Maddog Manufacturing Production in 2019

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks EJ! I love using Silly Putty for most all my camouflage patterns. It is a bit time consuming getting it positioned right but it's fun and easy to apply. Also, I've been using the same ball of Silly Putty (slightly smaller than a tennis ball) for the past 16 camouflage patterns, including at least four aircraft.

Thanks again for the compliment.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Well, after a very busy weekend, I finally have a small update to post. Here's my latest.

I started out working on some of my simpler kits but that was after I clearcoated these two tractors for decals:

Then I got started on the SA2 SAM system again. I assembled the stand for the launcher body first:

After that, I sanded and refined the launcher body halves in preparation for assembling the whole thing:

I then completed the blast shield for this:

Finally I installed the missile on the launcher arm:

After some consideration, I think I might have screwed that up, since this will make it much harder to paint. Oh well, what's done is done and I'll just have to deal with it then.

Moving on, I decided to start another simpler kit. This is the ACE Syria Hell Cannons.

I assembled the shorter barrel first:

Then I did the longer barrel. Here it is next to the short one:

I then completed most of the 'carriage of the larger gun:

That's where I stopped on that.

I then started on the Nagmachon but only got the lower hull assembled:

I set that aside to dry before moving on. Besides, I was distracted by the Centauro. I'd wanted one for so long I just had to start it. Naturally, I started on the lower hull:

Afterward, I finished off the top of the hull:

I then got the basic turret assembled:

Finally, here is a shot of the hull and turret together:

I'm loving this!

And that brings up to the close of this short update. I hope to have more posted soon. I'm really fired up about getting further progress on all these plus what I was working on before.

Stay tuned people, more to come. Thanks for looking in.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Today was an 'empty' day so I was able to marathon in my Hobby Room. I am thrilled with so much of the progress I made today. So brace yourselves everyone, this is gonna be a long one. Please keep your sea belts fastened and your hands and arms inside the trolley at all times. Thank you for joining us. Now on with the tour...

I'll start with my armor again; I was really busting my hump to move a lot of this forward.

Let's start with my two ACE Italian vehicles. The Trattore got a coat of paint that came out very grainy. Apparently my Italian Armor Sand from Testor's was not up to snuff:

Everything is just dry-fit together on the chassis, that's why it looks so wonky.

Since I still had the Italian Armor Sand in my airbrush, I went ahead and shot the Coloniale as well:

Later on I sanded them both smooth and re-shot them both with some Testor's Dark Tan which looked 'close enough'. After that dried, I added the camouflage pattern on the Coloniale and painted the roof:

After that dried, I shot a gloss coat on it and then added the decals. There were only two; a front license plate and a rear license plate. Here it is showing the front one. I didn't turn this around for a second shot:

That was a tiny one. The Micro Sol hadn't taken effect yet.

Moving on, I shot paint on the British Airborne Group of vehicles. It is a flat paint, but I must have thinned it slightly too much since it came out almost gloss:

When that was dry, I painted the seats inside the jeep:

Before that though, since I still had that olive drab color in my airbrush, I decided to shoot another model. This one was the Hungarian Toldi II that the instructions said was an Olive Drab color under a whitewash. So, I shot the same color on the Toldi:

It might not be accurate, but It's an Olive Drab color. I doubt I'll run into any former Toldi crew members who'll tell me it's wrong. And no, I won't be winter white-washing this; I have no winter vehicles (save the Aerosans) and I don't plan on having this clash with the rest of my collection.

Moving on from there, I loaded a different Olive Drab into the brush and shot the remaining sub-assemblies on my Diamond T wrecker. This is when I found out that it was the wrong color. That's when I tried to modulate the color a bit on the cab to try and blend it. I ain't happy:

While that was drying, I decided it was time to finish the assembly on the cab. It gave me quite the fight:

There's still a bit of touch up to do on that.

Later when the sub--assemblies were dry, I added them to the rear of the chassis. Yeah, I hadn't re-painted them yet:

However, while gluing them down, I realized I hadn't glued down the cab! That came off and some tape went around the chassis so I could re-paint the rear of this truck in the matching colors.

