Maddog Manufacturing Open for 2022!

[Duke Maddog]

I know it's been awhile since the new year began, but I gave my workers an extended holiday to work off or sleep off the effects of the holiday celebrations!

Now they are back and rarin' to go so all aboard the trams for the first tour of Maddog Manufacturing. Our first stop will be in the hanger....


This first one is a model that had been so close to finishing but didn't quite make it for last year's count. Here is what has been done since. The engines and propellers were painted:

After that I applied the ancient decals. You can see what issues they presented. This side chipped a bit while being adjusted:

The other side went on better... at least in regards to entirety:

After poking holes and many judicious applications of Solvaset; and later light applications of Tamiya Extra Thin; I got these looking fairly acceptable, at least for me considering the age of this kit. I later went back and painted white over the chipped areas to make the lettering complete again and painted blue over the areas that still looked too silvered:

Once that was done, I added the wing to the fuselage:

After that I installed the engines and the tail skid and let them dry:

Now that the wheels have been added, this bird is done! Pics forthcoming....


Next I started on the Marine Corps Harrier AV-8B Plus by painting and decaling the cockpit:

Later I closed it up. This bird needed a little convincing:

It was convinced! The joint of that fuselage looks great. I then added the horizontal tail surfaces:

Next I decided to save some time later by adding all the underwing pylons:

This is just a test fit to see how well the wings fit:

I love the fit; this is one well engineered model!


Next I started with one of my Christmas presents, the Japanese U-125. I assembled and painted the cockpit and rear crew seats, painted the tires, and added the clear parts to the interior of the fuselage halves:

Most of the smaller windows fell back inside the plane once I got it closed up, I'll have to use Testor's Window Maker to replace them once this bird is painted.

Then I assembled the wing and engines:

This was a dry-fit here to see what joint issues I was going to have. After all, this is a Sword kit:

Later on I glued it into place, installed the main windscreen and added Tamiya putty to the seams where it needed it. Here you can see it after I started to sand it:

That's gonna take a bit more work later but I'm pleased with the progress.

Finally I got some progress done on a project that had been languishing for far too long. For some reason every time I tried to make progress, I only did a tiny bit of work; if anything, and back to the box it went. No longer! I pulled out this little Japanese Observation helicopter and started by painting the assembled cockpit:

When it was dry, I added the instrument panel decals:

While they dried, I painted the rotor blades and the tires, and assembled the underwing stores:

Once that was dry, I built the main rotor:

And finally I got this bird all closed up! To help it stand properly I assembled and installed the landing gear as well as built and installed the engines:

And that concludes our tour of the hanger, next stop is the motor pool....



There's not much activity here so this portion of the tour will be fairly quick. To start with, some of my crew were bored so they did a quick build of this little Russian M-30 Howitzer:

Yeah, that is done. Now time to paint it...

Next I started the other Christmas present, the M-1134 Stryker.

First was the hull which went fast since Dragon had already molded the suspension on the bottom:

Then I built the Anti-tank Guided Weapon turret:

This is where it is now, almost all assembled minus a few of the more breakable detail parts. This little thing is ready for paint already:

Another one that I wanted to make progress on was my British FV-432 with the Rarden turret. First, I assembled the tracks, all but the bottom most run on the jig provided:

While they were drying, I added the road wheels to the hull:

Later on, I added the tracks; finishing off the bottom run, then added all the final detail parts that weren't breakable. Now this little vehicle is ready for paint:

That concludes the motor pool portion of our tour, so on to the shipyards. This will be pretty short as well given that the Izumo already launched..

In the shipyards here the HMS Kelly is coming together nicely with all it's extremely rough detail...

I added all the extra little parts like gun directors, anti-aircraft guns, some boats, and searchlights among others:

Later on that slipped right into the assembled hull where I glues it into place. Yes, the torpedo tubes and main guns are moveable:

This little thing is ready for paint now.

After that, I got the Higgins boat all finished up. This one is ready for paint as well:

And that concludes our first tour of Maddog Manufacturing for 2022. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks all for coming and comments are always welcome.

 

[moon puppy]

Good job getting those decals to lay down.

 

[JSteinman]

ing along!

