Tami's M41A3 bulldog Light Tank ( W.I.P )

[Noj]

Spraying abs shells one/two colours with no shading or weathering is totally different to painting scale armour, like chalk and cheese!

[johninderby]

You might find the Graphitints soluble graphite pencil range of interest. You can use them dry and leave them as is or smudge them or add some water for different effects. They do a lot of colour ranges but this is the Grey-Green set that I have. Just search for Derwent Graphitint.

 

    John

 

 

[Tamiyacowboy]

So that primer, its not going to beat me so i am bringing out my uber weapon of choice.

its a dirty trick but i just have to do it. 

 

so priming is a large single or couple coats a full flash over a couple times. now my airbrush lays out a 1inch max

spray pattern and to cover a model like 16inches long and 9 inch wide , lol yeah its like tyring to full cover a 3ft airplane wing

with eight strands of human hair. its just NOT gonna work right no matter how great a artist you are you just cant get a large cover area but at that low pressure you need.

 

so what your going to need is a HVLP spray " touch up " gun , ( the one i seen was a 1.0mm needle with a max spray pattern of 100mm) so say around 1.4mm needle

should give you around a 200mm spray pattern. 

Now this is a low pressure high velocity gun its used for fixing those dings and dents you come to the garage with and get covered over and blended.

but the smallest 0.8m needle  and upto a high 3-5mm needle these are automotive guns but for us they are perfect for full primes of a model.

 

so my new weapon is a HVLP spray gun, im just looking for a couple cheapys with something smaller than 100ml cup size and around a 1.0mm -1.4mm needle.

i also need a air res tank, so looking at converting an old C02 bottle into a mini res so i save on switching and constant running/startup.

 

 

Edit: 

 

couple hours later on .......... busted out the 1/4 brush , filled the paint tray and started to second coat the underside of turret,

when finished i still had half a tray of paint, so yep i did the top turret section to, hatch lids hatch edges front slope/gun mantel ,

Barrel , barrel expansion and  blast deflector. 

 

i could do the topdeck with brush but im unsure on the quality i can leave behind, normally we sand the primer flat, cant do that here.

and brush marks may show through main coloring ?

Edited January 26, 2015 by Tamiyacowboy

[Tamiyacowboy]

 

 

 

there we go, been like 48+ hrs curing out, will want another 48 or so hours to be fully cured up.

color of the turret is the full US drab olive primer, i hand painted both turret and upper deck by hand in the end.

 

this is its BASE coat the primer coat, the next color on is a full coat of Olive drab mixed with a Brighter green (5 drops to 2 drops )

this second color is its MAIN color and will be affected by the darker US olive drab below it it will darken up a little to. 

 

the next coats are vallejo AIR , not that vallejo primer stuff, so i just hope this paint color lays up nice with the airbrush.

so will test over weekend before i even think of filling my touch up gun and shooting the model in one go with a much larger

spray  radius ( touch up guns are like a mini version of a automotive spray gun )

[Tamiyacowboy]

So been slapping some more primer base on,

 

brushed over the wheel hub sections, done the whole lot so if any come loose i have four spares.

gave a single coat and will run a second tomorrow. 

 

wanted to do the road wheels, but left them alone i will blacken them out with a washy

nato black, then go right over with main color. i want a dirty look, from black carbon dust and metal dust.

that dirty blackness that comes form leaking seals etc etc.

 

have not checked the turret or topdeck as yet, but they sit behind me in a cardboard box with a little tray of salt

to keep draw out moisture (room suffers from condensation bad ), but will have a good gander tomorrow and a 

finger nail test to see how the paints curing up and what stage. i want it fully bonded to the surface and hardened out as much as it will.

 

if we have some sunshine i will pop the turret outside with the two periscope guards on so you can see the drab olive color pop out

from the base primer coats and how the color changes to that effect.

[Tamiyacowboy]

No sunshine and no pictures, just wind and driving rain / sleet 

 

so i gave the last of the US olive drab a shake up, and went to town.

 

upper and lower road wheels - run wheels are primed and drying off.

 

 

i modded the old silver aux exhaust manifold piping to. it was thin and looks a bit out of place,

so i took a couple tubes of heatshrink and slipped them over one by one each time warming up to tighten it down.

after this i let it cool down and then painted it with a brush in nato black to act like my primer. 

then i gave it a layer of US olive drab primer. it now has that dark dirty and sooty black green,

i will maybe dust/spittle  some sand/ cam brown over it later as a washy like very watery mix.

