How to build and paint a burnt out tank.

[406 Silverado]

So lets kick this off with some pics.

Here we have the Dragon kit being used. This is a great kit and as the norm for Dragon, there are many extras for the spares bin. There are several JP kits available from Dragon, the early and late ones plus the Imperial series JP as well.



So lets take a look at the Zimm for the JP. This is a resin product for the Imp. series Dragon kit. I had gotten this fr the kit I have and didn't realize it would not fit. Dragon has reworked, or newly tooled the JP so they are different in several areas judging by the resin zimm.



I will create my zimm using modeling putty to resemble zimm like the resin product here.



So here is the main hull parts to the JP. I have added a few parts including the rear plate. This was done some time ago and I will have to work with this for the how-to. The glacis upper and lower sections are glued first, seen here. The fit was not that good so I guess I wanted to start with the front. I will try to get the rest glued down then try to make due with applying the zimm and battle damage.








Please feel free to ask any questions a long the way and I will answer them as best I can. This will be like a demo or seminar at a show, but instead of a short hour or so, you'll get the whole nine yards....free of charge ;D

Yes there is a gap at where the upper and lower glacis plates meet. Don't know what happened there. Could have not taped them together or something. test fitting the upper and lower I did notice that with the front as is, the rear motor deck meets the rear plate. If the joint at the glacis was tight then there would be a big gap at the rear plate...go figure.

One of the things , like I mentioned before, that got this shelved was the zimm. First I had planned on doing it without zimm as a wreck, but found out that these early JP had zimm on them. The easy way to tell an early and late version, besides the zimm, is the mantlet thingie. The late has the exposed bolts on the top and bottom, the early has the bolts on the inside of the tank.
Was checking the web for ref pics of wrecked JP, and what do I find, a burnt out JP early.....without zimm. But I have committed to this how-to so I'll save that pic for ref later if I do one again.
I will try and post a few of the many ref pics that I will refer to when doing this model.


These images were taken from the internet and are FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSE ONLY

Although these are not Jagdpanthers, they do show what I have in mind and also show the effects of a fire. You'll note the bright rust colors on the color image of the Panther in Cologne Germany.
The zimm on these tanks are made of a cement that was troweled onto the flat surfaces of tanks with ridges. Several types of patterns were used on various tanks especially the Tigers and Panthers.
When doing a burnt out tank that has zimm the paint would burn, revealling ash from the paint and also the light gray color , almost white, of the zimm.



A very fresh burnt out Panther. It has not started to rust yet and shows the soot which is the blackened area and ash gray paint.



Here is a Panther that burned, note the gray/white color of the zimm



Where the zimm chipped or cracked, the missing sections, will often be some of the cement stuck to the metal. So when doing missing zimm it's always good to have small bits of what was left of that zimm'd section.

More info and hopefully WIP of the JP. I will also give a quick run down of what I have planned for this one.

[406 Silverado]

Next update deals with the burnt wheels to be used on this tank. I believe they are from the Tank Wrkshop. These are cast in resin with a thin film of flash around the wheels. These are easily cleaned up, but there are some spots here and there on the wheels and hubs that will require a bit more work. Nothing we can't handle.





Next we have a few ref pics of knocked out JP's. These pics were taken from a book and are for DISCUSSION ONLY.









You'll notice in some of these pics that the tank is almost belly down. This is due to the heat of the fire weakening the torsion bars allowing for the bars to twist due to the weight of the tank.


I will remove the tape that was used to hold the upper and lower hulls and get the next update ready.

[406 Silverado]

Update:

marking the zimm location and light damage to the front fenders.

Since I want to show lots of flaked off zimm on this tank, mainly in the areas of intense heat etc, there will be large patches of missing zimm. You can of course do smaller sections to your liking.

The marked location of the zimm.



Will go over the zimm a bit later in the next update.



