Alan123

This is what the HL Walker Bulldog looks like if you change its dimensions to more what they should be like. It is still not right however the major errors have been ironed out.

Narrower, not so high, slimmer tracks






Here are a few shots of how it was done.

Magnets and friction hold the top on. In this photo the tank still has the original over sized tracks and sprockets on for test run purposes.

The lower hull was lined with alu strip to give it more strength.

3/1 Gearboxes with bearings.

Cut off the mudguards, trim off 1cm from the inside and glue them back on again.

Cut about 1cm off the top of the lower hull. Also in this picture you can see how much off the width of the mudguards was trimmed off by comparing the still intact (and way overwidth exhaust covers)

Trimming down the tracks.
Below are a series of photos taken just before it was painted.



It runs ok too:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MKPTsdXFJE[/youtube]

Cheers

Alan

1sgt

Alan,
Great build. I din't realize just how oversized the H an L M41 was. I would like to atempt the same rebuild. Did you take any pics of the parts you thined before reassembly. I would like to see just where you made your cuts and what you used to refill the spaces. Great bulldog and nice video as well.

Jim

pattoncommander

Really nice looking M-41. I note you made an M-41A3G out of it, but thought the BW had mostly M-41A1s. Been long time since I have seen a Bundesbär Walker Bulldog. Great, accurate mantlet cover...what did you use? On 2 of my tanks, I used a rubber glove to allow movement. Also nice to see the tow cable and gun travel lock properly in place, but the 2 spare track blocks by the driver's hatch are missing. Did the BW not have them there? The Century 21 M-41 in 1;18 is much closer in corect size to the HL 1;16 tanks, but you have done a lot of great work is re-sing. Einfach Toll!

oztruck

Very good work. well worth the effort. keep up the good work.

kclank

Tremendous work. I might have taken less effort to build from scratch. lol. Great work

Captain Nemo12

Still can't believe you resized all those tracks![X(]

cheap tank

That is a great looking bulldog. I was thinking the same thing cutting and glueing all those track links would have me drinking to mutch to finnish.

YHR

Great effort. Not too many people have given the Bulldog any care and attention. You are the first guy I have seen do such an extensive rework. Looks great.

Dongskie

Alan123... AWESOME MATE!!!

Alan123

Thanks for all your nice comments, I will try an answer all questions in one hit list:

The track links would have been quicker to make using a little hobby band saw rather than the razor saw I had at the time. Still it was quite pleasant sitting outside in the sun last summer cutting and gluing.

Yes Bill it an A3 version with the cut away mudguards (for more speed), they did have some right at the end and the book I have from Tankagrad has some in too, though most pics do show the earlier version with the squared off mudguards.

The mantlet cover is made out of silk. It is in 2 pieces so that you can take the gun apart for maintenance. (I put a VS Gun in it for more performance) The details are bits of alu and masking tape.

"but the 2 spare track blocks by the driver's hatch are missing" My photos of German ones did not show these so I left them off, they showed only the tow rope tie downs, but I bet both types were present. There are not many photos available of Bundeswehr Bulldogs.

The major changes were cutting off the mudguards, cutting off about 1cm off the inside and then gluing them back on again (secured with a mixture of hotglue, for initial fixing, then industry strength superglue, and then 2 part epoxy putty and overlapping plastic tags). This change then makes the model a full 2cms narrower. But makes the model look even worse if you do not also slim the tracks down as well.

Also the height was adjusted by cutting 1cm off the top of the lower hull and then fitting the upper hull back on with the narrower mudguards.

I have marked in red on the photos what was cut off and by how much, and left the exhaust cover on so that you can see the difference it makes.

To really finish it off I need to set all the wheels 5mm closer to the hull. I did not do this as I have learned that as soon as you start tinkering with a complicated wheel and track design, that was carefully made my an engineer, the tank never runs right again afterward. Wheels from a Tamiya Pershing with proper bearings and rubber treads would also be nice.

Cheers

AL

siam

Hi,
   I am living near by a military camp of which many bull dogs living there, they came out for coups manytimes since I was a young boy until I am 50 years old, what I 've seen is the colour still olive green as heng long colour but all exhaust pipe are rusty colour and I  noticed that they did not have the 3rd,4th shockabsorbers . I am wondering if we took out the  the shocks from the HL and mod. it as the real dog whether its performance still o.k. or not?</p>

philipat

The correct Bulldog doesn't have struts on the 3d and 4th road wheels. I think HL saved some money by just copying the suspension they made for the Pershing. If you take the struts off the HL Bulldog, then the road wheels will just bounce around and you won't get traction or raise the body over bumps in that part of the tank. I'd love to know a way to install compression springs in that spot instead so that you could get rid of the struts.

