Maddog Armor Manufacturing 2013 Production Line

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks guys! I'm hoping to have the Dora's first coat of grey over it today. Stay tuned.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Wow, I finally was able to complete a couple models, while getting further progress done on others. The completed ones will be in the Wesendorf Field, feel free to check them out.



Now on to my armor....


I was shooting grey on the Dora and decided to hit this little Opel Staff bus I was working on as well. I had to scrape the windows afterward because I forgot to mask them! Still, this is looking pretty good:

Later I tried out the body on the chassis to see how it looked. I was quite amazed at how well I could see the interior:

And finally, I completed the painting of Dora; she is now all dressed up in her grey Sunday Best!

This first shot shows a closeup of the main superstructure:

Next a closeup shot of the gun trunnions and part of the breech:

And finally, the whole gun fully assembled after all that painting. This is the first time I ever built her up like this at home. She's sitting on a temporary table right here in my Hobby Room:

Note the bus and Kubelwagen sitting next to her for a size reference. That bus is the previous one I'd built before, not the staff bus under construction now.

All that's left now is to decal her (yes, she has some decals) and then complete the last detail painting and assembly. I just might have this finished in another four or five days if I am free to work on her. I'm reaching the end of this build and it's scaring the crap outta me!!



Okay, that's all the progress I have to show for this week; feel free to check out my finished aircraft. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

 

[moon puppy]

That's one big ol' dang gun man i'm here to tell ya. Nice work on the shading

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks MP! Yeah, she's scary big! I hope I can get her completed in the next few days.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Well, the Nationals are over; I'm back home and been taking care of things that had been neglected while I was gone. My packages of all my purchases are in and so it's time to get some building started again.

I'm starting off slow with some small, simple little models after having worked so hard on the Dora. These first few models are some simple little cars from ACE.

This first one is the French Traction Avant that I started out on. I got the suspension completed and the interior; then started on the body:

I did the same to a Russian staff car, the GAZ 11 or something like that:

I also started a Russian GAZ pickup truck as well. I did the suspension underneath, just like the above two cars:

Then I built the bed in back and added the interior:

And then I started the cab. I gotta add windows before I go much further:

Here's a fun shot of all the above cars and trucks alongside the Russian ZIS-6 I started earlier:

Next is an early war German horse-drawn machine gun that I'm doing for the "First Blood" Campaign here on these boards. The first thing I did was to assemble the horses... well, try to assemble the horses. The fit was outrageous, it was amazing to get some seams to actually meet! Here's what I had to deal with:

You've heard of the Headless Horseman? Well, here's his horse.....

After getting the horses together with their heads, I assembled the two parts of the cart what hauls the gun and crew:

You can see they went together quite well. Nice job Alexey!

Later on, I went back and filled in and sanded the main gaps and holes in the horses.. They are starting to look pretty good right now:

Another simple kit I started was the ModelCollect Russian TOS-1. It's the earlier version of the TOS-1 Buratino that I did from ACE. The first thing that surprised and slightly concerned me was the main lower hull was molded in metal:

My first thought when seeing this was "I hope this doesn't crumble to dust like the Dragon kits did"!

I went ahead and assembled the rocket launcher box and the upper hull and set them together on the lower hull as a test fit:

One of my disappointments with this kit is that they give you no way to make the box elevate like the ACE kit did. It can only be assembled with the box in the lowered position. I'm going to have to fix that. If ACE can make it raise and lower, then I'm going to make this one also raise and lower.


Next up, I moved on to a couple other more extensive models since they were calling my name. This first one is the Aoshima Japanese truck with kitchen and water tank trailers. I started with the chassis naturally:

Next I built the rear bed. I set it up with the benches down for troops to sit on. Here it is dry-fit to the chassis:

Finally, I also started the Hobby Boss Br-86 Locomotive. I started out with the main chassis frame:

...and built it up to this:

I had a few issue with some of the drive system linkages not hooking up correctly and I'm not sure how to get them fixed. I'll have to experiment.

Next I'll be doing up the main tank and driver's cabin.


