Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Re-Opening

[Duke Maddog]

Now it's a new year and the final Pass in Review has been posted. Time to reopen Maddog Manufacturing and show what is happening this year!

Before we show all the new construction, we'll recap some of the projects that had been sidelined in the past.

In the Hangar we have these projects in the works that I'm hoping we'll finish this year. Frankly I'm tired of their boxes taking up space!

In the first bay here we have this monstrosity, the A-400 Grizzly. It's about time to get this bird done:

Next is this one, another large plane that needs finishing. This is the C-54 Skymaster that I need to get done:

Another long term project that has driven me crazy is this Japanese Shinmeiwa. Time to get this finished:

We also have this Russian Shtormovik under construction:

Speaking of Russians, we need to move forward on this Ka-29 Helix:

And now on to current projects, This is an ancient Airfix F-5B Tiger II with Iranian markings. We started this as a fast and easy going build. Our first Aircraft started in 2023:

Another new project started, another big box model. This is Trumpeter's Russian Tu-95 Bear H. So far all we got done was the wings and tail surfaces. That was hard enough!

And a final first start for the year is this Revell Concorde I got from an estate sale. This one will be in British Airways markings because that's all that was included in the box. We started with the cockpit on this one:

The tail was a separate assembly so that was next:

Revell got smart, they had outer wing panels set to glue into the upper wing sections behind the leading edge so no edge seam can be seen. Then the whole sub assembly is attached to the central lower wing after adding the main landing gear bays:

The main fuselage is then put together; first by adding the bulkheads they included to allow it to keep it's shape:

The tail is just taped on to mock it up and see how big this beastie is going to be. Speaking of mocking it up, here's how the wings and fuselage look together more or less:

That's all that's happening in the Hangar, lets go out to the Shipyards...



In our Shipyards, we have the following in our slipways. Our biggest project is this USS Enterprise:

She's going to move up on the list of models to do first. Meanwhile, another slipway has the USS Sacramento which is very close to being launched:

You can see the additional deck fittings that were added to the superstructure. The hull and superstructure or not glued together.....yet.

In another slipways we had laid down the keel to another motor torpedo boat; this one from Vospers:

So far that where that one stands, It is stalled due ot the two-tone paint pattern on the hull sides. It involves a curve that I need to replicate on both sides. Hopefully more to come on that soon.

Followed by another Vospers boat in the next slipway, this time the Perkasa Motor Torpedo Boat. First the main bridge interior was constructed:

Then the outer cabin was completed....mostly:

The engine cover was completed next and the whole boat was mocked up:

This is gonna be awesome!

That's all that's happening in the shipyards now. Let's see what's going on in the Motor Pool.



Surprisingly. there isn't anything being worked on from the previous year, save for this commission build of this TKS. It's slowly coming along:

The only other projects we started for this new year in the Motor Pool is this British LRDG truck. The chassis was assembled first:

Followed by the main cab:

That was mostly done; I had gotten this from a friend's estate who passed away back in August. He did well, but hadn't done the chassis so I had to build that above. Since he had also completed the back bed, I didn't have to worry about it so I shot this pick of all three sub assemblies altogether:

Finally there is this little FWD 3-ton ammo carrier. This was another acquisition from the estate and was about half finished. So, we finished it up and got it ready for paint. Since I have one built with the cab cover and cargo cover; this one will be a 'convertible':

And that completes this first tour of Maddog Manufacturing during the 2023 Grand Reopening! Thank you to all for coming along and as always, comments are welcome.

 

[Big10]

Who makes the A-400? That's one large kit.

 

[iambrb]

Neat stuff! Looking forward to seeing your work

 

[Duke Maddog]

Big10 Revell makes the A-400. When I saw that, I wondered why they didn't do a C-17 as well since this plane looks just like one with propellers. I'm sure there are differences but I'm gonna try and finish this so I have room for the C-17 when I can get one.

Bruce, Thank you. Stay tuned as more is coming....

 

[Duke Maddog]

After another busy Hobby Day weekend, it's time for another tour! We have a bit more to see again this time. All aboard the trams for the next tour as we had on over to our first stop in the Hangar....

Here in the Hangar, we start with the A-400 in this first bay. About all that was done was sand down the rough filler around the joints between the wings and the fuselage. Once the weather is dry enough to fire up the airbrush, we'll be getting that re-painted:

After that, we decided to get a small head start by adding the decals to the tail:

If I have a tight enough fit on that tail, I might just leave the tail unglued for ease of transport. We'll see...

Moving on to the next bay, additional work was done on the Concorde. We got the front office painted up and ready for decals:

After that was the attempt to assemble the moving outer canopy after having masked it off for painting:

While we were burnishing down the tape on this, it snapped right down the middle! I was incredulous and furious since there was no reason for it to happen. We added more clear parts cement to hold it together after installing it on the moving brackets. Hopefully it holds.

While that was drying, we also masked off the inner canopy to have that ready for paint as well:

Once the canopy was masked, we added the decals to the cockpit and cemented it into the other half of the nose assembly:

Finally, an attempt was made to build the engine nacelles:

There's still a few more parts to add to that, then there is the putty and sanding needed to smooth that out.

In the next bay, we have this Russian Shtormovik which needed the clear parts added. However, the main canopy slide fell down and disappeared so we dug into the spares box to find something else that would serve. It may not be accurate, but it sure looks better:

And since we were adding clear parts, we also added the canopy and windscreen to the F-5B in the next bay after painting the pilot:

That canopy and windscreen was eventually masked off to paint this little plane.

In this last bay we have more work done on the Bear. The cockpit was assembled and later painted:

I can't help but feel like that cockpit is 'wrong'. The pilot seats look way underscale and they are so far apart, but not much will be seen through the windscreen so I'm not going to worry about it. We moved on and assembled the inner nacelles and main landing gear:

The fit was still a small bit rough, but there was at least a lot of places to add glue to hold them together. Here they are dry fit to the wings:

After seeing that above, I figured , why not? and we did the outer nacelles too. Once again, they are all just dry fit in place:

That is about all we got done in the Hangar, it's now time to move on to the next stop on our tour.


