(Completed pg. 3) 1/35 Tamiya M-41 Walker Bulldog Build

Lots of bondo work today. some of it isn't even dry yet, but the nearly 90 degree weather is helping it along lol.

I glued the hull halves together, added the driver's vision blocks (very basic anyways), added the headlights, tailights, and lifting rings to the rear hull, and then made up some lifting rings for the front of the hull.

Its amazing how much time all of this extra stuff takes up. I even managed to sand down the road wheels and idlers. I'm hoping this all looks a lot better after some primer goes on it. It looks like a mess right now. lol

After some cleanup and some primer my work doesn't look aweful, lol. Average, if I give myself credit. :)

I closed up the rear of the turret and the back of the stowage box. I think this will look better when I reattach them with stand-outs like they should be.

The kits' gun tube doesn't turn out too bad looking with the right tools. Not as good as a turned aluminum and brass one would, but I haven't got anything in aluminum besides 105's. As cool as that would look, I don't plan on going that route with this build lol.

I got a wild hair up my backside and decided to start on the mantlet cover. I hope this turns out as neat as it looks in my head. lol

And that is all for this evening. Am I on the right track, or does this look like ameteur hour? I hope I haven't scared everyone off. LOL!

Not bad so far.  :)  Have a good night mates. I'm off to try and sleep. 

Amer

M. Brindos

And that is all for this evening. Am I on the right track, or does this look like ameteur hour? I hope I haven't scared everyone off. LOL!

"Ameteur hour?"  No, I'd say the oposite of that.  It's looking great so far.  I like the added details without the use of a PE setor aftermarket kit.  

Thanks, Chris. I don't have an AM budget for PE or resin goodies. Good to hear that my efforts with card stock and stretched sprue are not as rediculous as I think they are.

Your Sheman is really looking great, by the way. Can't wait to see her with her treads on! Figures, or no? It doesn't look like you plan to include any at this point, but I thought I'd ask lol.

Hello Mike!

Lookin' good! Like I wrote in a different thread, AM isn't mandatory. It just saves you time, sometimes, by speeding up the construction in comparison to scratchbuilding. But what you need to do a lot, IMO, in order to build a good model, is to take a look at the real thing a lot. It isn't easy, sometimes, and many people neglect that, but it can really give your models an edge, that's the way I see it anyway.

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

I agree with you on that point, my friend. You do have to have picture references. I've been looking at some online, but mostly I have been using the picture references in the actual Tamiya instructions. For once they're actually not too bad. They've got a good picture of the mantlet cover and even suggest how to add it. Which is what I've followed so far and it's not bad. I'm modifying the method to suit my own style, but its not a bad tip at all.

I'll get a picture of the instructions to show you. I found the idea interesting which is why I decided to improve apon it.

Have a great day, my friend. :D

I was going to give you guys an update with pictures, as usual, but Photobucket is down for maintenence this evening.

So to summarize...

I added weld seams to the TC's and Loader's hatches, Framed the vision blocks in fine stretched sprue,  added the vision block covers and the weld beads on those, and added the loader's hatch handle.

M. Brindos

Thanks, Chris. I don't have an AM budget for PE or resin goodies. Good to hear that my efforts with card stock and stretched sprue are not as rediculous as I think they are.

Your Sheman is really looking great, by the way. Can't wait to see her with her treads on! Figures, or no? It doesn't look like you plan to include any at this point, but I thought I'd ask lol.

 

Well, I'm building it with some flexibility.  My experience with figures is limited, but I have a diorama scene in mind.  I've decided to finish the tank to fit on my shelf, but I'm going to minimize weathering and leave the hatches unglued.  I'm thinking this will facilitate incorporating it into a diorama with figures later.  I have a sceme that's too grand for me, so I'm busting it into smaller chunks.  The Sherman is the first chunk.  

I understand. Figures are not everyone's cup of tea. I was curious though.

Pawel, here are the instructions for making a mantlet cover, by Tamiya. Its pretty inventive for its time.

I'm not going to follow these directions completely, but they do help the imagination.  ;)

Vision blocks "framed".

Vision block guards got their welds too.

And the loader's hatch handle made from one of the staples that kept the sprue bags closed. Tamiya provides so many helpful things in the box lol.

Alrighty, I've got to get ready for work. You guys have a great day. :)

.