Unless someone could tell me which color is the more correct one; I'll leave it on there and re-paint the cab. It needs touching up anyway. Please let me know...

Finally, I finished off the painting of the little Japanese Chi Nu since it had been masked for quite some time already:

After that was dried, I removed all the Silly Putty from this model. I was real pleased with what I saw:

Yeah, there are some rough spots but not many. That was mostly due to operator error. Easy fixes though.

Just for fun I decided to add the already-weathered wheels and tracks to this to see how it was going to look. This is fast becoming one of my favorite Japanese tanks:

Later on this got the track assemblies removed again and a gloss coat on it for decals:

It's still wet on there and hadn't time to smooth out.

Now it was time to take a break on painting and do a bit of assembly on some other models while I waited for paint and clearcoats to dry...

First off, I added a few extra detail parts to the Russian BREM. Then I glued some grey thread onto the crane and added the hook to the end. I then painted the hook after everything was finishing drying:

Yes, there appears to be a bit too much paint on the hook. I fixed that after taking this pic. Later I finished off this detail painting.

I then moved on to my SAM-2 missile launcher. I decided to remove the missile from the launching arm to make things easier to paint. I then glued all the base sub-assemblies together:

You can see that, due to the shortcomings of this short-run kit; the launching arm does not remain raised. So, I added a small slip of strip styrene to the inside to help it stand up, It works better now:

This one will be heading to the spray booth soon, along with the Hell Cannons. Speaking of Hell Cannons....

I was afraid that the different sub-assemblies on my Hell Cannons were going to get lost and/or broken. So, it was time to finish them up. I built the bigger one first:

Earlier someone remarked about how big these beasties are. Here I shot a pic with a soldier standing next to it. Both are 1/72 scale:

Oh yeah! That's big!

I then assembled the smaller cannon:

Here's a shot of the two of them side by side:

A final shot of them with the soldier again. He must have wandered off for a snack break or something before:

Earlier in this Thread I showed you the Colonial with the decals on. That was when I had finished all the painting and assembly and everything was dry enough to start adding decals. After the Coloniale, I decaled the Jeep and Trailer in the British Airborne set:

Man, those things were tiny! What made it worse was that Airfix had printed everything so freakin' close together that it was almost impossible to cut them out without messing up others! I'm so thrilled that I didn't have any of them get cut in the process.

Moving on, I then decaled the Toldi II. This was easier to do since IBG had given a lot of space between decals:

Next I moved on and added decals to the Japanese Chi Nu:

Then I moved on and added the decals to the two Russian tractors. Here's the first one. Everything was in front:

The second one had decals on front and back:

Well, I was on a roll so I decided to add the decals to something I have been needing to decal for awhile. I added the deck decals to the review kit of the Izumo that I had left languishing on my bench for too long. These look darn good:

I still have to add the hull decals and additional decals on the island and then this beastie will be ready for me to add all the photo etch.

Since I was decaling long-term bench warmers, I also decided to do one more. I pulled down the Space Shuttle and added the decals to this one, making it the Columbia:

Finally, after all that, it was time to call it a day. Thus ends this long update.

Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

 

[errains]

(singing starts)....Building, Building, Building, all day long...(singing stops)
:v

 

[moon puppy]

Is that a big gun or you glad to see me. :kiss:

 

[MM2CVS9]

Well, I was on a roll so I decided to add the decals to something I have been needing to decal for awhile. I added the deck decals to the review kit of the Izumo that I had left languishing on my bench for too long. These look darn good:

I still have to add the hull decals and additional decals on the island and then this beastie will be ready for me to add all the photo etch.

Decals really look great. Last ones I did on an old Hasegawa kit all shattered.

EJ

 

[razordws]

Some really cool builds Duke. I'll be following along.

 

[lupanzer]

Dear Duke!

Just brilliant, the Columbia painting job

Luiz.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks for the awesome comments guys! I am so happy with the progress I made that day.

EJ, this is one of their newest kits out. I think they figured out how bad the old decals were since these went with the unfolding process.

'Pup, I'm always glad to see you! :woohoo:

Thanks Eric! I hope to keep Building, Building, Building, all day long...