Well, that's all the updates I have for today. It feels great to get back to the bench, especially doing some of these simple, relaxing little kits. Now I also need to finish some other projects I started before the Nationals and get them done; including some rather large subjects. So, stay tuned everyone for more updates. Meanwhile, comments are welcome and thanks all for looking in.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Okay, here is my armor that I worked on this week. I got a little done on all these small cars and trucks I'm building, only because I had a lot of seams to fix. That took a lot of sanding too. So, since I was already sanding the Yak 28, I figured I'd keep sanding all these cars and trucks while sanding that Yak. When I finally got them the way I mostly wanted, I started adding the windows to them.

First off, for the Group Build in the Braille Scale Forums on Missing Lynx, I assembled the wheels and undercarriage for the little Zis 6 truck I started for it. They went together fine, now all I have to do is add the drive shafts and exhaust underneath; then install the windows on it and I can move forward:

Next up is the Traction Avant with the front windshield done with Testor's Clear Parts cement and Window maker. I couldn't find any accessible clear acetate so I went ahead and did this:

The window is still wet, it'll dry clear. The body is also dry-fit on the chassis; it's a little tight in back making it stick up like that.

This next one is the GAZ 11M staff car. I added the windows that were included in the kit for this one. Here it is with the body dry-fit to the chassis and the windows already masked with a liquid masking agent. Once that mask dries, I'll shoot some gloss black paint on this:

The window cement worked so well on the Traction, I did it also on this little GAZ truck. Here I got all the windows done since they were a bit smaller. Some of them, are still a little wet in this pic. I have the cab dry-fit to the Chassis as well:

Once this truck's windows are dry I'll mask them as well and shoot a gloss black over this one too.

While some of those windows were drying, I decided to also work on the model I'm doing for the First Blood Campaign here on these boards. I assembled the twin guns and carriage for the horse-drawn cart. I also added some other detail parts to the two carts. The gun carriage was a tricky assembly; it was a bear trying to get it all lined up right:

Here it is dry-fit to the pedestal inside the trailer:

I see the one horse has lost his tail. Gonna have to try and fabricate one.

Last but not least, I finished building the tracks and running gear on my British Warrior Mechanized Combat vehicle. Now all I need to do is find the side skirts, install them, and I can then clearcoat and decal this model:

And that completes my update for these past three days. It ain't much, but I'm trying to improve a little while still having fun. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get some paint and decals done on some of these.

Until then, thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

 

[moon puppy]

Looking good Mark, push a little here and there and pick up new techniques.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks MP. Yeah, I have a few new techniques I've been trying. Been practicing many old school basics as well to get them sharper.

 

[Dave wahl]

Yo dude, you're just a building machine. Are those all in 1/72?!!!!!That Horse and limber are just amazing. I really like all the staff cars and trucks that you have going. Where did you manage to find them all??? That might make a real interesting diorama.

Dave

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks Dave! Yes, they are all in 1/72 scale. I managed to find all these at the Colorado Nationals. Freetime Hobbies was selling a whole bunch of ACE kits; all of which I'd been looking for and couldn't find. These were among them, so I got them all for a great price.

 

[SA Dave]

Some crazy nice models there

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks Dave! I hope to have some updates soon.

 

[Duke Maddog]

This is all the work I got done at St. Crispin's Hobby Day on Friday.

Things had been going great to a point while I was working on my armor. I even thought I was making progress when I shot my Gloss Black on my GAZ 11 and my GAZ pickup truck:

But then I took a closer look. I had forgotten to put the photo-etch grills alongside the engine compartments! Boy did I feel like an idiot! So now I need to scrape the paint, apply the P/E and then re-shoot these two.

BTW, I included those two above in this Thread because they were used by the Red Army as Staff vehicles.

Moving along, I decided to get some more of my Morser 17 gun built. I finished up the gun carriage and added the barrel. That was tough to do:

Then I completed the main chassis for this gun, except for all those tiny detail pieces that would end up breaking off every time I handled this thing:

Here's a shot of the two assemblies dry-fit together:

After getting that far, I went on to my Japanese three-ton truck. I couldn't do much more to the truck itself yet since I have to paint it before I can move on. So I figured now was a good time to start the two trailers that went behind it. First I got the water trailer done:

Next I went to work on the cooking trailer and got it done:

Now it is time to paint these two along with the truck after sanding the water tank smooth.