 

[Kenny Loup]

Nice work.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Bob! It was a fight, but worth the effort.

Thank you John and Kenny!

 

[Sherman 18]

I'm thinking you either need to slow down or I need to speed up.

Looking good

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Sherman! Please speed up; I don't want to slow down. I know that inevitably something will cause that to happen anyway so I hope to continue this speed as much as I can.

 

[Duke Maddog]

It's been a couple weeks and so I have a lot to show. I apologize, I got carried away this past couple weeks and so I have a lot to show.

I may have to break this up into two since I have 52 pics.

So let's get this tour started! All aboard the trams; our first stop is the hanger...

I decided to start with some of the easier models first.

First up, the Japanese Ninja helicopter got all the windows masked off in preparation for paint:

....which went on later; at least the base coat of green:

That was all I had done on that before I moved on to something else. The next one was my little Vampire that had been masked off some time ago. This bird now has a grey belly. I can clear coat it for decals now:

Another simple one, the F-117 was next. It was time to finally replace the stolen one from way back when. Cockpit was built first:

This was then painted, and then I installed it inside the upper fuselage and closed it up under the canopy before I remembered to shoot a pic:

After that it was a simple matter to add the wings and tail:

Now all I need to do is mask the canopy and the shoot paint. Later I'll add the landing gear and internals.

Since I was already working on one jet from the Desert Storm set (F-117) I pulled out the other one from that set that was started. I painted the cockpit and pilots for the A-6 Intruder:

The canopy was a different affair; it was split lengthwise instead of the traditional way. I thought one was to do this was to add one side first, then the other later when the first side was dry:

After fitting the other side I wasn't much pleased with the placement. but it was closed up:

Next up of course was to add the nose. Before doing that I glued some nose weights inside to keep this from being a tail sitter. You can see the weights that I had put inside the nose next to the plane since I forgot to shoot a pic of them inside the nose before I closed it up:

I'm really not happy with the way the canopy looks here. I might just pop it off and try again for a better fit.

Finally, I got some paint on my Japanese U-124; or rather primer. I was out of grey primer so I shot black instead which showed some flaws that needed fixing. Here it is after the extra putty was applied:

After some sanding and re-scribing, I shot it again and got a better result:

When it was dry, I shot aircraft grey underneath it:

I gave that time to dry and then masked off the bottom to prepare for the top coat:

The top got a coat of Intermediate Blue afterward:

And now this bird is finally painted. I have a few touch ups to do before I clear coat it for decals:

That completes the tour of the hanger, now on to the shipyards...


In the shipyards here I've been mostly working on smaller craft, like this RAF Rescue Launch. This is a shelf queen that I've been tired of moving around. I had shot a coat of black on the sides which had gone all wonky so I had to sand it smooth and try again. Second time all these years later, it looks better:

Now I can start moving forward on this. I went ahead and masked off the sides. Once I get a good enough inventory of paints that I need for this I'll shoot paint on it later:

You can see where I dry-fit the gun turrets just to be sure they were still around....

Moving on to the next project, I shot a grey overcoat on the top of the Higgins boat:

It came out a bit blotchy looking, but I like it. Next I masked off the top for the bottom coat:

...which went on later:

This one is moving fast. She'll be sliding down the slipways fairly soon:

Later, after a gloss clear was applied I added the decals:

Some detail painting later and I'll have this done.

The next ship I worked on was the commission build I'm doing for a friend; On his SMS Emden he wanted the white and gold scheme so I went with Testor's Model Master Camouflage Grey. It was the closest thing I could find to white without actually being white, which I felt was more realistic. I shot this on the hull:

Later I found a Vallejo color called Gold Brown. I felt it was perfect for the superstructure. I painted that with a brush to see how it looked. I will be needing multiple coats as this color is 'weak'. I also painted the black and dark brown upper decks:

That's as far as I got in the shipyards. Now it's time to tour the Motor Pool.....




