Reviewed by Brett Green
Construction by Steve Palffy

Zimmerit was an anti-magnetic coating that was trowelled onto many German vehicles as part of the factory production process from 1943 to late 1944 as a defence against magnetic mines.

The first version of the mighty King Tiger tank with the Porsche-designed turret was one of the vehicles that wore this finish. Virtually every operational Porsche King Tiger featured Zimmerit.

There are a number of Zimmerit compounds and trowels permitting do-it-yourself anti-magnetic finishes, but these do require lots of practice and some care. Cavalier of Australia introduced flexible resin Zimmerit in the early 1990's, and a couple of companies including Verlinden and Jaguar have offered specific Zimmerit sets in resin. Eduard has recently released several Zimmerit sheets in photo-etched metal. Tamiya has even packaged these with a re-release of their Panzer IV Ausf J and Panther kits. However, I believe that photo-etched metal is too even in appearance and too shallow in depth to properly convey this often-rough finish in 1/35 scale.

Mirage Hobby has diversified somewhat in releasing a resin Zimmerit set for Tamiya's excellent 1/35 scale Tiger II kit with the Porsche turret.

The Zimmerit for the hull sides, forward lower hull and glacis plate are all supplied on a very thin wafer of resin. These parts may be cut out with a pair of scissors and should be glued to the kit parts using either super glue or (preferably) slow-drying two-part epoxy cement.

The rear hull plate, the entire turret, turret rear plate, gun mantlet and machine-gun hull dome are all replacements for Tamiya kit parts. This greatly simplifies construction as no preparation is required for kit parts, and some complex curves on the hull and mantlet would have been very difficult to cover with a sheet of flat resin.

The Zimmerit pattern looks great on all parts. The texture is uneven without looking too untidy - very appropriate for a factory-fresh finish.

All parts were perfectly cast.

Construction

Steve Palffy has already applied the Zimmerit parts to his Tamiya King Tiger.

Steve reports that the resin parts performed perfectly. The resin replacement parts fitted the kit with no problems, and the thin sheets were easy to glue to the kit hull.

The resin sheets for the hull are so thin that the adhesive beneath the surface is clearly visible! This will disappear under a coat of paint.

Conclusion

 

Mirage Hobby's 1/35 scale Porsche King Tiger Zimmerit takes the pain and risk out of a potentially difficult modelling task.

Even inexperienced modellers should obtain a great result using this Zimmerit set.

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to Squadron.com for the review sample.

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Review Text and Images Copyright © 2003 by Brett Green
Construction by Steve Palffy
Page Created 09 July, 2003
Last updated 24 August, 2003

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