 

i am also thinking of cutting out the white US Stars from the sticker sheet and laying them onto some

thin acetate , and cutting out so i have an airbrush stencil of US stars for armor in 1/16th scale.

[Tamiyacowboy]

This first image shows the top chassis plate given its main jacket color over the top off US olive drab.

the main color is a mix of Olive drab and a lighter green (kawasaki'ish ), If you look at the top off turret

you can see the duller green main color, and the side of the turret is the stock primer US olive drab.

this photo was taken mid spraying while the compressor cooled down 

 

 

 

 

This second image is of the turret in the booth drying out, it had its main gun barrel hand painted as the compressor was to hot to run.

both sections are now main coated, BUT i may re flash over them to cover any blotching with a wider most wasting paint dust.

its a right pain working with a small spray cone, so i intend to break out a Finishing gun from amazon very very soon.

just for priming and shooting full coat main colors. 

 

next i need to order the weathering kit for US green armor. so i can get some depth and visual into it

 

[Tamiyacowboy]

Sorry the photos are not color correct, i will try to get some better capture shots. but the photo's really do not do justice to the coloring change that happened. 

 

well its been a warmer day today and the room sits at 65 degrees so paints drying good.

its dulled back and settled nice, the front slant plate is rough BUT i already see the pooling and balling

as damge/suff and wear marks, i mean tanks take front end hammerings and that front slope usually sees small arms rounds.

and is first to be stuffed into water / mud and the likes. 

 

the turret has come up lovely to, 1 drop of nato black model air paint to around 15 drops of water or more gave me a light wash

its been applied to the front tooling carrier, the rear hatching handles, hinges and venting for main powerplant.

a few runs and some blacking staining ready for a greeny rust.

 

the rear port hatch has been added to the tail slope of the tank underside, 

all 12 wheel hub covers are blacked and main colored up, they will not need much work just a light spray of a shade darker than main.

i need to add the rail handles and other parts to the turret section, and give it a dust with the model air bright. to accent the highlighted

surface that are in the sunlight more ( horizontal surfaces ), i then have to mix a 1:1 of model air drab with model air russian green.

this is for shading, so areas around the climb handles and vertical panel lines etc etc. 

 

after all that i highlight with sand over the highlighted surfaces and use cam brown dirt to accent the shading and where dirt aquires.

 

I will be GLAD WHEN ITS DONE !!! , My Next TANK will be WINTER CAMO or Desert camo sand

[Tamiyacowboy]

Old age got the better and tanks now a none working maybe project. i have no means of working out what wires go where

and its all down to very rubbish labeling and the poor way chinese stuff is put together. im stressed and wish i never started this silly thing now.

 

Upper deck connection problem, 8 pin + 3 pin + 3 pin + 2 pin ( NO Daughter board what so ever )

i have a three pin connector but no idea or markings where it should go. i also have a 2 pin connector and a three pin port

but again no markings to denote where pos-neg-sig is. talk about backwards electronics . plug and fry sounds more likely.

 

 

 

thats not the worse part, check out that rx18, NO pin denotations at all, i mean how are you mean to know what is what.

here i have the rear lights to plug in somehwere in the topdeck ( yeah how stupid pluging into top deck when no need to)

 

 

 

 

so there we go, henglongs fantastic idea of wiring. i have seen better birds nests , but this one is a joke. 

and yep it came with those upgraded metal gearboxes that has more play than an NFL football league team

[johninderby]

Ah the iffy white metal gearboxes. Preccision engineering....not.

Have a look at the wiring section of the Taiger Tger 1 kit manual. Not quite the same as HL as the Taigen has a combined RX and control unit but you might find something useful.

http://www.imex-model.com/TANK%20MANUALS/12501/mobile/index.html

John

Edited February 6, 2015 by johninderby

[Nitroholic]

I got wiring diagrams for the basic setup .... it's the same on all the tanks.

 

The big multiplug can only go one place....so don;t worry about that one.

 

Here's a pic of what does what on the RX18:

 

 

If it's not fitted ( like the IR unit ) then the socket is empty. Just follow the wires back.

 

The 2 other 3 pin plugs from the turret will go in the other 2 sockets screwed to the upper deck.....trial and error will tell you which is the BB and which is the gun elevation.