Okay, here in the Motor Pool, I decided to at least start a halftrack for a Halftrack Group Build on another Forums. This is the SdKfz 9 with a crane on the back. I have an early and a late. I simply picked the one I could see; the other one was hiding. I didn't get very far. I started with the basic engine which I may or may not display:

I then added that to the chassis along with the transmission and some other parts:

Then I looked at all the roadwheels and decided I'd had enough of this beastie. I picked up something else. That something else turned out to be one of my Christmas presents: the Russian 2S35 self propelled gun. I started buy assembling the lower hull:

Next was the roadwheels. They didn't look as daunting as the German halftrack wheels, so I spent a while cementing one half of the roadwheels to the other half:

I set them aside to dry and assembled the turret. This is a big honking beast! The turret is bigger than the 2S19 that I'd built earlier. But look at the size of that gun:

That's a 152mm gun people. Talk about "reaching out and touching someone"...

Just for fun, I dry-fit the upper hull to the lower and added the turret to see how this horse was gonna look:

Looks like it's gonna fall over on it's nose!

Next up, I decided I'd had enough of roadwheels so I got started on two more of my Christmas presents. These are wheeled vehicles this time. The first one was my Australian Bushmaster. I built the lower hull first:

Next I added the windows to the upper hull and added a few more parts to finish the basic assembly:

Here it is all dry fit together. I still need to paint the interior:

The British SAS Bushmaster was next. Starting with the lower hull, you can see it is already semi-subtly different:

Next the upper hull. Note the top hatch and the spaced armor applied to the sides:

Again a dry fit to see how it looks:

Now that I had these started, I decided to get some paint shot. First was the Stryker. It got an overcoat of green:

Next I assembled the wheels and added them to the hull. Dragon did a great job on these wheels; they are hard plastic and the went on the front hubs exceptionally well. They then had you glue the back of the hubs to the front hubs, trapping a post inside. What a bonus that was, as you'll see later. In this pic, I have the back hubs and posts pushed into the holes in the lower hull:

Here's how they look installed on the vehicle:

Next came the clear gloss and decals:

....followed by a dullcoat:

This beastie was ready for weathering. Here's where the bonus came in with the wheels: I was able to pull them off the vehicle (I didn't glue them in, only pressed them in) and this allowed me to weather the wheels, adding dirt inside the tire treads:

I also dusted the hull and now all I have to do is re-install the wheels and add other final detail parts and this one will be done.

Finally, I also shot paint over the other model that needed it: my British FV-432. It got the base coat of green:

Since I was going to make this black and green, you know what's coming next: Silly Putty. I covered the green with it, letting it hold the turret into place:

I shot the black over this, making sure I got inside all the nooks and crannies, caverns and canyons. I used the Aircraft Interior Black from Testor's:

I removed the Silly Putty later and was very happy with the results:

Next came the gloss clear and decals:

After shooting a dull coat on this I was placing it on the shelf again and the turret flew off, causing this breakage:

I pulled out my CA glue and put it back together as best I could:

It still has a chip I need to repair so I'm hoping that I can get it done well enough. Once I do and add the final detail parts, I'll be able to call this one done as well.

And on that happy note, it's time to head back to the reception area to disembark from the trams. Thank you all for joining me on this latest tour. Comments are always welcome.

 

[Impisi]

WOW, your employees are very busy again, looks very good

 

[Frank]

Very impressive Mark.

 

[MM2CVS9]

WOW, your really getting in to the floaty things. Lookin good. Many shades of gray.

EJ

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Martin! After the long vacation they had, they're eager to work hard and fast.

Thank you Frank!

Thank you EJ! Actually I'm returning to the floaty things. I have some 290+ floaties done, and I haven't done any in quite some time so I figured it was time to expand the Navy.

 

[SA Dave]

Those model elves are really busy

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Dave! They had a long Christmas vacation so they are rarin' to go!

 

[Duke Maddog]

Here is my latest update on my work at Maddog Manufacturing. First, I want to let everyone know why it took me so long to get any progress done and posted. Back in the second week of February, we had to move from one storage unit to a smaller one. In the process of moving, I dropped a 200 lb +/- block of wood on my right foot. Naturally it swelled up, but only as far as my shoe would allow. The bad thing was, I had to go back the next day and finish moving out since that was the last day to get out of the old one. Only by the grace of God and His strength did I succeed with this foot as it was. I then kept it iced and propped up all day the next day. We went to Urgent Care where X-rays were taken and again by the grace of God there were no breaks or fractures. Still, it took me almost a full month to get back to where I could walk and drive. Since there was no place to prop my foot up and keep it iced in the hobby room; I was unable to do anything on my workbench all that month of time.