Here in the Shipyards, we got quite a bit done. Starting in slipway one here, we had to make some changes to the USS Sacramento. In checking on this ship, I realized the boot stripe was too thin. I also noticed too many steps and loose seams on the hull. Using thin strip styrene and thick putty, we repaired the hull; and started repainting it. First was the grey upper section:

We then masked off the grey and painted the black boot stripe; this time making it much thicker:

Later that was masked off and the bottom hull was painted the hull red. Once everything was dry, the masking came off and we had our new hull:

Once that was done, most all the extra detail parts were added to the ship:

All that's left now are the photo etch parts and the cargo helicopters, the forklift (yes, they provide a 1/700 scale forklift with this ship!) and this ship will be ready for launching...

Meanwhile in this next slipway, we laid down the keel for the DKM Peter Strasser, the second proposed aircraft carrier for the German Navy. Why am I starting a ship that never existed? Well, they did lay down the keel to this ship and even built it up almost to the flight deck so it is still a viable ship to add to my navy in my opinion. It's not like any sketch on a paper napkin like so much of the wild German armor that so many companies are making into models.

Speaking of building it up to the flight deck, that is where we were after the first day. The flight deck is just placed on top:

Later all the side sponsons were added as well as some other details:

Most of the island was then built up, minus the tall and delicate masts:

Here it is all mocked up to see how much more needs to be done before painting can start:

Moving on to the next slipway, we laid the keel for another German ship. Actually this time it's a boat, the German S-100 Schnellboot. This went together fast and easy. We started with the bridge:

You an see the armored shell that goes on the front of this. Later the upper deck was added to the hull:

This is one long boat! Some preliminary deck painting was done on the wooden sections of the decks and additional details were painted on the bridge:

Finally the fore deck and other additional details were added, in preparation for painting this beastie:

In this next slipway, we continued working on the Vospers Perkasa MTB, building the torpedo carriages, dry fitting the torpedoes to them and then dry fitting them to the deck. Additional small parts were added and the whole thing was mocked up to see how it is coming along:

We also built up the structure on the stern:

While all that was drying, we turned to the guns, getting them assembled. First came the 20mm cannon:

There is one sub assembly missing from that gun. It is a box that has to be closed up with the lid. Well, we found the lid, but no box, so that whole sub assembly is not on there. Moving on, we did the twin machine guns, a much easier yet more delicate assembly:

We got all the parts on that one at least!

That completes the tour of the Shipyards, now on to the Motor Pool....




Not much was done in the Motor Pool, but we did make a little progress on this LRDG truck, building the gun and adding all the body parts to the chassis:

Moving on to the next bay, we started the engine for the next Russian SCUD, this time the SCUD C:

It might be hard to make out as all the little sub assemblies were kept on the sprues where possible. While that was drying he SCUD missile itself was built:

Finally, in this last bay against the back wall, we commenced assembling the track runs for the P-1000 Ratte. Yes, it is a complete fabrication I know, but this huge 1/72 scale model is being built because I want to make it into a carrying case for all my new armor I build and take to shows. Here's what we got assembled so far:

Yes, they do snap together and are fully workable. I occasionally run into short shot track links but there seems to be enough to make up for that.




Now that completes our latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing, we appreciate your interest and welcome all comments. Thank you again for stopping in.

 

[Rhino]

I will watch your Graf Zeppelin progress with great interest. It isn't a contest, but I'll wager it won't take 10 years or more to finish your vessel!

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Chris! It might take five, it depends on how much this fights me when it's time for paint.

Another tour coming soon....

 

[Duke Maddog]

It's February and time for the first tour of the manufacturing plant to see what's being worked on this month. It's been a bit if a slow month except for the Shipyards. Since there is so much happening there, we'll start at the Shipyards.


The first thing that was done was to spray the darker grey on the hulls of the two Vospers wartime boats; you can see both boats here:

The question now was how am I supposed to mask off the unique curved line of the hull to spray the lighter color on the hull? I came up with an idea: first, a pattern was drawn and redrawn and redrawn on a thin sheet of styrene until I had something that looked right:

That was then cut out. Then we put down some wide tape on a flat, clean surface and used the template to draw out two patterns:

I then realized that the darker grey wasn't covering enough of the hull, so we sprayed the whole sides of both the 71 and 73 foot Vospers:

Now it was time to test out these masks, we applied them to the 71 footer first:

After both sides were masked, we shot the lighter color on the hull and superstructure. It turned out okay enough for me:

After that dried enough, we painted up the deck:

The deck isn't fully painted, we need to get into the tighter areas with a smaller brush. Then a medium dark brown wash will go over it.

The 73 footer will be masked and shot next. Until then, we'll move onto the next slip to see the German S-Boot....

The instructions called for two of these deck circles to be removed and so we did; making a bit of a mess with it:

However, once some liquid cement was applied to melt all the loose shavings back down, it started to look better once painted.

The painted top deck was then masked off after removing the bridge parts, which were masked as well for their paint:

You'll notice I removed the red stickers from the armored bridge front piece; it was there to protect the two antenna(?) posts on the front. Naturally, soon afterward, I bent one over and had to fix it. After all that masking was done, we shot the light grey over the whole thing. Once it was dry, we removed the masking and then added the bridge again to see how much touch up needed to be done. Fortunately, not too much:

And now for a little close up on the bridge. The binocular assembly will be painted black later:

It sure looks good in pictures....