 

Hope this helps some

 

 

edit:

 

Lots more info HERE:

 

https://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4555

[Tamiyacowboy]

it dont help at all. 

 

look at the above two images and work out where those wires should go.

its impossible because all other documents point to a connetcor board and a PCB daughter board.

 

 all i have is a connector board a load of connectors that dont fit in any slots , there is NO  VCC GND SGN,

plug it in the wrong way and i fry the system ( i dont trust henglongs yeah its proetced fro reverse polarity , these things usually aint ).

 

 

inside turret is bb gun mech, elevation mech, fire led. on the upper deck is the rotation module and the front led light.

these two are plugged into the connector block system. but a 2 pin connectors dos not fit a three pin socket ( the trigger like switch thing )

if i start rewiring i will tear the whole lot and and that will be done with, i would not pay out the few hundred quid for a tamiya unit just to get the same headache again.

[Nitroholic]

It's simpler than you think.

 

1) ALL the turret plugs just go to that little board screwed to the upper hull.

 

2) The big plug takes those connections down to the RX18 unit. All the little board is doing is connecting the turret bits to the big wire. It's just a bunch of tracks and plugs. You CANNOT cross polarity, as the big plug only fits in one way at both ends.

 

3) One of the pics I linked you to shows the purpose of each wire on the big connector. You can simply use a multimeter or continuity checker to see which pin from the big connector goes to which other plug on the little board. That nails down EXACTLY what is what there.

 

4) The rear lights plug into the top deck because the front lights are already up there....and they connect to the big plug...and from there to the RX18 to light the lights.

 

5) Your lower hull stuff looks to be all plugged in. Motors, radio board etc.

 

Don;t stress too much....I messed about with mine a whole lot, and it's all pretty robust. Just plug that big cable in from the RX18 .... it feeds all the power. Plug in the wrong wires, and nothing happens.

 

This might help too....

 

 

Don't despair!!!!  I rewired mine so many times I could do it in my sleep

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234939758-my-heng-long-walker-bulldog-build/

[Tamiyacowboy]

i just shoved the plugs in how i thought they may go. 

 

ie used the pin out on mainboard and then traced back to connection block then, unscrewed it and memorized

the pin fitting tracks. 

 

the tank is running. 

 

start up / idle down

lights flash - on - off

cannon fire + track recoil 

 

one problem, fire the machine gun, main lights - front and rear flash. 

 

 

SO as i had it in parts, i had thoughts to the 360 degree turret mod. now i myself will not be doing it ( i intend to install an AEG 350fp/s spring system ( 12 quid )

but i had some thoughts, one was a very simple idea working on a slipper clutch method. a main servo is mounted on its side.

a small rubber wheel is fitted to the servo,

the rubber wheel sits ontop of the main ring and works via pressure. the rubber grips the ring and as it turns it rotates the ring and turret.

the clever part comes if the barrel is stopped from swinging, the rubber wheel slips on the ring surface and protects from ampdraw overload or servo stalling.

 

 

SMOKER: boy oh boy, when i first tried the smoker unit it was lets just say slack on the smoke side. more wilo the wisp than smog heaven.

i took the smoke unit tank header cap off (4 screws) , inside is a crude omhs law wire coil wrapped round a obligitory wick.

and truth be said mine was as dry as a african river bed, with the top removed i put around 15/20 drops of oil in and re-sealed it up. 

As i tested the wiring i fired up the smoker and well she smokes like a steam train. 

 

 

while stressed i busted out the nato black and brush painted the rear exhaust plate and exhaust tube,

i was going to paint the top exhaust coverings to, but decided i will airbrush those with a little nato black added to some main color.

bring that greeny brown into play but highly darkened a tone or two.

 

its late so i will leave the hull as it is, charge up battery and have a mess around, 

i have noticed eratic turret turning it slews left ok but will not slew right when commanded. its like its loosing signal.

[Nitroholic]

Glad to hear you got it sorted

 

You probably just have the light plugs swapped round.

 

Heng Long radio gear is toytown quality, and I used to get all sorts of glitches. It was the main reason I converted the mainboard so I could use an external 4 channel or more radio. No glitches from the DX6.

[Gaz!]

Heng Long radio gear is toytown quality, and I used to get all sorts of glitches. It was the main reason I converted the mainboard so I could use an external 4 channel or more radio. No glitches from the DX6.

