2. Zimmerits- with or without
History:
Zimmerit was a non-magnetic coating produced for German armored fighting vehicles during World War II for the purpose of combating magnetically attached anti-tank mines like the British "Clam" experimental ordnance.
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| Close view of Zimmerit on the glacis of a Tiger II |
It was developed by the German company Chemische Werke Zimmer AG.The coating was a barrier that prevented direct contact of magnetic mines with metal surfaces of vehicles. It was normally ridged to increase overall thickness. The magnetostatic field decreases very rapidly, with the cube of distance; the non-magnetic coating holds the magnet of the mine too far from the steel of of the vehicle for it to adhere.
My earlier post on the Captured King Tiger Project (see My King Tiger (KT) Build Proper: Kit Inventory and General Planning) shows a KT with Zimmerits which I planned to do. When I bought the KT kit, I never had an idea that the word Zimmerit in model building causes much fear for modelers of WW2 German armour! I was actually discouraged by some members of my local IPMS forum to make the zimmerits myself considering that I was a newbie and that the KT will be my very first kit ever. I was told that there were kits with already preformed zimmerits in them which would facilitate the build but unfortunately the kit series I bought were the more "challenging" ones where the modeler will be the one to create the zimmerit itself. Since the KT kit was already bought, I decided to go on with the build after much research especially on the added zimmerit challenge.
My main Zimmerit guide is Mikey's Modeling Pages on Applying Zimmerit by Paul A. Owen. I will make a separate blog post on the application of the zimmerit proper to save space in this post. Enough to say that I tried to follow the 'Putty Texturing" and the "Putty Raking -The Tamiya Method" techniques mentioned in the literature. For both techniques, Model putty is applied on the tank surface and the difference is on how the the zimmerit pattern is applied: for Putty Texturing method the pattern is stamped with a trowel; for the Putty Raking it is made by dragging a serrated tool across its' surface.
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| Using a trowel perpendicular to the surface to gently press in the zimmerit ridges |
Here is a brief description on how I did it:
Materials: Tamiya Epoxy Putty Basic Type
zim pattern using a small pinion gear
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| pinion gear zim pattern; not actual photo but similar to what I used from zimmerit-it.blogspot.com |
1. Smear a thin layer of Tamiya grey putty on a patch of hull (turret or whatever), let it set up for a few seconds.
2. Start pressing the zim pattern small pinion gear. Start from the top and work down making a vertical column, then move to the right for the next column etc.
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| pinion gear zim pattern application; not actual photo but similar to what I did from zimmerit-it.blogspot.com |
4. Once dry, sand the zim a bit to knock off any putty chunks and to take the edge off the ridges.
Actual work done below: Not that pretty but I had lots of fun doing it!
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Zimmerit - History and How-to
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