapping into the adjacent row.



If you look carefully, the outer edges of the pattern have been 'neatened' with a roller tool.

Now instantly moving onto the rear hull plate, I have decided that after looking at images of Zimmerited Tiger Ausf B's, a varied application of patterns can be seen, 'gear rolled' on the larger un-obstructed areas, and 'spatula' raised ridges around the access panels and obstructions. Once again, after the surface was roughened up a touch, the  Aves putty was spread and levelled with an artist's palette knife/spatula, to a desired depth of 0.5mm - 0.7mm, to avoid an overly deep 'messy' appearance to the pattern.







Right my fellow 'Panzer Pasters' it is onto the rear of the turret and the main gun's mantlet...

 Thanks for looking in again, Phil.
I

1 comment:

  1. Hi Phil

    I seem to be making progress - thanks for the hints, tips & advice.

    Please have a look here for WIP;

    http://panzersinscale.blogspot.com/2010/09/zimmerit-in-135.html


    Bill

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