Moving on to the next slip, we managed to get a bit more done on the USS Enterprise. First, the stern was assembled with most of the major parts needed:

After that, most of the major platforms and additional parts were added to the island to finish the major construction on that. Seams were also filled in:

The main flight deck was then glossed for decals, but that will most likely wait as they kit requires one to paint every single line on that deck, including the ones surrounding the elevators. Gee that is going to be fun! Anyway, here it is all mocked up showing it ready for hull and island painting at least:

My apologies for leaving the S-Boot in that pic; I had nowhere else to put it....



That completes this part of the tour in the Shipyards, now let's see what's happening in the Hangar....


Not much had been happening here but some small progress was made on the A-400. First, the wing seams that had been filled and sanded had been painted over with a fresh coat of grey:

That turned out a bit better than I expected, given how hard this model has been fighting me. Later, this was sprayed with a gloss so that decals could be applied next.

Over in the next bay, we finally completed the assembly of the engines on the Concorde and started sanding them smooth:

The lower wing was then glued to the main fuselage, making sure all seams and joints were glued and closed:

Here you can see one major gap that will need to be filled; I'm thinking sheet styrene will do fine:

Finally, we made every effort to close up the nose of this plane and still have the nose droop like it's supposed to. I don't know how successful we were, but this forward fuselage pod is completed:

It's funny, I'd been focusing on this because I figured it would be a fairly easy and fast model to finish. Boy did I figure wrong!


That completes the tour of the Hangar, now on to the Motor Pool....

Here in the first second bay, we started the SCUD D right next to the SCUD C in the first bay. The rocket was built first; here it is next to the SCUD C rocket:

Then the chassis for the SCUD D was assembled. It looks like the SCUD C chassis since we built it to the same level as the SCUD C:

In the back corner of the Motor Pool, we started one more project; not military either....

Now this last project is one I'm doing for a "Monogram Mafia" Group Build on another Forums. The story behind this is that one of my friends from a Forums which shall not be named, got tired of people dissing Monogram models. Having built quite a few myself, I also agree, they look good when finally completed. So, he started a Monogram Mafia over there, challenging everyone to build one. However, to be a "made" man; you had to build two in a six month period. Flash forward about a decade or so, and he and I are on another Forums; one of the two best I've been a part of since the LEM passed away. The discussion on Monogram models came up again and he was invited to start up "La Familia" again. Now that you know the background, here is one of the two models I'm doing to become a "made" man over there: this is the Monogram 1/24 scale (yes you read that right!) Packard Phaeton spots car.

First, we primed the body in preparation for the color coat:

This one will be green, but a more vibrant green than all these other military vehicles. While that was drying, we started the engine, getting it assembled completely:

Next, the chassis was assembled and then the engine was added to stabilize the fragile construction. The rear disk brakes were added to check for potential floating wheels:

That is as far as we got on that.


This completes the latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing, the first one in February. Thank you all for joining us and as always, comments are welcome.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Happy Valentine's Day weekend to everyone, and now it's time for the Valentine's Day weekend tour of Maddog Manufacturing. Thanks to a fantastic Hobby Day weekend, we were able to get a lot done. So, all aboard the trams, the tour begins now....


Starting in the Hangar again, we have a little bit of work done on a couple aircraft. This first one is the Iranian F-5B Tiger II which got a shot of Tamiya bare Metal Silver out of the rattle can. This can was almost empty so the results were not what was expected or hoped for. It looked like a metallic leopard to be honest. So, a bit of a strip, another shot of primer and then a new attempt with a Testor's rattle can of metallic aluminum. This wasn't so good either:

Back to the drawing board with that one. Gee for an easy and uncomplicated build, this sure needs ridiculous effort!


The next aircraft we worked on was the Concorde. we tried to get the linkages inside the nose to work correctly but failed. So, we capped off the nose with the final nose cone:

No, the nose isn't broken, this is as far as the nose droops despite my efforts to make it work correctly. At least it works partially:

After all that, we cemented on the tail section and the engines, and snapped on the forward fuselage to see how big this is. This beastie spans nearly three feet; or 1.8 meters for those across the Pond. You can kinda get an idea from the standard sized paper clip that is barely visible above the forward fuselage. I forgot to put something down to show length, and that was there after I took the picture so that's the size reference:

There's going to be a lot of filling and sanding on that monster, then hopefully it'll be made smooth enough for a white coat later on.



That is all in the Hangar, as I mentioned, not much done. Let's head over to the Shipyards now to see the work done there.

This past week, all of the work was done on the smaller boats. Starting in this first slip, we have the 71 foot Vospers masked up ready to paint the boot stripe:

Boot stripe was then painted and set aside to dry:

After that was dry, the boot stripe was taped over and the bottom of the hull was painted the hull red from Humbrol. Here it is still wet:

Later on after that dried, all the masking was removed and we got to see how much touch up was going to be needed:

In the next slip, the 73 foot Vospers was still masked off for paint. The lower hull is supposed to be painted mostly black except for a section at the bow:

...so paint was laid down:

When that dried, it was masked off to prepare for airbrushing the light grey on to the rest of it:

While we had the black out, We decided to mask off the aft of the Vospers Perkasa to shoot black:

...and the black was shot on:

Then we saw that the S-100 Schnellboot had a black lower hull, so that was masked off to be shot:

Black paint was shot:

And later the mask was removed to see how well it looked:

We'll be able to move forward on that fairly quickly.

That completes the tour of the Shipyards, now on to the Motor Pool....



Here in the Motor Pool, production has finally picked up. There has been a lot of projects I have been wanting to get going on in addition to the SCUDS we're building. These were pulled out to get started.

In this first bay, we built the hull and running gear for the Russian SA-5 Gainful. This went together very fast and easy:

Next all three missiles were built:

The we built the launcher assembly and loaded the missiles on to it. The missiles are not glued in:

Gee, that took all of 15 minutes to do. This is now ready for paint.