I'll have to pick your brain on this when I buy a set of radio gear.....looking towards a dx6i then I can use it for the tank and truck, maybe a boat and plane too in the future.....

[.AJ.]

Personally I would go for more channels so you future proof yourself, I'm running 7 channels so far in KV1

[Tamiyacowboy]

I may just grab a new board. 

 

i do not like this heng long unit one bit , i mean i yanked it out again and decased the unit lol

there are more negative battery terminals than outputs. i mean they are tapping of one source and making it into

like 8 negatives.

 

LED main light is being driven at 100ma, and if thats the case so are the rear tail lights as they all wired together into a 

pos-neg pickup, i dont expect them to last long without magic smoking the junk inside.

So heres where the change is made, 

 

the led lamps will be hot wired direct to the batterys on-off switch, so they are working all the time.

the turret is most annoying, you can hold right sway and nothing happens, but if you  kiddie stab the stick,

it will start and stop, think of it as tapping a live wire on an led, its very twitchy and flickers, thats what the signal is like to the 

right sway function, traced back wires and no problems there, so its a radio/receiver problem. 

 

Mini gun light, one simple problem, i do not have a mini gun lamp, i have a main fire canon light to warn of impending BB being released

thats it. but NO machine gun light. 

 

one area im not happy with is the electronics but i cannot justify the price thats wanted for a new MCU board ( i mean omg its just a shortened arduino )

with borrowed code running on them, ie firmware has been modded and rewrote/adjusted. 

these new boards cost as much as the tank did new and thats the problem, i cannot just throw cash into it like i did other projects.

this must be all accounted for. a clarke tk22 M41a3 board costs

[Tamiyacowboy]

Some more research info added. 

 

The heng long tank is somewhat a mix mash. its not a true M41 and the reasons are stated below. 

 

take a look at the models side panel running the length of the chassis deck.

see the middle storage section has a single  shaped /\  emboss.

 the real life version has a large X emboss. 

 

the sloped front storage box on both sides has those raised  four embossing on the side panel.

these are Incorrect, they were flush to the panel face and not raised. 

 

on the drivers side front mud spash/guard plate you can see a small raised block.

this block is missing two looped fittings. looking more like a barrel park/travel clamp but a smaller version.

 

front bull hooks. these are incorrect, the front end had front bull loops , they look more like a lug with a center hole,

and were used to hold fittings or attach cabling hooks to. The rear bull hooks ARE CORRECT so will not need sanding out and re-drilling

to match the fronts.

 

 

On a better note, i am looking at a larger gun. i need to fit a 90mm or 120mm canon barrel , some of these tanks were given a larger bore gun 90mm

the 76mm was a good gun but did not really hold up against the newer tanks coming onto the battle grounds, and they needed more hitting force.

so gun upgrades were used. 

 

more fuel cans, the rear turret held two jerry cans but it was known in order to balance out the top turret,

the use of added fuel cans was needed, larger guns needed more balance weight, so loaded fuel cans were used as weight ballast.

A Rear wards barrel travel lock is needed to, one thing i cannot find as a add on. being able to stow the gun in the lock clamp

when transporting was key in tanks and most tanks even the sherman had a barrel travel clamp stowage . this was fitted/welded to the rear drivers side mud guard slope.

and allowed entry to the storage and rear powerplant hatches when the barrel was in traveling lock.

So i need to find more parts to get it looking like it should do. 

 

the hard part is sanding out the storage embossing and some how replicating the original bracing work as a stretched X and not a flat /\

in all fairness heng long should have just made the m41 as a M24 chaffee it would look more closer to the real version than a botched M41

running on a M24 chassis track set

[Tamiyacowboy]

well i am a bit stuck. 

 

i have the tank colored with its main coat, and it looks nice.

more like a tank of that era to unlike with the heng long rough paint color.

 

but i now have to lay on some very unusual color, and i already know what its going to look like

i can see the finish in my head, a bright rank kawasaki green as highlighting. its not a nice sight. 

 

so im stuck i cannot more forwards and i am very limited on backwards movement, ie i have a primer and main color layed down

so i dont have much leway before paint starts to cover detailing in mouldings. i mixed up the shader color to its a mix of 50-50  olive drab and russian green

looks nice when dry on white paper, but i have doubts and think its just to darker shading for the tank .

But my major worry and headache is laying down highlights in the manky bright snotty green.