Light damage to the fenders. This can be done several ways. One can replace the kit part with PE AM fenders and bend and damage them for a more realistic look. Or since I am trying to keep this as much OOTB as I can, we'll work with the kit supplied fenders.
To add the damage it's best to do this before attaching the upper and lower hulls as I have done here. One can also remove one of the fenders for additional effects.
Lets do some simple damage to the fenders using the hobby knife and kit molded on fenders.

Here we see the front edge of the fender, which is made of thin metal. What we want is to thin the edges to give the appearance of thin metal, and also to allow for light damage.



using the back side of a hobby knife #11 blade I lightly scrap the under side of the fender. Slow and even pressure is all you need to remove enough material until it's thin enough.



Here the one fender is thinned down to a thin metal .



Next we add some some light damage to the fenders. You can of course thin more of the underside and add bullet holes, but I'll do without those on this kit.
I used the round handle of a metal file and gently applied pressure from the underside of the fender, and you can also do it from the top side to get a wavy appearance. Since the edge of the fenders would be vulnerable to being banged and dinged, this simple technique will add to the visual effect.





Since the fenders on this kit are somewhat thin, unlike older kits, we can easily bend them to create more damage. The key is to slowly and gently bend the fender. Too much pressure and they will crack. One can also apply heat, from an incense stick works best, and gently bend or mangle the fenders.
it's important to be realistic in appling the damage, we don't want to over due it.





This technique also works great on other vehicles and fenders etc.


In the next update we'll apply the zimmerit coating.

[406 Silverado]

Zimm time folks.

For the zimm onmy JP I am using modelmaster putty I have had for years and is actually still good Other types of putty or fillers work just as well.

Here are some of the tools I will be using. A piece of .20 styrene as a spatula, an old #11 blade for scribing the lines and a large blade to spread the putty in smaller areas.



I've masked off the areas that are not covered in zimm, and also where I want the zimm chipped, or flaked off. I will be working one side at a time and will most likely do two sides and let this dry overnight.



Using the piece of styrene I spread the filler on the side, making sure it is roughly the same thickness. I wanted about 1mm thick zimm so I made sure there was just a thin layer over the tape. If the tape shows through then it's too thin.....which happened in some place where there is no tape.



Smooth this over to remove rough spots.



I then waited about 15 minutes, then started to scribe vertical and horizontal lines. No need to be too straight here, since looking at the resin zimm it shows uneven lines.





I waited about 45 minutes then removed the tape. and this is how the side and front plate look. The rough areas will get cleaned with a tooth brush and lines also cleaned where needed.





As you can see, there is a lot of zimm missing on the side and front. The other side will not be so bad. This will add some character to the model instead of all the sides identical. After all, this is a burnt out tank right... ;D

Will get the rest covered in zimm and then we'll take it from there. I will also do some zimm on scrap styrene to show how to make a different pattern for PZ IV and Tigers.

Same time, same bat channel..........

[406 Silverado]

Just an update on what has been done so far.

I have added some burnt wheel effects, damaged intake screens and lower hull Zimmerit remains.

The wheels were done by removing the rubber sections and sanding the rim down. I also added some damage to a couple of rims. For burnt rubber I used the plastic powder from the sanding and glued this on with liquid glue.







Here is where she stands at the moment. I have finished off the roof plate but no new pic of that area yet.

[406 Silverado]

A couple of more up to date progress from last nights session.

[406 Silverado]

The kit supplied metal fender/guards that are mounted over the Schurzen mounts needed replacing due to them being too thick and not having the correct shape. So I decided to replace these in order to replicate damage. These will get bend and mangled as often seen on ref images of wrecked JP and Panthers.

You can see what I used to make these new parts and also the difference in the kit part to the new part.







I used the kit part as a template for the new thinner aluminum parts and these will get mounted soon. I will also get some overall pics up of how the JP looks with the small detail parts added.

[406 Silverado]

Here we can see the new parts glued in place and damage added.







Almost time for paint.

[406 Silverado]

JP is done, except for the tracks which will be done later with all the others. Pics soon.