Now that I've recovered enough, it is time to re-start my tours of Maddog Manufacturing. The trams have all been tuned up and are ready to go. All aboard!

This past Monday night we had a Hobby Night at the St. Crispin's Hall. I brought quite a number of things down to the hall to work on and try to regain the momentum I'd lost.

Starting in the hanger, we have these projects...

The first thing I wanted to show was the Swedish Vampire. It finally got decals on it. Again, they look like total crap because they are the ancient kit decals which did not want to stay flat. I had to convince them with Tamiya Extra Thin cement. I could have passed on using them, but I had no spares that could work, nor did I know when I'd be able to afford to get replacements. So in order to call this one further done, I used what I had:

After that, it was time to move on. This time I got something started. This is the Atlantis re-pop of the ancient Aurora(?) kit of the AH-56 Cheyenne attack helicopter. This is certainly one odd looking bird.

First thing it tells you to do is cement the fuselage together, trapping the forward mini gun and rotor in between them. Okaaaaay...

After that I got started on the cockpit and pilots. This is a simple cockpit so it went together well:

There's still some sink marks and other details to fix before painting this, but I like how it looks. After that was done, I set it aside and added the horizontal stabilizers to the back of the helicopter. I then assembled the landing gear sponsons and attached wings and cemented everything to the fuselage. The landing gear are actually designed to retract. Cool!

Looking good so far. The cockpit seen next to this just pops right in, so this will be easy to do once I get it all painted:

While that was all drying, I assembled the main rotors. These were a little tough, but I got them done. I do like how sturdy they are at the base of the blades. Later when they had dried enough I popped the cockpit in place in the fuselage and added the main rotor to see how this bird is looking:

The cockpit and rotors come off so I'll be able to paint them separately. That's as far as I got now. Hopefully I'll have time and opportunity to get this painted..... along with the other 17 models that need paint!



Moving on to my shipyards, we laid the keel for this one....

This is another model I'd been wanting to start. This is the Revell Swift Boat that I got for Christmas. Of course I'm slapping myself in the head for not entering this into the "Charlie Still Don't Surf" campaign here.

Anyway, this went so fast I got this far before I remembered to take pics:

I gotta get that interior painted before I go on.

Now on to the motor pool and maintenance yard

Finally I got this little thing started. I got it over a decade and a half ago and left it sitting on the workbench because I didn't feel comfortable enough to do all that P/E as I was just starting out using it. Having done so many models with P/E since then that I felt it was time to get it off the bench.

This is a 1/72 scale German field maintenance heavy crane used for lifting turrets and engines. I still did a pretty crappy job despite my experience; this was so difficult to keep in place without bending cross members:

Here is the first half done. After that I moved on to something else to relieve the stress of working with this tiny model:

Later I came back and finished this off:

Now to figure out how to paint it. both colors and technique! Those chains re-defined the word "delicate" and I'm surprised I didn't break them even more than the one time I did!

Okay, now that that was done, I decided to have some fun.

I started my British Crusader AA tank and got this far before I remembered to shoot pics:

Those gun barrels will go once I can source some new metal ones for this kit and raise the funds to buy them. Until then, this little beastie will keep those so I can move forward.

Now the last model I'm showing is this borderline shelf queen. This is my Modelcollect Russian Coastal Defense Missile System CLUB II. I had gotten it for my birthday last year from a friend and had started it some months back. I had stopped because I couldn't figure out how to make the launch tubes elevate. I finally figured it out awhile ago, so out it came. I had assembled the rear launch container about halfway already so the only thing I needed to do now was set up the tubes to elevate and then paint the interior. I chose a faded olive drab for the interior since the color call out specified a light green for the interior:

It's hard to see the light green in there, it looks so much like the grey plastic outside in this light...

Here you can see how well the launch tubes elevate into firing position:

Later on, I painted the interior of the driver's cab and glued it to the chassis:

Here is a back view of the whole chassis and cab assembly:

All that's left now is to mask the windows, mask the rear missile cabin; and then shoot paint on this. Wow, I do hope I can finally get this done!