After that, we pulled out another quick and easy model; this time the fifth SA-2 SAM launcher for the SA-2 SAM battery I'm trying to build. Again, fast and easy:

The missile was built next:

Later the missile was loaded onto the launcher, but mot glued in to make painting easier. This is also now ready for paint:

Since the battery needs some reload trucks with missile reloads, I decided it was time to bring out the ancient Airfix kit and get started on the truck. First, the basic chassis and underside was done on the tractor portion:

Next, the transport trailer was completed:

Finally the whole thing got mocked up to see how it's gonna look:

This kit also comes with a launcher as well, so I'll have my sixth launcher for this battery.

These were all simple kits we worked on in between work on the SCUDs. Starting with the SCUD C, we built up the first of the body sections, this one goes right behind the driver's cab:

That was a bit of a diversion to relax from having added all the axle and wheel hubs to the main chassis, as well as the plates underneath:

Finally, the remaining body sections were built and staged on the chassis t see how they will fit. You can see I left off the sides of the command cabin so we can get the interior painted first:

After getting that far on the SCUD C, we moved ahead on the SCUD D, completing the basic chassis:

Later the engine was built and installed on the chassis:

After that we managed to get two of the four body sections built. Again, the sides of the command cabin are left off for interior painting:

Finally, on another Forums, a Sherman Group Build was started, so I decided to make one more attempt to finish a UM Models Sherman. I had started five others previous to this and failed miserably to complete them. This is the UM Sherman with the T-17 rocket launcher mounted to go along with my Calliope. The hull was started first as usual:

You can see the front of that 3-piece tranny cover did not turn out right. Despite my best efforts, those five pieces refused to fit right; the curve of the hull parts came nowhere near the same curve on the bolt arches. I cannot worry about that anymore, or this will be another UM Sherman confined to the Shelf of Doom, never to be completed. We moved on....

The upper hull was mounted on the lower hull and the turret was started:

The turret later got finished up, all except for the most delicate parts hat would break during consequent building. The upper hull also got a few caps and other round parts added:

Next we added the photo etch parts and the remaining fender pieces to the hull. The drive sprockets and idlers were added as well:

Finally, we came to the running gear. Normally I've had no issues with building these; it's always the photo etch skids that have invariably tripped me up, making it impossible for me to finish (if the kit wasn't already missing vital parts...that's another story)

Slowly and carefully we assembled these bogies; when it came time to add the photo etch skids, we annealed the etch and used the included jig to bend them into place. They ain't perfect, but they're DONE!

We wasted no time after these were sufficiently dry enough; they got installed on the lower hull and the tracks were then added:

After all of that, we were done for the day. Any further work will be done another time.


That concludes the Valentine's weekend tour of these facilities. Thank you all for stopping in and joining the tour. Comments are always welcome.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Welcome to the next tour of Maddog Manufacturing. It's gonna be a pretty long one, but most of the work to be seen will be in the Motor Pool. Very little was done in the Hangar and Shipyards. So, all aboard the trams, and remember to keep hands and feet inside at all times.


That being said, let's check out the progress in the Hangar....

One of my shelf queens I've been trying to move forward on is the C-54 that I started quite a few years ago. This has been a far more complicated model than expected. This week, all we did was to complete the last of the four engines that still needed to be built. Each one had seven parts to it:

Those will be painted sometime later then we'll be able to move on.

Over in the Shipyards, a little more progress was done, almost all on the British Vospers 73ft MTB.

First, after the black bottom dried, it was masked off so that the light grey could be shot on the hull:

Here it is after the Grey was shot:

And now the masking has come off:

Later this will be gloss coated and decals added, then the clear parts will go in the portholes and we'll move on.

The last thing that was done in the Shipyards was painting the green on the deck of the Vospers Perkasa:

That's all we have for this week in the shipyards, it's time to go check out the Motor Pool...

There's a lot that's been happening in the Motor Pool this past few weeks. First up is this Russian truck that I chose because it as simple and easy to build. This is the Hobby Boss Russian Ural 4320 cargo truck, and the first thing that was done was to assemble the rather basic engine:

It won't be seen so that is the extent of that work. Once dry, it was added to the chassis along with all the other suspension parts:

Later we added the spare tire cradle that sits behind the cab:

The cab itself just needed fenders attached:

The interior was done next, there's a lot of detail inside:

Here is a dry fit to see how it fits on the chassis. Because of the unique way it goes around the engine, this was a tough fit. It looks great in the end though:

Finally, painting was begun. Inside of the cab was painted first, and then I found a decal for the dashboard. Cool! That went in next:

We then assembled the bed of the truck while the decal was drying:

After that, the exterior was painted. Here is everything roughly dry fit together:

Hopefully a gloss and decals will go on soon.

Moving on to the next bay, we have another truck, this one pulls the trailer holding the SA-2 reloads. Paint was added to the interior, but there's still more to do. I have the driver to paint. Meanwhile additional parts were added to the bed and the cab was dry fit to the front of the truck:

The trailer then received all the remaining detail parts to be ready for paint:

Next we just had to assemble the load, one SA-2 SAM:

That missile has 20 parts to it. Not like the Hobby Boss one that I built before!

Moving on, we dry fit everything together. Looking good:

After that, the launcher had to be built:

Finally, the paint came out again. The whole exterior got shot with the green basecoat:

Don't worry, the launcher base did not break, it comes apart so I left it that way until later.