Alan123, I read somewhere on rctankwarfare that someone mentioned being able to use Tamiya Pershing road wheels as a replacement on the HL Bulldog or Pershing. But, it wasn't clear if this was a direct replacement or if it required some mods to the HL swing arms.

P_Coolguy

Great job indeed.   Lots of "sergery" has been done on this M41 ,never see anyone do such heavy modificatin as you did .   I really admired your  effort.        I also have one but what I'm doing is to repaint  and put the marking for M41 in  RTA  inventory .  As I saw  the mantlet cover from your example , I think I will put it on to make it more realistic.   Thanks for the inspiration.

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

Amazing re-work on that Bulldog! Much, much better than sock.

fynsdad

outstanding!!!! enough said.

Panther G

The tracks look like the toughest part. same is going with my M4A3E2 Jumbo. Making the duck bills for the tracks is proving very difficult. to make them actually work and stay in place that is. to make a static model it would be rather simple but when we need to modify tracks on these models it really takes some patience an ingenuity.  Very nice job.

Perry S.

I remember seeing this post way back when. Excellent treatment of the Bulldog. Seeing your finished photos really show how off HL was.
Best Bulldog I have ever seen.

Perry

DirtyBird69

I still drool over this....only one little thing though...looks like the commander is wearing lipstick lol! [X(]

M41's ROCK!

Tankmeiste

Awesome Bulldog- a lot of work, but definitely worth it.<div>Looks much better then mine.</div>

m551

This is my bulldog. I narrowed the tracks much more easily and modified the suspension system to get the tracks right up the hull. this allowed me to get the width within a couple scale inches of being correct. I also lowered the upper hull but I did it by moving the front of the gearboxes deeeper into the hull. I made the divers hatch operational so I would have a place to put the control switches, the right side middle engine hatch so I could put a battery recharge plug in an accessable spot and the rear top center transmmision cover so I could easily refill the smoker. one thing you didnt mention in your piece is that lowering the top hull also shortens the whole thing making the length closer to scale.

x19912

this is a great idea , I wish i had seen it before I started mine, have you run your tank with the modded tracks? i have a couple emails out to zinc casters to see if i could have proper tacks cast, did you shoot for the 21" 1.3" vs 1.6" width dimension at 1/16 scale?
I have been comparing the 1/35 Tamiya to my Heng long and the rear grate assembly is off but then length of the hull come rally close to 19.1 ( 229")at 1/16 scale. I look at the Tamiya and count grates and find the Heng long has too many.
and the area they are in is too big. Trying to resolve thei issue but cant seem to find correct answer that doesnt shorten vehicle

afv aficionado

Hi x19912
Pretty much every time you look at the HL Bulldog, you'll find something wrong with it - not sure what HL was on when they designed it. The turret is too small - about 6mm all round, the turret ventilator cap is too small should be about 28mm for the size of the turret - full size would be 30mm. The rearward pintle is mounted too far to the rear & the orientation is wrong , should have an angle on it, not straight fore/aft. NB this photo is an early M41 - hence the extra engine grille doors - 5 Right, 6 Left, rather than 3 per side as on the later vehicles.
The lower turret lacks amour around the front The rear of the turret - under the bustle - is the wrong shape due to the gun elevation gear . The mantlet isn't right, the coax mounted too low, the gunner telescope cover is the wrong shape & doesn't open The gun, too short & fat That's just the turret
If you decide to cut down the hull, I'd suggest you step it - 2 reasons, it helps to positively locate the turret in conjunction with the hull, and fills up that gap where the turret ring is wider than the hull. By locking the hull top in place it's much easier to shorten both ends of the upper hull.
In case you're wondering, yes I have a couple of M41's

Mal

afv aficionado

To help along with producing a more accurate M41 - http://www.shapeways.com/product/HGX...i=shareProduct - courtesy of Woz.
Dimensions should be 28.97mm across, 4.5mm deep. Mine should arrive in 2 weeks approx.

Mal

x19912

well i was wondering about the rear trans filler whay it was oblong and in my m41 book it is not, wll the rea deck after the grills was supposed to slant down and they left it flat which elongated the rear panel. this is my first model in many years and my goal for this is to get my skills resharpened, then i have a hull to and turret to change to m41 DK. that is a challange. I want to resolve all these issues first. will send pics next, did you mod the track tensioners? with metal track it tends to skip or be to tight,. I built a spring tensioner but really dont like it as it is not even close. This usnit is a challange , do all the heng longs have scale issues like this, i see you have a M26 was it decent out of box?

x19912

yes lots to do, mine is airsoft and barrel was junk, so i have new airsoft barrel, correct length , was makinh bore extractor out of steel but your is way nice, was that brazed?