 

[Frank]

Looking good Mark.
Keep it going.
Frank

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks Frank! I got more coming soon. Thanks again for stopping in, I'm always glad to see your posts.

 

[Frank]

Thanks Mark,
I been busy with work. (I am retired, Damn it!!!!).
Did get some prime put down today.
Pictures will be taken on Tuesday when I get home.
Frank
:frantic :frantic :frantic

 

[Flyingbabydoc]

Somehow I missed this thread

Great Job Mark! Very inspirational... So much great work here. I will be following closely. :drool

Cheers

Alex

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks Frank! I'll be looking forward to seeing the pics. I did a bit more progress as well and need to get it posted. Retired huh? Well, that just means you'll be far busier than ever!

Thanks Alex! I appreciate that a lot. It feels good to be an inspiration.

Stay tuned, more to come.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Okay, I had a few more days of building so; after building on a few models, I concentrated on those projects closest to the finish line. Here they are in some semblance of order....

I'll start with the aircraft I'm building on commission. The first thing I did was to add the metal barrels of the wing guns to the wings. This is the first time I ever did something like this:

While those were drying, I started to assemble the landing gear. This was tough; there are 11 parts in each one! That's an awful lot for a 1/72 scale landing gear! Here is one of them, still missing the last couple parts. You can see how hard a time I had building this:

Later on, I added the engine and the cowl to the front of this bird. You can see it here with both landing gear sitting next to it:

After the landing gear dried sufficiently, I added them to this bird. She's now standing on her own feet:

That needed to dry so I moved on. Here's the armor I worked on as I was waiting for that to dry.


I'll start with a couple ACE models I've been eager to build. First up is the Centurion, which got the suspension and most all the other fiddly bits on the main hull:

After that, I finished the turret, adding almost all the detail parts to this:

...and then I posed it on the hull. This beastie is almost ready for paint already:

Since I was working on the Centurion, I also moved ahead on the Centurion-based Nagmachon. I started by building up the upper hull. You can see the ACE-type fit that this still has. There's gonna be some filler in my future:

After that, I assembled the 'doghouse'. This had two full-sized parts that you bent around to fit on the base. Pretty ingenious if you ask me! Here's the front:

And here's the back:

The top is just dry-fit on; that way I can add the windows to this later.


I'm happy with how quickly this is moving along. I decided to pose everything dry-fit together to see how it's gonna look:

After that, I decided it was time to take some of these models over the finish line. I'll start with the Italian Coloniale. This little car got it's wheels on. The upper roof is only dry-fit still:

Later on I dullcoated this, added the windows, cemented the roof down and moved on...

...to the Trattore truck. I cemented the bed to the chassis of this truck along with the fenders; added the vinyl tires to the rims and assembled the tilt:

At that point I had lost the entire cab so this was set aside. Later on (two days later!) I found the cab so this will show on a future update again. I moved on to another model.

I then added the machine gun to the front of the Toldi's turret and painted it:

Now all I have to do is add the tracks and the exhaust on the back, then cement down the top hull to the bottom hull and this little tank will be done.

Moving on from that, I decided to try and finish the Japanese Chi Nu tank. I re-painted the exhaust with a mixture of flat black and copper; painting the copper on while the flat black was still partially wet. This gives a burnt metal effect. Here it is still a bit wet:

After that, I added the photo-etch screens to the tops of these pipes:

After a bit of touch up, rust application and the remaining detail parts, I finished this one up.

Now on to bigger game....

The two Russian tractors were so close, it was time to bring them home. I started by adding the vinyl tires to the rims and adding the wheels to the first truck:

They fit so well and tight that I didn't need to glue them! And I could still remove them as necessary. Therefore, I added them to the second truck:

After that, I pulled the tires off the trucks and weathered them with some weathering powders. Then I weathered the trucks themselves with the airbrush and a dirty, dusty color as well as some judicious application of the powders used on the tires. Adding the wheels back to these trucks brought them that much closer to being finished:

After that, it was just a matter of adding all the final detail bits and calling them done.



Okay, that completes this tour of the facility. I appreciate you all stopping in and taking the tour. If you make your way to the staging lot, you'll be able to see the nine models I completed this week.

Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

 

[moon puppy]

 

[Duke Maddog]

It's been a slow week for me so here's a small update on what I got done at Hobby Day.

I'll start with my armor.

The Italian Trattore had a missing cab which I finally found. I quickly got this glued into place on the chassis before I lost it again:

Later I'll be adding the windows and gloss coat for decals.

Moving on, I got the last resin parts added to the M-51 turret:

I then added all the resin stowage parts to the left side of the tank:

Had to wait for that to dry before I could go do the other side....

Since I was doing an Israeli vehicle, the next project I worked on was the Nagmachon. I got all the suspension parts on as well as some other detail parts. I had also started to fill those crazy gaps:

Gonna refine those fills later. Meanwhile, I pulled out my Centurion tank and added all the photo-etch on the hull:

I also finished all the detail parts and the turret stowage basket on the Italian Centauro:

Now this one is ready for all the photo etch parts.

After this, I started two more small vehicles; hoping to get a few more 'easy' projects done. This first one is the T-Models M-1114 armored HUMVEE. The suspension was finally done after several puzzling test fits on each of the 20+ parts just to figure out what the instructions were trying to tell me:

That was so difficult I stopped there; reminiscing on the simplicity of the Dragon suspension assembly!

The next project I started was another of the ACE Digital design kits: the V-100 armored car. They had me start with the tiny turret. I placed an Exacto blade next to it so you could see how tiny this is:

Next was the sparse interior which wasn't going to be seen anyway:

After that, I turned it over to add the suspension:

With all that done, there was nothing left to do but close up the hull:

Finally the last thing I worked on was the Space Shuttle Shelf Queen. I started out with what I felt was the hardest part: scratchbuilding a forward bracket for the front of the Shuttle. I tried to make this in such a way that the Shuttle would be able to 'snap' into place so I could remove it from the fuel tank for transport. This is also why I made it a bit longer than the lower one:

Also, the vertical tail comes off for transport. Now it fits in one of my flat tubs.

With a little finagling, I was successful with that forward bracket; this beastie snaps into place well. After that, I finished painting and detailing the exhaust bells and then mounted them on the shuttle. They actually have more steel-colored metal showing which the pic does not reflect. The copper colored appearance was my attempt to make these look like they'd been weathered/burned in a previous launch:

Finally, I unmasked the windscreen and upper windows and touched up the edges:

I could finally call this Shelf Queen done! Eventually, I will finish the payloads that came with this model so I can lay them out as a display around the base of this shuttle.

Okay, that's completes this tour of the plant! Thanks all for coming in, comments are always welcome.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Okay, I have a very short update here but I'm gonna get it posted now. After all this, I hope to get back to the workbench later today to have more pics to show next week.

I'll start with my little Toldi II. I finally got the tracks on this tank:

Later on I finished painting and weathering them and now this little tank is on my display shelf. It was the last model I finished in April.

Moving on....


Since I finished up my Space Shuttle with Boosters, I decided to continue my foray into Real Space. I had intended to start these right after finishing the Space Shuttle anyway and now I can. First is the Horizon Models 1/72 scale Mercury Redstone. I assembled the main body of this rocket, and then the launch stand so I could stand it up:

That went together surprisingly well, such a smooth and easy build at this point. I had also noted the similarity of the fins underneath the engines to the old V-2 rocket and found that interesting.

After that was set aside to dry more; I started the Horizon Models 1/72 scale Convair Atlas. This one had to have been done by the B Team at Horizon since the fit was nowhere near as smooth and easy to assemble as the Redstone!

Even that tape wasn't effective; I had a lot more manipulation to do to get this rocket to fit well enough. Even then, there were a ton of seams to fill. That you'll see in subsequent pics. I got tired of fighting that so I moved on to something else.

This next model is one that has been fairly screaming at me to build for quite some time. I finally found it buried underneath a number of models I hadn't moved in a while. I pulled it out and got started right away. This is the Italeri 1/72 scale Church that went together exceptionally well and fast:

In the background you can see most all the models I have waiting for the spray booth now. After assembling the walls, I used them to glue the top roof pieces together in the proper position. The other roof pieces on the tower and side building are just dry fit for the pics:

There's a tiny cross that goes on that small pedestal at the front; I'm going to replace it with something larger and grander.