Okay I had a few minutes during my morning coffee/smoke.

I added the welds to the TC's hatch cover last night along with the Bondo to cover the EP mark. I sanded the Bondo this morning and glued it on after adding the handle. I now remember why they call it "Krazy" glue. That stuff didn't want to come out and after giving it a good hard squeeze it came out like Crazy! Good thing I wasn't trying to use the aplicator on the model itself or this one would be ruined by a giant pool of Krazy glue all over the TC's cupola lol.

Still functional.

And your "beauty" shot for the day.

Its coming along nicely, i think. lol

Good Morning, Rob!

I have a lot of AM resin, PE, and turned aluminum Gun tubes, but they're mostly for M-60's. There are a few things I can use for this kit, such as the water cans in their holders that I will use to replace the kit cans. They are a little too oversized for me to reuse.

I know that some people won't even start a project unless all of the best AM stuff is on its way in the mail, but Sometimes you just have a project like this one here. Some simple detailing with scraps will make it look better than average and make for a good display piece. This kit isn't worth the extra expense as far as I'm concerned. Not when some card stock and stretched sprue can make all the difference in the world, detail wise.

Besides, I really enjoy adding this stuff to the kit. Just a little window dressing and she'll look fairly good, I think.

Just for the record, I have nothing against AM, resin, or PE and I enjoy working with them as well. Just, not on this build lol. I'll be building an M-60 slick eventually and I'll need a lot of what I've got in the stash for that one, and others.  :)

Nice work!

Looking at your photos, and mindful of the opinion that the kit is older- it's not bad at all, at least the turret. We get used to stuff now like casting texture, but there's lots of weld beads, bolt heads and such.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic.

Looking good sir.

A build such as this helps develop skills. Yours are just fine and geting better.

G

Thanks for the compliments, guys!  :)  I couldn't agree more with both of you. Gotta keep them skills sharp, right?

Speaking of which, I started using PE and resin water cans for the stowage box, but even though I found my soldering iron, I couldn't find my solder or flux. I should've packed those together, but I didn't.

So out with the card stock and the old reliable plastic Academy Tank accessories set.

Not much to show for it, but that took hours.

Your old school upgrade methods are right up my alley! Truly a pleasure to see what youre doing here!

LOL yeah this is a bit old school isn't it? Sure is fun to do though, if not time consuming lol.

All I've managed to do tnight was to attach the stowage box after cleaning up the lifting rings around the back of the turret. Hey, its really looking like an M-41 now though. I'm glad I took the time to scratch build these can holders. They look way better than the kit pieces.

Mmm hmm. I like it.

I've been working on all of the weld beads on the turret since 8:40~ish last night. Spent hours going over those and spent a good hour finishing up the last of them under the turret today. I also cut the one piece MG mount so the pintle is separated from the cradle. I'd like for my M2 to be a little more movable when this is finished.

This modification is pretty standard on my workbench.

Looks pretty gruesome lol. Once the paint goes on this will look much better. As I've said before, I like how "Metal" this makes my armor look. ;)

Back to the garage for more fiddling. Have a great weekend!

Okay, so this thing is in pretty bad shape. However I do like a good challenge once in a while. So off I went. It's about 50% at this moment, but I'm not going to try and super detail it. Just enough detail to pass inpection should do.

And after a couple of hours worth of work, I now have a good M2 shaped chunk of plastic to work with.

I'm still working on the pintle as well. I've got the pin mounted and it feels solid enough when mounted together. But still, I have quite a bit of work to do before this setup will look right.

I did more detail on the M2. I'm afraid I've gotten a tad bit into overly detailed for what I'm working with. Oh well. When I get into something, I kinda keep going.

I even made the butterfly thumb paddles. That was delicate work with tweezers and a sanding stick.

This morning I decided it was time to start the mantlet cover.

I few carefull measurements and some regular Elmer's white glue mixed 50% with water and I was on a roll.

As this dries it looks better and better.

And that shall be it for now. Hope you are all enjoying this. I am!  :D

Hello!

Nice work with that Ma Deuce trigger, that mantlet cover looks very nice, too. Now how about a cooling jacket for that browning? The Tamiya part could maybe have been saved by drilling out the holes a bit, but now that you sanded it down, what do you plan to do with it?