Since the green paint was out, the next one to get a basecoat of green was the SA-6 Gainful in the next bay:

That is coming along well. We also went to the next two bays where we painted most of the parts for the two SCUD trucks. First the SCUD C:

And then the SCUD D:

Finally, we shot the green basecoat over the SA-2 launcher; the Hobby Boss one. I call it Launcher No. 5 since it's the fifth one I'm building for my SA-2 SAM site:

After all that, it was time to get back to building something. We started on this old PST Russian PMZ-2 fire tanker still sealed in the shrink wrap. Out it came and the basic chassis was built:

The the cab parts and the tank were built. Here they are dry fit on the chassis:

That's where we stopped on that. After that I was looking for something quick and easy and so the dragon Stryker Dragoon came out. I was always trying to get this to add to my Stryker family, and finally it had come in. The Hull was built first; it took all of 15 minutes:

Next the turret was built. Another five minutes, but we were taking our time:

Next the inner wheel hubs were added. Dragon makes them so they all roll, and they roll well! The outer wheels will go over these, after the tires are glued onto them. Additional parts were added to the hull as well and the turret was placed:

The inner wheels were masked and the whole thing got it's basecoat of green:

Wow, that was fast!

Following these, we pulled out an ancient ESCI M48A5, the only Patton variant issued in 1/72 scale that I didn't have in my collection. First, the wheels were grooved to give the appearance that it's two roadwheels per axle and not one big fat slick each. Then they were all installed on the lower hull:

Next most of the detail parts went on the upper hull:

And then the turret was built, just a basic assembly at first:

We added the tracks and then dry-fit everything together to see how all of it fits. Looking good:

Just before painting, the last detail parts were added and the searchlight was built and installed. While trying to get the hand rails on the side of the turret to stay where they are supposed to, some of the holes we drilled ghrew too big. We made an effort using acrylic putty to fill them in. We were mostly successful:

The dark green basecoat was applied next. Later we'll break out the Silly Putty and start adding the other three camouflage colors:

While contemplating another project while the Patton dried; I spied another ancient ESCI kit: a Churchill with mine rollers. I'd already built one, but this gave me options for a Canadian one, so we got started on that for my Canadian Army. First we built the mine roller frame:

Next we started on the basic hull getting most of it assembled:

This is gonna be a long beastie again:

Later the turret was built, and placed on the hull, again with the frame positioned in front:

Finally, the tracks were completed and the fenders installed, along with most of the additional detail parts. I had trouble with those fenders as they were pretty warped:

Yes, I left the turret hatches off; there's a TC that goes there and I wanted to have them left open for him to pop his head out.

Finally, all the mine rollers were completed and installed on the frame. Once dry, the whole assembly was glued onto the tank:

After that dried, it got a basecoat of Olive Drab:

Finally, I tried again to get the T-17 rocket mounts to work. The instructions show one end of the barrel mount attaches under the T-17 rack and is not supposed to be glued so the whole thing moves when the gun is elevated and lowered. However, There is no hole or pin to go there to hold it; the "ring" on the bottom of the rack is molded solid and the rocker arms also have closed up ends where this is supposed to be pinned to move. So, after five efforts later to get these things opened and fastened correctly in a way that allows movement, I finally ended up here. The white strip on the side of that rocker arm is to hold the larger loop in place; it kept breaking off. After gluing it back five times, I decided to reinforce it with that. The other one got one too later. The Exacto blade shows how small these things are:

These are all the parts for the rocket rack's mount along with the rack itself. If you look closely, you'll see my attempts to get the upper rocker arms done right to make this work. The side mounts went together well at least. This was taken before the reinforcement attempts, but you can see the outrageous parts I have to deal with. It's no wonder I never never finish a UM Sherman:

Back when we shot the green on the Perkasa deck, we had also shot the same green on my Packard. The first time it had some dust on it, so we sanded it down with very fine grit:

Later a second coat was airbrushed on. Yes, it looks a bit grainy, but it is a dull color. I'm going to buff it and then gloss it:

And that concludes our latest tour tour of the plant. I hope you enjoyed it, feel free to leave comments, they are always welcome.

Thank you for coming in!

 

[Flyingbabydoc]

Hi Mark

It is a pleasure to see you again and of course your many, many projects. Good luck with them I will be watching as usual.

Cheers

Alex

 

[Duke Maddog]

Alex, I'm thrilled to see you here, thanks for following along. Stay tuned, more to come.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Wow, I just realized one of my posts here disappeared or never got posted. Hmmm.

Oh well, I'll just move on with my latest tour. Pics forthcoming later....

 

[Duke Maddog]

Here is the latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing. First, we'll show you some of the renovations being done to help improve things. This has been a long time coming. So, all aboard the trams and remember to keep hands and feet inside; especially now with all the renovation construction debris everywhere...

This is what was done first, rendering the 'plant' unusable for a while. This is the one side of the room where my workbench and staging area are:

The reason for this? Right here. I have some new shelves that will be holding so many things in a far more organized manner. This is the view from the door. You can see half of my armor tubs already in place along with a few other things; some of which will not stay there:

Later on, I re-positioned my wife's sewing cabinet (after removing her sewing machine) into a new position to hold more model kits in a more organized manner. I also added a long shelf along the side in front of my model shelves for the purpose of holding even more model kits. This is on the opposite side of the new shelves facing the closet:

Then I placed the remaining armor tubs on the one side of the long shelf board, along with some open boxes of models under construction. Using sturdy display boxes from Costco, I filled them with more models kits to organize them better, as well as a couple boxes of smaller in-progress models. The plastic totes behind the armor tubs are holding many, many parts that I will need to sort out and organize later:

That was two days of work.I still have to clear the workbench and the chair I use as well as some of the rest of that side of the room before I can use it again. Until then, here is what we got done in between the two renovation days and at our weekly Monday Hobby Nights.

Starting in the Hangar we can show the start of a new aircraft this is part of a mini group build on another boards. This is the Eduard Weekend Edition of the Me-110. Naturally, we started with the interior and cockpit:

Then the wings and engine nacelles were built up:

We then decided to place the interior inside the wing cavity for fun:

We have a good amount of interior detailing and decals to add to that before we can close it up inside the fuselage.


Now lets see what's going on in the Shipyards....

