Ugly Baby...

[tankme]

What do you get when you mate an M551 Sheridan and an M41 Bulldog?

You get a T49. Since it was an experimental project I will have some creative license with it. I'm not going to bother narrowing or fixing the major flaws with the Bulldog hull. It's just a fun, simple conversion project.

[Exhibitedbrute]

Some paint and job done then

[Ecam]

Oooh aaah! Like it. Kind of those ones a mother could only love.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

It appears to me that either you have already fixed one major flaw or the HengLong M41 upper hull is a teeny bit more accurate than the Taigen. That is, the driver's "sky scopes" seem to be level on yours; whereas, on the two Taigen M41s I have, the scope glass is tilted decidedly skyward. Am I seeing this correctly?

[tankme]

Yes...already fixed those. That was the first thing to be corrected.

[tankme]

Wanted some low hanging fruit and I got it (as in a non-complicated build). Installed the recoil, Taigen High Intensity Flash, and the servo elevation. Still need to install the MG LED and the IR LED. Also got the ammo boxes printed and mocked up in place. I need to fabricate some glass panels for the commander's cupula.



All I needed to adapt the turret to the HL rotation was to remove the ring from the old M41, drill a few holes in the Sheridan turret floor, add some M3 10mm long standoffs and it was good to go.



Finished up the days work with an installation of a smaller Visaton speaker in a box, added the receiver, added the volume adjuster, soldered in the new XT60 connector, extended the motor wiring, and installed the Clark TK50SP. All the components were velcro'd to the hull after removing the battery box and pouring about 4oz of resin in the hull for support. Everything tested good.

[tankme]

Got some further work done on this guy also. I cut and shaped all the glass pieces for the commander's cupola fashioned from some 1/8" acrylic sheet I had. Each window had to be hand fit after cutting to a rough shape.





Also got the IR battle system installed. I installed the IR LED in the optics tube, but lengthened it a little to get a proper 9-10mm setback for the LED.





Close to final wiring layout done. I'm having issues with the LEDs that came with the tank drawing too much current. Only half of them turn on. I have some micro LEDs I'm going to swap in to see if that solves the problem.

[tankme]

Had some recent updates to the Ugly Baby T49 prototype...

The smoke dischargers had printed kinda rough so I reprinted them in ASA. They came out much better. The whole turret was primered so I removed the cupola glass. I'll reinstall it after the painting and weathering is done. This was just supposed to be a fun little build without much thought toward accuracy as it was just an experimental tank. It's just kind of a "what if".




I replaced the tool box handles with a resin 3D printed version I found on Cults3D. The US used the same tool box handles on the M41, the Pershing, and the Abrams. There are probably others. https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/...le-pre-support



Closer shot of the Vietnam era .50 cal ammo boxes I also found on Cults3D and printed them in resin. I used some small strips of masking tape to make the straps. The buckles are metal and came from a scale horse website. The loops used to secure the ammo boxes to the turret were also found on Cults3D and printed in resin.



The commander's hatches printed really poorly in filament so I reprinted them in resin. When closed they still cover up the apple mount.



I also applied some cold bluing to the metal tracks. I'm not a real stickler for tracks as they get weathered the first time it's outside in the dirt.



All the rubber has been pulled off the road wheels to metal prime and prep them for painting. I'm thinking of doing some sort of camo on the tank. Since it's a "what if" I might as well go wild on it and make it cool.

That's all for now...

[Herr Dr. Professor]

I don't know if it's ugly, but the T49 looks a bit like a space ship that landed atop a Walker Bulldog. You are accomplishing something truly unique. You write as if it were not big deal, but you are accomplishing modifications that would be challenging for me, so I am impressed. I wish I knew exactly how to correct the skyward driver's periscope windows and the incorrectly patterned tool boxes. I check the link to the toolbox handles (I could use some more), but it was dead.

[tankme]

Thanks. I was just making the point that a paper tank or a prototype gives you a lot of freedom of interpretation...

This link should work.

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/han ... re-support