So, I set them all aside and moved on to the BR-86 locomotive. I finally found out why certain linkages weren't connecting right: I had two of them upside down! After fixing them, everything went together far better and now I could move on:

So next I started putting together the 'barrel' (for want of a better word) of the locomotive. I got it together and added filler to those areas that needed it:

Then it wanted me to add a bunch of detail parts to the "bumps" that go on top of this part, but all those parts would have broken off when it was time to add them to the barrel. So I skipped that step. I'll add the "bumps" after I get this sanded to my satisfaction first; then I'll install the detail parts.

So, that being said, I moved on to the cabin and installed the windows. I did this a little differently this time. On my WC-360, the windows look like crap because the edge where the 'glass' was glued was still unpainted, and I had to paint the edges very thick to hide the unpainted plastic. On this model, I could see the same thing happening, so I painted the inside edges where the 'glass' was supposed to go and while the paint was still wet, I installed the clear parts. Thus the paint holds the clear parts and the bare plastic is painted. Here is the cab next to the barrel:

My apologies for the 'highly technical' parts description for this locomotive. ~05 ~04



After St. Crispin's I did a little work this past week. Most of it was on a company of Syrian T-54's for a friend's wargame army. These are in 15mm scale and made of white metal. He asked me to paint them up for a historical gaming convention this weekend. Here is the company all painted up and ready to go:

All those were airbrushed, even the camo pattern. Pretty good I thought, considering I had no fine tip for my airbrush. Just so you can see the scale difference, here is one of the T-54's next to my 1/72 scale T-55:

Finally, while painting his tanks, I also shot some paint on the ZIS 5 truck I've been working on as well:

Well, that is my latest update for this week. Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome!

 

[Duke Maddog]

Today I have a pretty long update to show, given how much little stuff I got done on so many models. Alot of it is small stuff that didn't take long; but some of these things took a good effort to do. More on that later.

Almost all of this was done at my monthly Hobby Day Friday this past week. I had brought in my compressor and airbrush to paint these things so I could hopefully get some finished! The last little bit was done at home; I'll detail that later.


Remember the car and the truck that I painted Gloss Black; then realized that I forgot the P/E parts? Well, I got the P/E added to each of them, then re-shot the paint on them both.

Here they are with the P/E parts added to the sides of the hoods:

I succeeded (for the most part) in re-painting the car as you can see here:

But the truck's paint kept cracking and wrinkling every time I shot a new coat. It's now sitting in a bath of Easy Off Oven Cleaner to strip the paint to nothing so I can start over.

So I moved along to another truck I had; the ZIS 5 that I started for another Softskins Group Build on the Missing Lynx Braille Scale Forums. I shot the coat of green on it and then added the windows inside before closing up the cab:

Later, I remembered a friend on those very same boards telling me that the ZIS 5 never had that big clunky fender on the front and showed me a pic of it with a simple bar across the front of it. So, I cut off that big clunky fender; carved down the front pieces sticking out, and added a small styrene rod to the front of this model:

Ah yes, much better! You can see she has also been shot with Future for her decals.

Moving right along, I also shot a final coat of paint on the Traction Avant:

Then later I shot the coat of Future over it in preparation for the decals:

I also shot a coat of green on the little Tatra staff car:

Later I added all the clear parts to it which were tougher than I expected they would be:

You can see here that they still need to be adjusted.

After that, she also got a coat of Future for the decals:

Since I was shooting Future on everything; I also shot a coat over my British Warrior which had been waiting for it for awhile:

Now if I can only find the instruction sheet for this, I can add the decals to it!

Speaking of needing instruction sheets; I brought this bus to finish it off since it had been sitting for too long. I added the detail parts (which have since been painted) and I shot primer on the P/E rack so it would hold paint better:

But when I went to read the instructions to find out where and how to apply the P/E, that part of the instruction sheets was missing........naturally.......