Here in the Shipyards a lot has been happening there, especially in the smaller slipways. To start with, the Vosper's 71 foot MBT, had the torpedo tubes and depth charges installed:

The mount for the 20mm gun was lost, so I had to fabricate a new stand. I calculated wrong on height, which was discovered later when I found the original part:

I'll have to decide later whether to remove my fabrication and use the original part later. Until then, all the remaining detail parts were added. All that is needed is the threads and the detail painting and this will be done:

The original kit did not have hull number decals, only a flagsheet. I'm considering trying to find a hull number to add to this.


Moving on to the next slipway, we had to do a marathon session of adding all the detail parts to the Vosper's 73 foot MBT due to the fact that the instruction sheet got stuck on a wayward piece of tape and practically disintegrated on one side with pieces falling off the other side:

We were on a roll, so instead of trying to find and download a new set of instructions, some serious construction commenced while the instructions could still be (barely!) read:

First, the bridge was built:

We then installed that onto the main deck, trying to get it to glue into the proper position:

We even tried a bit of persuasion, but this thing was stubborn:

You can see how stubborn it was by how it looks here when we tried applying the deck to the hull. This shot shows the deck placed on the hull to see how much persuasion it was going to need too:

That did need some persuasion but we applied a bit of glue to one section, allowed it to dry, then re-positioned the hull and deck to slowly glue it section by section into place. We then installed the railing around the forward gun. This was not so easy; the uprights were all individual pieces that had to be glued in place first, then the ring added later. Despite our best efforts, it isn't as pretty as it should look:

I was still not satisfied with the bridge cabin, so drastic measures were taken. The whole thing was removed and disassembled:

This time it was reassembled in situ right on the deck to insure everything lined up properly as it is supposed to do, starting with the troublesome side walls:

Later, just before the glue seriously set, the interior was added to the side walls, lined up and glued in place with a great clamp providing extra support:

After that dried, all the extra parts were installed at the stern of this boat; all but two of the mufflers because they both disappeared. They were too complicated for me to even consider scratching new ones so they got left off. The shafts, screws and rudders were also added at this time, hence the foam taped underneath to keep them from breaking off during handling:

The main mast was completed next, but not installed yet. That thing is screaming to break at the slightest pressure so it's being held off untill the very last:

Finally everything else was installed on the boat. Now for final touch ups, decals and thread and this will be finished too.

Following that, we masked off the bottom of the Vosper's Perkasa MBT and shot paint over the hull. The superstructure sub assemblies also got the same paint, even though it isn't shown here:

Later, we masked off the connection points on the deck and re-sprayed the green on the deck to make it a more uniform and solid color:

Here it is all mocked up to see how it will (hopefully!) look:

While we had that green out, we also shot it on the bottom of the hull for the Japanese PT-15, and we also shot the same grey over the PT-15 superstructure parts:

Finally, we started the PT-109 some days ago, getting it all assembled (mostly) and removing the life raft mounts on the forward deck. We plan on mounting a 37mm cannon on the deck like so many pictures of Kennedy's boat show:

This then got the overall OD green paint on it:

That completes what's happening in the Shipyards, we'll make a brief stop in the Motor Pool where only one things was started and another moved closer to the finish line. Next door to that in the miscellaneous workshop, we have something else to check in on as well.


Here in the Motor Pool, we started on a couple of simple Infantry Carts used by the Wehrmacht in WWII. It was something needed to clear the pallet. Assembly was quite straightforward; it includes two horses and troops. We did one of the horses and then built the carts. One cart has a couple mounting brackets for holding Panzershreks, while the other is supporting a self defense machine gun:

Next, since we were shooting OD green on the PT-109, we also shot some on the M-4 Sherman sporting the M-17 rocket launcher on top of the turret:

After a clear gloss coat, the decals went on:

This tank did not sport the white stars originally. I just took some artistic license and added them as I think it makes this tank look better.

Finally next door, we repainted the hood on the Packard, giving it a nice smoother and more consistent color:

Later this was gloss coated for the shine:

Meanwhile, the interior was built up:

And that concludes this tour, thank you all for coming and remember comments are welcome.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Okay, I know I've had a few updates since this; I don't know why I'm not seeing my followup posts. So, we are going to start again with the latest models on the construction line.


Despite having almost no time, I was able to get a bit more progress done, and even finished a few models. Some of those models have already been posted so these pics will show them on the way to the dispersal yard or dock.

Okay, lets start this tour by boarding the trams and heading out to the Hangar.

There's been some good progress in the Hangar here, starting with the two Spitfires we've been working on.

First, the Mk XIV got the decals in the cockpit which was also glued to the right fuselage half:

Meanwhile, the Mk VIII got the fuselage assembled and the wings and tails installed:

In this next bay, the German Me-110 got the final details added to the interior and sides of the fuselage halves:

This enabled us to then close it all up inside the fuselage:

Progress was quickly made as the wings and tail were then added:

Later the nose and exhaust were installed. The nose sub assembly had four parts to assemble before they could be mounted on the front of this plane:

That completes the tour of the Hangar, lets move on to the Motor Pool as my Shipyard crews are taking a much needed break after completing three boats.



Here in the Motor Pool, we have in this first bay the Russian FROG-7 Luna. First, the tires were dusted and weathered. This meant adding Tamiya weathering powders to the tire treads and then wiping them carefully off the raised surfaces after it dried:

Next the missile itself was painted and decaled. I tried to eliminate the silvering but no matter how many times I poked holes with a brand new Exacto blade and added Solvaset; they stubbornly remained silvered:

Finally, the decals were added to the main truck and then it was weathered:

Later on, the wheels and tires were added, the missile was loaded and she was sent to the dispersal yard for delivery to my Russian Army. You might have already seen those pics.