 

im unable to get a decent photograph of the box to show the colors , on a little 1/35 or 1/72 the color scheme works

but for a large 1/16th is just to garish with that over bright highlight thats then accented with sand ontop, then some camo pale brown as dust/dirt.

its come to a point i am questioning my own capabilitys as an airbrusher to. so much so i am debating on a light nato black dust for shading and some hard core sparying of blotch white

some sorta cowboy winter look. 

 

i just dont know, i dont wnat to risk laying the bright manky snot green down and find its ruined, but i dont want to to the standard easy to do black n white route

[Tamiyacowboy]

ARGHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!! 

 

 

the war cry lol. more like a wimper but ........ 

 

 

i have kicked a gear up and, re-fitted the tank, she has all the add-on plastics fitted like lights, antenna, Ma Deuce posts, wrecking bulls, and lifting loops ( the two loops front and rear )

. i need to add some satin clear coat to seal out the US army Olive Drab , and add a couple of the decals like the us stars and maybe some of the others. 

 

weathering I am NOT going to do on this tank. sorry if this is a let down but the US army kinda failed this little tank with it not being used in battle very much. korea it was a prototype

and after that was sold on to other countrys and replaced with a more modern track hull. 

 

she Looks and sits just as it would have right of the factory floor, pristine in livery and battle color 

 

the crumby rear exhaust tube has been modded with heatshrink and sprayed out to the same color as the

hull and it looks like it should. the tube is a little thicker having those couple layers of heat shrink over and make it sit right

in scale with the aux cooling system exhuasting.

 

picture to follow once the sunshine comes out and i can get the battery charged and installed ( need to make and solder a tamiya to xt60 adaptor leash)

[Tamiyacowboy]

More pictures after its been main coated and put back together 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rear sproket drive hubs are original color of the tank, you can see its not drab olive when you compare it to the chassis - upper deck - turret and the main large roadwheels

and upper travel guide wheels.

 

now the vallejo primers, i have been experimenting and can say, they are OK. but theres a few things you need to be aware of. 

thin coats built up over drying periods, and kept well dust free, DO NOT lay it on thick key is a light dusty shading of primer.

you want it to help lay the main colors and boost them. ie Drab olive primer with a olive drab overlay main hits hit up lovely.

ITS IN NO WAY BASH PROOF !!! , i mean you dink it with your nail its gonna be soft n damage, so yeah be careful handling.

the strength comes form your main colors and the clear overcoats you will lay down.

 

Front lights, the red color came from scola red acrylic mixed with a little medium ( flow medium) and dabbed on with brush random

the inner lights board are the same but yellow scola paint and a bit of flow medium with ransom splodging of fine brush.

the rear blacking is to be semi dusted with a 50-50 mix russian green and olive drab mix to darken the tail section a tad and cover some blackening to shade

Edited April 4, 2015 by Tamiyacowboy

[Tamiyacowboy]

BB gun has Failed ....... 

 

so how easy is it to fit the gun flashing unit , and how do i get the barrel recoil function to work.

 

tanks going to look a bit stupid if it has no recoil mech and just a little flash from the end of the gun thats you wont see from all the muzzle brake and deflectors 

very let down with the gun quality . 

 

am yet to solder up the new spreaker i found as i dont need to be frying the audio amp either lol. if the gun is bad

that means the smoker is bad and the sound system is not to be trusted either.

[Nitroholic]

Barrel recoil is a bit tricky.

 

There is a HengLong/Taigen unit that you can fit if you have the RX18 board. It will also work with a barrel flash LED.

 

Otherwise...you are looking at a third party board. I went that route as these use a servo for recoil rather than a chaep and noisy motor. A replacement barrel will probably also have to be fabricated as the stock one is not designed to slide in the mantlet

[Tamiyacowboy]

Any ideas on a suitable Barrel. 

 

the m41 came with a 76mm but did once have a 90mm shoved on ( prototype test for a larger more punch shot)

 

i was looking at all the production models but never see them recoil barrel in live fire. ( dutch M41D version )

was like the heng long where barrel is somewhat glued to the mantlet, maybe its possible theres a two part shroud

barrel inside shroud recoils but the outer stays fixed and offers extra protecion to the barrel itself.

 

trying to keep the M41 look front turret wise. i just wondered how i get the gun to fire if there is no recoil and recoil switch trigger.

found two recoil units but they only fit tigers or the stug , that was very annoying to. and left me head scratching.