Ugly Baby...

[tank_me]

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.

[cmdrcody]

Should rename it the "Ninja Turtle" tank project.

[tank_me]

I couldn't get gray PETG from one of the brands I like so I ended up with green...

[MrChef]

beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[tank_me]

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.


Derek

[tank_me]

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.

[tank_me]

Finally made a little more progress on this guy. 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.



That's all for now...

[tank_me]

It's always a great day when you are finally able to get paint on tank. Even if it's just the base coat of Model Master Olive Drab. I scuttled some away when supplies started to run out.



Still deciding what camo scheme I'm going to use.

That's all for now...

[tank_me]

Decided to have a little fun with the camo scheme. Just started painting and this is what I ended up with. May add some black...haven't decided yet.






That's all for now...

[Rubicon99]

Decided to have a little fun with the camo scheme. Just started painting and this is what I ended up with. May add some black...haven't decided yet.






That's all for now...

Taking shape 👍👍

Refreshing to see an "out of the box build".

[tank_me]

Taking shape 👍👍

Refreshing to see an "out of the box build".

Thanks. Just a bit of whimsy. I think it will be fun to pilot around the battlefield.

[Rubicon99]

Thanks. Just a bit of whimsy. I think it will be fun to pilot around the battlefield.

I started a similar build when I got a Tamiya M551 turret few years back. But it ended up on a project back burner. It's great to see someone actually building this tank 👍👍 It should be a good battling tank especially in tight quarters.

[tank_me]

I started a similar build when I got a Tamiya M551 turret few years back. But it ended up on a project back burner. It's great to see someone actually building this tank 👍👍 It should be a good battling tank especially in tight quarters.

I would agree it will run well in tight spaces. Like most people I found out about the T49 primarily through World of Tanks. It was never my favorite vehicle to play, but it was a cool concept in my mind. Having spent some time at the museum with the M41 Bulldog, I just didn't think HL's rendition of it did it any justice. Rather than try to fix all the issues with the Bulldog, I just decided to embrace it's mutt nature and make it something I didn't need to make right. My goal this year is to actually finish tanks. Seems to be an issue with me... :)

I liked the camo without the black, but I think the black adds just a bit more variation to the pattern, IMO. After all, it's supposed to be about hiding the vehicle and not just how awesome it looks, right? :haha:

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Just need to add some markings/decals, touch up some areas with the airbrush, add the commander's cupola vision blocks back in, paint in some details (like ammo boxes/straps/pioneer tools), do some slight weathering and clearcoat the whole thing. I did put it back together last night to do a complete functions test and everything seems to have survived the build process. I still want to wire up both sets of headlights on the front of the tank. I do need to figure out what color I need to paint the straps and the ammo boxes.





That's all for now...

[Max-U52]

That looks really great, Tankme. You said you want to wire up both sets of headlights, does that mean you want two working lights on each side? I did that with my AA bulldog, only to find out later that that was wrong. Turns out only one of the headlights was an actual headlight on each side, the other is some kind of light for the infrared system. I never changed my back because I think it looks so cool. The way they are now reminds me of the headlights on a second generation Corvette. Have you seen the video where I added the extra lights?

[SoCalBobS]

Max: Evan Designs sells all sorts of LEDs online. They are geared towards the hobby market, and already have the appropriate resistor installed - which is good, because I have no clue about all that. Anyway. I know they have 3mm (and 6mm) purple LED's, which would represent night lights!

[tank_me]

That looks really great, Tankme. You said you want to wire up both sets of headlights, does that mean you want two working lights on each side? I did that with my AA bulldog, only to find out later that that was wrong. Turns out only one of the headlights was an actual headlight on each side, the other is some kind of light for the infrared system. I never changed my back because I think it looks so cool. The way they are now reminds me of the headlights on a second generation Corvette. Have you seen the video where I added the extra lights?

Thanks and yes. I was going to make the inner lights red for the infrared side and the outers light on both sides as the white light. I think the TK50 inside can run both separately.

Max: Evan Designs sells all sorts of LEDs online. They are geared towards the hobby market, and already have the appropriate resistor installed - which is good, because I have no clue about all that. Anyway. I know they have 3mm (and 6mm) purple LED's, which would represent night lights!

Thanks. I've seen the Evan Design site and I do have a bunch of pico sized LEDs in different colors that I bought prewired as I'm not soldering LEDs that small... I also got resistors of various sizes to wire up with them. I bored out the fronts of the lights to accept a lens. My girlfriend had a small silicone jewelry mold that has half circle shapes on it. I'm going to use it to make some lens our of UV resin.

[Max-U52]

Most boards provide 5 V for the headlights and 5 V LED's are readily available and pretty clearly marked, and if you want to use a smaller headlight, that's 3.4 or 3.7, you just add a 100 Ω resistor. At least that's always worked for me.