Moving on to the next bay, we got the base coat of green on the Sa-4 Ganef:

The missiles were then painted and the decals added. Once again, as with the FROG-7, these decals resisted all efforts to remove the silvering. Here's one of them. There were something like 30+ decals to add to each missile, I decided we'd only use about half of them:

This was then taken for a test drive sans missiles and brought back very dirty. Here it is before a loot of that dust and debris came off:

This one has since been cleaned up and the missiles loaded and final details added. She has now been sent to the dispersal yard for delivery to my Russian Army.

In this next bay we have the British Scimitar Mk.2. Almost all the assembly has been done and so the photo etch was then added:

All that was left, with the exception of breakable details was the base coat of green:

And that completes this short tour of Maddog Manufacturing again. Thank you all who stopped in to see this latest tour.

 

[Sharkmouth]

There's been some good progress in the Hangar here, starting with the two Spitfires we've been working on.

First, the Mk XIV got the decals in the cockpit which was also glued to the right fuselage half:

Meanwhile, the Mk VIII got the fuselage assembled and the wings and tails installed:

Wow! You didn't waste time getting these started! Let me know if you need anything for them.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Saul! They have been great pallet cleansers. There've been a few issues but overall pretty fun and easy.

Stay tuned, more to come.

 

[Duke Maddog]

This has been a rather wild few weeks. I'm surprised I actually had time to work on my models. Now that I'm fighting a mild flu, I'm taking the time while I'm home to start a new tour showing what I have been able to get done in between fighting this thing and taking care of other things.

For those interested: all aboard the trams now for our next tour.



As always, we'll start in the Hangar...

Quite a bit has been done here, particularly since I've been sick and tired of some of these long term shelf queens. This particular one comes to mind:

The A-400 I started six years ago has been fighting me almost constantly. While I was applying the decals for the French Armee del'Air in this first bay, the main landing gear and nose gear constantly broke:

Because almost all of that won't be seen, I decided to try some out-of-the-box thinking to make these landing gear stronger. Here's one technique we used, gluing an angled piece to the main gear to support the forked wheels:

That's just one example; the rest glued just fine and I was able to finally call this beast done! One Shelf Queen finally off the Shelf of Doom!

Moving on to the next bay, we were able to slather a bunch of Mr. Surfacer 500 over the Spitfire Mk. VIII, give the number of crazy gaps and seams we had after gluing it together:

After a good amount of sanding, things started looking better on this Mk.VIII:

Once I was satisfied with our sanding job, we added the canopy and windscreen to this so we could mask it all later and get ready for paint:

I was very pleased with the fit of this.

The Spitfire Mk. XIV in the bay next door, did not need nearly as much attention, a good sanding took care of those issues. However, I did lose the little cockpit door so we replaced it with some sheet styrene:

Later on that canopy and windscreen went on too:

While we were doing canopies and windscreens, we decided to finish off the canopy/windscreen assembly on the Me-110 as well. All six parts fit together nicely:

Finally in this last bay, our improved cockpit assembly for the Tu-95 Bear was test fit inside the forward fuselage halves to see how it looks. It's a vast improvement over the kit supplied parts:

The forward fuselage halves were taped together and then taped to the rear fuselage assembly to see how this beastie is gonna look. She's a long one indeed as you can see by the Exacto blade next to it:

All we have to do is add some 50kg's of nose weight to this before we can close it up. Shouldn't be too long if I can recover quickly enough.

That's all that's happening in the Hangar for now. We'll bypass the Shipyards as they've been dormant for a bit and move on to the Motor Pool...



Here in the Motor Pool, we started a little Ford Model A car in 1/72 scale from Zebrano. It's a cool little car that started well:

I can't wait to start the little Stakebed truck I got and place it next to this!

Moving on, we found another Shelf Queen languishing in this back bay since 2015. It had been started for a "Modern Armor Group Build" on a Forum I left long ago, and while cleaning out the Motor Pool, we found it back here. Wheels were missing from it, and idler had broken off, but it was overall intact. It was time to start moving forward on this.

First of all, this is my Swedish Leopard 2A6, and here is what it looked like once the wheels were all glued back on. It is a Revell kit and was quite brittle after all this time. So, to preserve the wheels as much as possible, we took the one run of track and glued it to the bottom of the main roadwheels and then to the idler and drive sprockets to hold everything together:

The tracks don't wrap up far enough on either side, but it is enough to at least keep everything together. We can add more tracks later to close things up. You can also see we started the second of the three color splinter camouflage.


Later, the third color got applied. It was a mix with a gloss green to try and get the closest match to a field green I could so once I gloss this, decal it, and then flat coat it; everything should blend:

Another couple steps and another long term Shelf Queen will be off the Shelf of Doom....

Finally, I decided we should tackle the Armory ZSU-23-4 Shilka. Now you'll see why I am reluctant to get more Armory Shilka variants.

First, the four lower hull parts were glued together. Looks simple right? There was an interesting amount of shaving that was needed to make these parts fit this way, as the flash was so misleading:

And now for the craziness to begin. I shot all the first four steps of the lower hull assembly so you can see how much was needed to do even before adding the torsion bars for the roadwheels! The hull should show you how tiny these parts were too:

That pic above shows steps one, two and three for the lower hull. Next I thought we could start on the upper hull. Again, six parts to build this before getting to the hatches and engine deck details. It's obvious Armory does not have slide mold tech. I understand it is expensive for many smaller companies, but it shouldn't be too hard to simplify things a bit to make this fun. I don't mind detail parts but to break things down for the sake of adding to the parts count, is not cool. It did go together a bit better than the lower hull:

I decided to test fit the upper and lower hulls; as you can see from the inside, they will need a bit of finagling to sit right:

One other critique on this kit: there are no numbers and letters stamped on the sprue. One has to follow the sprue map on the instruction sheet:

That makes thing tough when you have to keep flipping back and fourth to find where the part is on what sprue. Once more larger parts start getting used, finding parts like this will be even more difficult to find, thus complicating this build even more. I've dealt with worse, so yes, this will get finished.

