Quote from: kerick on January 02, 2025, 09:07:33 PMGlued thirteen bolt heads to the front today. What a pain! I had to drill a hole as there was a pin on the back side of the bolt head. I'm not sure how much help that was.

I would just have cut the pins off. My ability to glue bolt heads in a straight line is much better than my ability to drill holes in a straight line

Quote from: Jakko on January 04, 2025, 02:23:55 AM

Quote from: kerick on January 02, 2025, 09:07:33 PMGlued thirteen bolt heads to the front today. What a pain! I had to drill a hole as there was a pin on the back side of the bolt head. I'm not sure how much help that was.

I would just have cut the pins off. My ability to glue bolt heads in a straight line is much better than my ability to drill holes in a straight line

  

The whole thing was so tiny that trying to cut the pins off would have resulted in parts pinging around the room. Drilling the holes was easier. I still had to recover one from under the desk.

I was just browsing Prime Portal and found a bunch of photos of M41s in Brazilian service. This would make a great conversion in itself. The paint scheme of Forest Green and brown looks simple and effective. I just need to make decals of the insignia. That shouldn't be too hard.

This is getting more interesting 🤔 👀 😀

Looking for some 1/35th scale smoke grenade launchers. Either American or German style. I'm in the US so if we keep it in the US the postage will be reasonable for such a small couple of things. Or if anyone knows where to get aftermarket ones I'd appreciate that. PM me if you like.

Quote from: kerick on January 05, 2025, 07:31:57 PMLooking for some 1/35th scale smoke grenade launchers. Either American or German style. I'm in the US so if we keep it in the US the postage will be reasonable for such a small couple of things. Or if anyone knows where to get aftermarket ones I'd appreciate that. PM me if you like.

Ken ...pretty sure live resin ..black dog ..Verlinden all do those and all will or should be available in the US .
Also 3D printed ones will be easy to find 😀

Or sections of rod/tube could work for you.

I built some fender supports from left over brass. Also some brackets to keep the drivers hatch from swinging around and bashing his face in. I cut the corners off the fenders to look like most of the M41 pics I've seen.





I found this pic of the Brazilian M41 which had a nice camo scheme which didn't look too difficult. Looks like there is some black between the brown and green in a few spots. That's hard to see in most other photos.



I decided to stock up on brass. One sheet is 0.016" and the other is 0.010". I could build a whole tank from the first sheet. The second sheet is closer in thickness to the etched brass bits I have. I'm sure both will come in handy.



I'm still debating on whether to drill out the headlights or not. Probably not. I'll just paint them and cover with a little UV resin to give it that glass look. Same thing with the cupola riser vision blocks. In the few photos I have found the riser vision blocks just look black. The cupola vision blocks are drilled out. I'll paint them violet later and fill with UV resin.

Quote from: kerick on January 07, 2025, 09:19:05 PMI cut the corners off the fenders to look like most of the M41 pics I've seen.

That's simply a later, minor modification to the M41 design.

Nice additions, mate!

The track guard mod's were because of trees & bushes damaging the straight-edged early versions, & assisted mud jamming up between the guards & the tracks. The simple expedient of angling the front (& rear) edge meant that all that shrubbery & mud were pushed out to the side preventing/minimising the issues.

I figured it was something like that. Some photos showed the fenders being bent down. If the tank went in reverse there was a real chance of catching the fender with the track and ripping it off.

Saw the title and was kinda skeptical of this thing, but now that I see the pics, I like it!

The short hull could very easily be a TOW vehicle, maybe if you've got a spare turret that's about the right size and shape you could even have the TOW launcher built into one side of it, a bit like the T114 perhaps (though that had a single 106mm recoiless in a special mounting that allowed reloading from inside the vehicle).

Quote from: Spino on January 09, 2025, 01:49:14 PMSaw the title and was kinda skeptical of this thing, but now that I see the pics, I like it!

The short hull could very easily be a TOW vehicle, maybe if you've got a spare turret that's about the right size and shape you could even have the TOW launcher built into one side of it, a bit like the T114 perhaps (though that had a single 106mm recoiless in a special mounting that allowed reloading from inside the vehicle).

That's pretty much the direction I was going with both of these.
I'm going to go with Badger for the assault gun and Weasel for the short TOW version as suggested by robunos. Then the individual names will be Moose and Squirrel as suggested by Jeff Fontaine over on BTS.

I started hacking on the short Squirrel. I'm going to build an entire new front but I'm saving the drivers hatch in case I decide to use it on top. Trimming and reattaching the fenders turned out to be pretty easy. Fortunately it also removed most of the holes in the fenders meant to position the tools and spare tracks so bonus. I trimmed the fender corners and removed the mount for the gun barrel clamp too.





I also ordered a set of new one piece tracks from AFV club. We'll see if they look better than the Tamiya tracks. Can't be any worse.
We are going away for the weekend so not much building going on until next week.

The tracks arrived from AFV club and they are pretty darn sweet for rubber band tracks. Far better than the Tamiya ones. They are for the shorty version so there should be a few links left for spares.
I'm working on building the casement to house the TOW system and some spare rounds. I wish I had another box from a Bradley so that would give me four ready rounds. I bought some paint over the weekend so no excuses there. The assault gun is ready for paint but I'll wait until the shorty is done so I can do both at the same time.