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

I've already started making a new cooling jacket for it. Its still a little soft because of all the glue, but I've drilled some pilot holes already.

Its the little bits in front of that, that I'm still re-engineering in my head. Trying to figure out which pieces of plastic will get me the look I'm after.

You, my friend, are aware of what that is like lol.

I just reworked the sledge hammer and its mount on the side of the turret and I'll be adding the grab handles next. Pictures to come later.

Thanks for the compliment, Pawel! :)

And this should about do it for today.

Sledge hammer bracket turned out a little large-ish, but looks good.

And I sanded every one of these little grab handles before gluing them on. I managed to drop some of them but always found them immediately after doing so. Except for the very. last. one. That sum bitz took me 45 minutes to find again.

Driver's hatch is on and the only things left to do are to finish the M2 details, rework the tool rack on the right fender, and figure out what that mess is that's supposed to be some sort of rack for a couple of spare track links.

I think I like the way this one is turning out. Can't wait for the paintjob lol.

Looks like it is coming along well.  Good job on bringing it up to current standards.  Like I said though, it takes just a little bit of work to do so.  Now that you have done all that work on the upper hull and turret, I would go back and rework the patches on the lower hull so they are flush.  That way it all is at the same level of detail and looks great from all angles.

Thanks Gino! Its taken more than a little work though, lol. What you see has taken hours upon hours of fiddly, tedious work. its just a good thing I enjoy doing it all.

No, I'm not going to worry about the bottom of the hull. If I wanted to worry that much about it, I'd have started by cutting off the entire suspension system and scratch built a far more accurate one. By now, I may have finished most of that up, but why? You already stated there are far better kits if I wanted to go that route lol.

I'm just about to finish a few details that will allow me to get some primer on the turret finally.
Last bits to reengineer are the tool tray/rack, the spare track links, and the Ma Deuce needs a few more finishing details before I'm satisfied that it looks right to my eyes.

I really appreciate your passion for such details, Gino. You keep me on my toes! Hopefully you'll still like it when its done, even though the lower hull isn't up to code lol.

have a great day.  :)

Thank you! I hope I can be one of the many people here that inspire new ideas with old tricks. :)

Now for an update;

I've got the cooling jacket sorted out. I used so much LC that it took a long time to finally harden up on the inside. Then when I drilled the holes I should have actually measured the spacing because the Mk 1 eyeball was a little off and they don't line up as straight as they should.

I also hit a snag of giant proportions when I wasn't paying attention to where the rest of my clippers were at. I was caught, too busy with just the piece I wanted to cut and totally missed the fact that I was about to cut my barrel in half.  :/

After couple more hours of work I now have a completed Ma Deuce sitting proudly on my tank.

I also made up some antennas this afternoon.

Overall its looking pretty cool to me right now.  :)

Thanks for checking in and thanks to those who keep giving their support. You know who you are.  ;) 

I couldn't wait any longer and so I put a few drops of paint in the AB and sprayed until I ran dry. Hehehe.

I think this is going to look pretty good. I'm aiming for a new-ish paint scheme as it should have looked while still on base and being run through its drills. Since the markings for this tank indicate it was still here in the States and never left the base. It would've been very well maintained and that's the look I'm going to try and replicate. Shouldn't be much of a challenge, right? lol

The Bulldog's looking great.  Keep us posted about your colors and weathering techniques.  It's always good to hear about how modelers paint and weather Army OD.  

Thank you. I like the way a build looks with all of the different colors of plastic, brass, and other goodies, but once the paint starts flowing on and brings it all together, something magical happens. Don't you think? lol

I will keep you guys advised as to what I do. Maybe not quite a tutorial process, but you'll understand. An interesting thing to note is that I JUST learned to fade OD with yellow, and not white. I haven't done this before, so I'm excited to see the results. I bet it will look a little like your Sherm. :) I would be happy with that, but I'm not going to fade it out too much. Just enough to give the natural light a bit of a boost and lend some more contrast to the shading. This one won't be going on a base eventually, so dirt and weathering will be at a minimum.

Have a great Friday! I'm looking forward to painting when I get home from work today. Father's Day weekend should be fun. I've got a new crankshaft in the mail for my car as well (should arrive today). Hopefully I can get my car running properly once again (I've pretty much replaced everything else already). That would be nice. lol  :D