Anyway, that is all I have for now. Hopefully this week I'll be able to find some time to shoot paint. Thanks all for joining this latest tour and comments are always welcome.

 

[moon puppy]

I like that crane, might be something to play with soldering.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Bob! Yeah I thought about soldering the crane but I didn't have any flux, nor am I very good at it. I just hope I can finish painting it without destroying it!

 

[Frank]

You have been busy.
Everything looks good.
The crane looksto be a very fiddly item.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Frank! It feels good to be busy again. Yes, the crane is certainly very fiddly, I'm surprised I got it done. It still has some issues, but I never expected it to be a contest-level model.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Now that my foot is finally healed enough to walk on without having to ice it all the time, I was able to get a few hours in the hobby room in between getting caught up with all the other things that were neglected. Here is what I was able to do, so all aboard the trams again for this new tour of Maddog Manufacturing!

First off, while I was re-organizing the room and re-packing many of my spare parts in a new container I got , I finally found the missing propeller to the Fokker Friendship! It was in that container marked "Propellers, Blades and Rotors":

Naturally I had to paint it like the other one so I got started:

I cleaned that up a bit and finished the painting of the whole thing:

Now that I got that finished, I'll post my new pics of the finished plane in the Aircraft section...

After that, I decided to see how the pews looked so I punched one out and assembled it. Pretty cool:

Each square on the mat is 1 inch in size if I recall. That will give you some idea of how small that is.

Moving on to our Hanger, here is the work I did on the Marine Harrier to prepare it for paint. First after masking the canopy, I added the extra part in front of the wing; dry fitting the whole assembly and gluing it together on the fuselage but not to the fuselage. That is why you see it removed here. I also was able to pull the front exhaust cans off thanks to poly caps inside. The rear ones wouldn't come out so I taped them with the rest of the things I needed to mask:

I then dry-fit it together again to have it ready to shoot when I break out the airbrush:

My next project was the F-117 that I'm building to replace the one that was stolen. I'd had it all assembled already so I flipped it over and shot white in the gear bays and bomb bay. I used a rattle can, that is why it is everywhere. I also had shot the landing gear parts, the inner gear doors and the inner bomb bay doors:

After that dried overnight, I placed the gear doors and bomb bay doors in place without glue and shot the flat black all over the bottom of this plane:

Yes, they are raised, but I'm building this with everything open so I'm not worried about it.

Once that was dry, I flipped it again and shot the top with the flat black:

I love how the doors underneath stayed in place!


Next up is a detour to the shipyards again because I laid the keel on a new landing craft, this time an LCM from the Dragon 2in1 kit. I now have three landing craft under construction that I need to get done:

While here, we can check out the Emden. I didn't do much to it, simply taping off the hull and painting the black boot stripe on it:

Later I taped that boot stripe off, masking it for the lower hull paint. I searched around a bit and finally found what I believe to be a suitable enough hull red by Humbrol. Hopefully I'll be able to get it painted soon.



Now that we've seen that, it's on to the Motor Pool section to see the latest vehicles under construction.

First off, I decided to start one more of my birthday presents, the Roden pakwagen. The instructions have you start with the gun:

This was quite fiddly, but with a little careful sanding; I was able to slip that gun into the cradle without needing to glue it as you see here. I also added the rest of the details for the gun cradle:

Finally the gun shield went on, but not without a fight. This was nearly impossible to keep properly positioned without five hands, but I managed to get it looking right.... so far:

After that, I built the fenders. Simple assembly. I simply had to add all those doors to them:

I then glued them onto the lower hull and added the interior details:

After that, I got the side walls on the top hull:

That's probably going to need some filler....

Moving on, I started a little Japanese mortar towing truck that I got for Christmas. It was a fast little thing to build! I left off the engine cover because there's a few more things that have to go on the front of this first:

Here it is sitting next to the 120mm mortar it tows. I'll be keeping this one in the firing position. Since there's two models in this kit, I'll make the other one towed:

That is all I have for this week. Not much in the way of vehicles, but I have a shipload of them to paint so next time might be quite an extensive tour. until then, thanks for joining and comments are welcome.