Well, that completes this short tour of Maddog Manufacturing again. Thank you to all who have joined this latest tour. Comments are always welcome.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Well, it has been awhile since the last tour, mostly because of difficulty with the PC which ended with erasing my entire ten-year history of photos taken with my camera. I'm also dealing with an unknown condition that has made driving for me too dangerous. At least I still have my hobby and now my PC is fixed enough to be able to start some more tours.

All aboard the trams, we will be departing soon for the Hangar....


Here in the Hangar, there has been only one project that we worked on, but a serious amount of work was done on it. This is a simple yet difficult kit from RPM; a very short run kit that I decided to start just to get it off the stash. It is a Russian Be-4 float plane, and the instructions had us start on the engine and cowling. After some intensive sanding, test fitting and sanding again, thwe engine finally sat in place correctly. There are no attachment points or guides for any of these parts:

Next we started on the "highly detailed cockpit". That consisted of adding the pilot seats to the main floor...that's it. Only they wanted us to place the seat bottom first and then 'scratch build' the seat backs! Forget that... I went straight to my parts box and added these seats instead:

Next the bulkheads went in place. They took a bit of finagling, as again; there's no guides or attachment points to put them in their proper place:

Finally, the "interiors" were added; I happen to find a third seat for the gunner/radio operator's station that matched the two pilot seats. You can see in this pic how the floors and bulkheads will need to be trimmed and sanded before the fuselage will close:

After a test fit, we moved the seats back:

After some snipping, sanding, test fitting, adjusting, readjusting, we finally got the fuselage together. It went together better than expected for such a short run kit:

There were still some seams and steps to deal with so out came Mr. Surfacer 500:

After test fitting the gunner's dome, I realized that seat needed to be trimmed so we got that trimmed down to fit:

Another test fit later; this time of the wing, we noticed that the pylon was too short and that the propeller would cut off the nose of the plane so an adjustment had to be made. We took some sprue from the kit; cut it to length, bent it a bit and then glued them into place:

Some judicious trimming and sanding later and the pylon is ready to take the wing and the propeller will be able to spin freely:

Speaking of the wing, it came in six parts. the center section is here:

The two outer halves on each side needed to be cemented together as well. We did this along with cementing all the outrigger floats and the tail plane halves together as well:

This poor molding leaves us with a butt joint that would break if you looked at it wrong:

Well, if they were not giving us a proper way to cement this together in any manner that would hold, we added some sprue runners that the end parts would be able to grip:

Here is the first attempt to glue the ends of the wing to the center:

You can see how poor fitting these are, worse than the fuselage. So, further adjustments were made...

...and made....

And since I still wasn't satisfied we took them apart and re-started them, hopefully finally getting the wing to look right. Pics of that forthcoming later during a follow on tour..

Meanwhile, the pylons were added to the outrigger floats:

You can see where we had to fill some holes where the pontoons themselves were short shot. They are ready for installation one the wing turns out satisfactory enough.

While waiting for the latest adjustment on the wing to take, we painted the interiors:

When test fitting the main canopy, we found it was too short to cover the whole cockpit opening, so we trimmed a piece of black sheet styrene to shape and added it to the front of the cockpit opening:

The results look much better and will look even better under paint:

Well, that completes the latest work in the Hangar, let's move on to the Motor Pool...



Here in the Motor Pool, a lot has been happening. We have two civilian automobiles in progress, one big scale and one small. On the small one, the Zebrano Model A Ford, we finally got the main body assembled and fastened to the chassis:

You can see all the dust that blew in from the Hangar after all the work on the Be-4

Later all the rest of the fenders, headlights, and radiator, as well as the wheels were added:

That's as far as we got on that one. On the larger one, the Monogram 1/24 scale Packard, a lot got done. The main fenders got their coat of gloss brown:

Since the fenders were being painted the dark brown, we also masked off the main body and shot the same brown trim on it:

A bit of a test fit later, we see how well this is gonna look....provided I don't screw it up first. You can also see that the seats had been painted leather.

The main hood over the engine had been giving us problems with the green base coat, but it finally went down smooth and the gloss coat as well. This was then masked off for the brown trim to be painted as well as some chrome bits molded in place:

Final result, better than expected:

You can see we started painting the chassis as well. More to come on this later.

There's a third civilian vehicle we're working on the ACE 1/72 scale Ford 1937 stakebed truck. First assembly was the chassis:

We then got half the cab finished:

Finally, the stakebed:

Great detail on this ACE kit. Here it is all mocked up:

These next few vehicles are ones we started since I've been wanting them in the collection or awhile. First is this French AMX Mk.61 self propelled gun. Basic lower hull was assembled first:

Another French AMX vehicle, this time the AMX-13 DCA. Again, lower hull assembled first:

We got a little further on the South African Eland 90, even building the basic turret:

Finally there's the Russian Br-5 280mm mortar from ACE. This one took a bit of time since the main tracked running gear had so many parts to assemble. First were all the road wheels on the main part:

Then the two outer casings went on, trapping the (twin) idler wheels, drive sprocket and roadwheel assembly inside:

Had to do this twice:

And we still have to add the link and length tracks! Moving on, we assembled the main carriage:

Finally we got to the gun:

The trunnion will be a tough build so we left it at that....

Our last project to look into is the M1070 gun truck. We took some time to get the main chassis almost fully assembled:

The cab was started next, leaving room for painting the interior before it is closed up:

Finally the gun bed was built up, sans barriers. There's lots of interior detail that can barely be seen:

There's still a center section to build up, but these three components are pretty much done overall:

One last treat before we conclude this tour, Rocket the Raccoon has been mostly painted up. I still need to do his nose, eyes, teeth, gun and his outfit:

That concludes this latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing, I hope you enjoyed it. As always, comments are welcome.

 

[Impisi]

oh dear, waht a factory ... stunning