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My Heng Long Walker Bulldog Build


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Here is my build of a 1/16 Heng Long Walker Bulldog. It was bought from Modelzone for around £25 as it was an ex-display model. If you have seen my other posts you might notice from the photo there isn't as much room in the hull as the Tiger but this came already equipped with a RX18 controller board, sound and a smoke unit. I like to strip down the tanks to find out what make them tick and to see if I can improve them also it makes them a lot easier to paint.

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At first sight it may look a bit complicated with all the electrics so here is a brief tour. The tank comes with a pair of drive gears, left and right with each having it own drive motor. The pipework between the drive gears is the smoke generator. The green circuit board behind the drive motor is the receiver. To the left of the photo with the white plugs is the RX18 controller board, which is the brains of the tank and the black box which you can just see below the RX18 is the speaker.

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The lime green cogged wheel at the top of the photo is the turret ring. To the right of the turret ring is the turret drive motor and the white box in the centre of the turret ring is the gun elevation motor and BB gun assembly.

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Here is a photo of the turret. I removed the tools and plastic hand grabs as the weren't the best quality and I made some replacements from copper wire and super glued to the turret. To line them up I taped ice lolly inside the hand grabs which worked quite well. As you can see I got the filler out as well.

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I also removed the jerry cans from the sides of the rear turret bin so it made it easier to fill.

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From the photo below you will notice that the rear periscope hasn't got a cover.

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So this is how I got round this problem. I brought a spare upper hull and turret from ebay for £12 which had both periscope covers so I used the rear one as a pattern to make my own. The reason being is when I get more time I have another Walker Bulldog to do and the spares come in handy.

The material I used was from an old CD ROM I stripped down.

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I cut it out. bent it and filed it down.

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And fitted.

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Next was the 50 cal. As you can see from the photo the ammo box is no where near the feed tray of the gun.

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The gun comes away without too much effort.

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The ammo box glued in place.

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I made a cocking handle from copper wire and a cocktail stick.

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I removed and filed rubbed down the tools on the rear bin and from the spare turret I had I added two more jerry cans.

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I decided to change the style of the 50 cal cocking handle which I thought looks better.

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I also made an exhaust pipe from copper wire and a piece of net curtain spring from Ikea! The copper wire was used to keep its shape.

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Also from Ikea I bought some net curtain to make a cam net. I cut and folded a small piece of curtain and inserted a piece of copper wire into it to again hold its shape. The straps are cut from a coke can. The net curtain is then painted with watered down PVA to stiffen and left over night to dry.

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Now for the fun stuff. As an ex-squaddy I can remember when the lads would add extra mods to their vehicles so I thought I would. Here is a turret basket I made for brass. This was my first attempt at bending brass tubing and I am quite pleased how it turned out.

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I didn't like the tool tray so I took the tools off.

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I braided some thin copper wire, cut it and soldered it.

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To fit the turret basket I marked and drilled some holes. Then I glued it in place.

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Here I tidied up the wiring layout of the upper hull.

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Now for the painting. All the paints used a Vallejo Acrylics except for the varnishes which are Pledge Floor Wax (gloss) and Hannants matt varnish. First I primed and pre-shaded.

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Now for the top coat and decals. I bought a set of decals but as the tank was a gift for my nephew Sam I decided I would personalise it a bit so apart from the stars on the side of the turret the rest are home made.

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I wasn't to happy with the "Predator Sam" and the"Uncle Sam" decals as they looked too thick. These were made using a inkjet printer and you have to give them a coat of varnish to seal them to the paper before they can be used hence the thickness so as I have a colour laser I tried a different paper which can be used straight from the printer which worked out better.

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The weathering.

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The metal effect is graphite pencil buffed up with a finger.

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Finished.

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Stunning. No longer a "toy"....and a lovely job on what has to be the most boring colour ever invented-Olive Drab. Nice to see a non German tank look good colour/weathering wise.

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Lovely job! -I really like the finished effect on this one -not too heavy, but looks very convincing to me!

Sorry if this is an obvious question, but does the graphite get a coat of anything to help 'fix' it?

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Lovely job! -I really like the finished effect on this one -not too heavy, but looks very convincing to me!

Sorry if this is an obvious question, but does the graphite get a coat of anything to help 'fix' it?

Hello Bill

I didn't bother to "fix it" to be honest but I will have ago and I will let you know.

Cheers Ian

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Hello Bill

I didn't bother to "fix it" to be honest but I will have ago and I will let you know.

Cheers Ian

Thanks Ian, be interesting to see if it'll lose any metallic lustre if it is coated (it'd be shame too!) -if it needs it at all, of course....

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