M41 Walker Bulldog

One of my long-time favorites because it probably made mass appearances in some of the 'Godzilla' movies, the Tamiya M41 Walker Bulldog kit is long in the tooth because of its 30-plus year old lineage. A few new, more accurate and better detailed Walker Bulldog kits have appeared on the market in the intervening years, but the Tamiya kit has one big advantage - it's cheap and easily had.

This was finished over a two-year period (much of the delay career-related) and gave me plenty of opportunity to put up or shut up about three decades of acquired skills.

She started out as an about 60-part kit. The last time I checked my work log on her, she stood around 240 pieces.

She's a crude kit because she was designed to be a motorized toy. After filling in all the hull holes for motors, switches and mounting screws, I began filling in hollow fender areas to avoid a see-through look in the hull. Every turret grab-handle and equipment tiedown look was replaced with brass or aluminum wire. The turret topside machine gun was replaced with a better-detailed item from another kit and a completely scratchbuilt cradle and mounting pintle. A new 'canvas' blast bag around the main gun was made with tailored pieces of Kleenex applied over a plastic and wire frame.



The driver's periscope shrouds were scratchbuilt, as were the little 'pogo' posts for supporting his opened hatch.

The tool rack on the front fender was built from plastic strip and architectural modeling stock along with a hand-carved axe and mattock and tied-down straps from rubber strip and brass wire buckles.

That's some of the work.