Next up was a Japanese Float Plane Group Build that was started by some of my Orange County IPMS club members and is going on completely through E-mails. That reminds me, I need to send this to all those guys to show my progress so far. It ain't much; I just assembled the cockpit and also the halved sections on the floats and other split pieces. Here's the cockpit so far:

Finally, I had started a model that a friend of mine also started at roughly the same time. It was the Pershing II with the MAN tractor pulling it. He had finished it at the end of April while I had barely made any progress. He then passed away at the end of April after completing it. In his honor, I've brought mine back out to continue. As you might recall, I had finished the Pershing II missile itself some time back:

Now I moved on and got the chassis and suspension completed so far:

There's great detail on this beastie, I'm loving this already. I just hope mine turns out half as great as my friend's model did.

That's all my production completed so far. Life and illness kept me from doing more. Hopefully now that things seem to be improving I'll be able to make even more progress.

Stay tuned, more to come. Thanks for looking in.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks to Hobby Day, I was able to make a good amount of progress. I even felt like I got somewhere!

I'll start out with some simple stuff. Just before Hobby Day I was working on the church. I started to fill in some of the seams and small gaps. I'll need to re-scribe some of the lines afterward:

Next up, I decided it was time to add the photo etch to these models so I could get them to the paint stage. I started with the Centurion, adding the photo etch to the top of the hull:

Next I added all the photo etch to the Centauro. Much of this was extremely difficult:

Now that puppy is ready for paint.

More photo etch fun was done on the little V-100 which fortunately, did not have much:

That one is also ready for paint now.

Despite the instructions, I was able to make some progress on the Nagmachon; adding all the reactive armor and other detail parts to the hull:

Later I posed this with the doghouse to see how it's looking so far. I next have to finish up the doghouse and then get the photo etch added:

After that, I got the windows inside the Trattore truck so I could close it up and get it closer to the finish line. I also added the wheels to it, after having to "adjust" the wheel wells:

Here it is with the tilt dry-fit in place:

Finally, I made some more progress on the MAN Pershing tractor, adding some additional parts and finishing it up. Now all I need to do is add the cab and photo etch to this:

After that, I started the trailer for the rocket:

While stuff was drying, I decided to pull out my Russian BMP-3 Early and get started on that. At least this is one BMP-3 that I have a chance to finish! It has me start with the turret, so I got that assembled:

Next was the lower hull. This kit had been very slightly started as all I had to do was to add one or two parts to this assembled lower hull:

Next I assembled the main parts of the upper hull:

Just for fun here's all that all test fit together:

Now the painting fun could happen!

Let's see what I got painted so far.....

First was the little V-100. I shot a coat of Olive Drab over it:

Next up I shot the Centurion. This got a coat of Bronze Green:

Later on I added the roadwheels and sprockets to this tank:

Next up I shot a new coat of olive on the Diamond T wrecker:

Afterward I completed the assembly on this truck, getting it almost completed:

While I was shooting greens, the next thing I shot was the launcher for the SA-2 Guideline:

You can see it was still wet when I shot that. I also painted the rocket white:

This will be painted the grey on white scheme, so the white went down first.


Finally, I shot the two Hell cannons; one was green in preparation for the tri-color camo pattern the other is black for the rusty version:

Since I had some extra black left in the airbrush after painting that cannon, I decided to shoot a few other things. One was the exhaust pipe for the Israeli Sufa:

...and the other was the lower section of the Redstone rocket that gets black on it:

Finally, to wrap this all up, I'm leaving you with a teaser of one more project I started that I expect to make a long term project out of. I will have extensive workup to do with this one. Here's the teaser....

That's all I have for now everyone! I hope you enjoyed the latest 'tour'.

Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

 

[moon puppy]

Finally, to wrap this all up, I'm leaving you with a teaser of one more project I started that I expect to make a long term project out of. I will have extensive workup to do with this one. Here's the teaser....

That's all I have for now everyone! I hope you enjoyed the latest 'tour'.

Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

I wish they had different poses. :drinks