So, moving on again, I brought out my Japanese three-ton truck and trailers and shot paint on them all so I could move on with them. I had to shoot inside the cab, as well as the bed of the truck. I then shot green on the two trailers. Here is the truck all dry-fit together:

Here's the water tank all painted in it's basecoat of green:

And the kitchen trailer all painted in it's basecoat of green:

Here's a mock-up of how it's gonna look all together:

Finally, at the Hobby Day, I pulled out the Br-86 train engine and added all the detail parts to the boiler. I also built up and added the cab to the boiler afterwards. Here it is dry-fit to the lower chassis:

Check out some of the detail inside this cab. Most of it will be relatively hidden, but it is so cool:

Later on, I cemented the parts of the coal bin together, and dry-fit that to the back of the cab and then to the lower chassis to see how it looks:

Later on at home, I was re-arranging my Hobby Room and found a few projects I'd almost forgotten about. One of them I pulled out to continue working on since it is for the "First Blood" Campaign here; it is my horse drawn machine gun wagon. I'll be showing all this on that campaign thread too, but for those who don't follow it; I have it here as well.

Last time I was working on this; I lost one horse's tail. So, the first thing I did was to shoot a coat of grey over the wagon parts and set them aside to dry:

I realized I used the wrong color grey on this. I need to shoot a new coat of the Panzer dark Grey, then use this grey to modularize the color. I'll get on that soon.

Next, while the paint was drying on the wagon; I pondered what to do about the horse's missing tail. Then I found a piece of sprue that had a bent piece where the corner was at the end. So, I carved that down to a more slender piece at the bend and down the sprue a bit. I then dipped the carved section in some Tamiya Extra Thin cement for a minute or three until the surface was soft enough. Meanwhile, I found a Dremel bit that would work well at what I wanted to do. After pulling the softened plastic out of the glue; I ran the serrated edge of the bit down the softened part of the sprue to make wavy grooves. Here is a pic of the result with the glue, sprue and Dremel bit:

A closer look at the new 'tail'. It's kind of hard to see given the white plastic, but I think it looks pretty good:

Later I drilled a new 'arsehole' for the horse to make the tail fit more firmly:

After adding the new tail, I did some preliminary painting of the horses; adding some detail and experimenting with their coats a bit. Here is a shot of the two horses; the one showing off his new tail:

And for fun, here is a mock-up of the machine gun wagon and hitch with the two horses:

This one is coming along well and will hopefully be finished soon. I did some more painting of the horses and have noticed a few shrink marks that need to be filled before I can do the final painting; but at least I have an idea of what to do now.

And that concludes my update for this week. Thanks all for stopping in to check this out. Feel free to leave comments; they are always welcome.

 

[moon puppy]

Pretty good work Mark, nice save on the horses tails.

 

[Sherman 18]

What an update.

I really like that locomotive

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks guys! I was quite surprised that I managed to get so much done. Now if only I could get some of these finished!

 

[randy_ditton]

Hi Mark,

Great to see your production line in full swing


Those vendor rooms at the convention were pretty overwelming!!


Randy

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks Randy! Yeah, they sure wiped out all the progress I had made in reducing my stash of unbuilt kits. Oh well, at least I have another two more years to go until the next Nationals that I might be able to attend. Maybe I'll have some room by then!

 

[Duke Maddog]

Hey everyone, just a small update today. I got a little bit done on a couple of my models this past Saturday, so here's the results so far.

First off is the little Russian Pickup truck I've been working on. A friend of mine sent me the missing photo-etch pieces that came off when I stripped the paint. Here it is with the primed Photo-etch attached:

Later on I shot another coat of Gloss Black and finished it up.

Next I moved on to my modern Japanese three-ton truck. I finally got the interior painted and added the dashboard decal:

Next up, I finished the cab and glued that and the bed into place on the Chassis:

This truck now has the windows masked off for some more touch-up painting.

And finally, I had just enough time to start a project I've been wanting to build for awhile. This is Trumpeter's 1/72 scale Dicker Max. I got started on the interior first before I ran out of time:

Again, another short update, but at least I'm getting things done. Speaking of getting things done, I finished two more models; the pickup and the French Traction Avant Staff Car. Feel free to check them out in the finished Armor Models Forums. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.