Maddog Manufacturing Re-Opening for 2026

[Duke Maddog]

I know I'm late, but it's been a crazy, busy first of the year. Most of our departments will be open; however the Motor Pool 'crew' is still on hiatus for another couple weeks. Still, there's lots to see in the Hangar and Shipyards, I'll be showing almost everything I have under construction that I'm putting a priority on to finish. So let's board the trams and go see what we're working on in this new year!


Starting in the Hangar, we have these....


In the first bay, we have the F-35 that was started a few months ago:

The next bay has the cockpit assembly for the E-2C Hawkeye started a couple months ago as well:

Next to that is the F-15E Strike Eagle, almost ready for final assembly and paint:

The next bay has a gift from a friend, the British Harrier Jet:

In the next bay we have the British Swordfish that was started some time ago:

This one has the decals done and is ready for rigging.

In the next bay, is the Fairey Seafox, all painted and ready for further assembly:

In this next bay, is the F-86 that I got in another kit; still trying to determine what country I'll place it with:

In the next bay here, we have the beginnings of the French F-84G, cockpit and nose intake:

In the next bay over is one I've been wanting to add to my Italian Air Force, this is the MBB-323:

In this bay, another cockpit started, this time for the An-2 Colt:

Finally in the last bay, there's the C-46 that was given as a gift to me earlier:

And that concludes this tour of the Hangar, now on to the Shipyards.



We have a lot going on at the Shipyards here, in these next few slipways, we have some small boats under construction, first slip is the USS Defiance Vietnam-era patrol boat:

The next slip has the Coast Guard Icebreaker Eastwind, all completed:

It got the decals on it next:

In the next bay is the Tugboat Lucky XI, all painted up and waiting for final detail parts and decals:

Still trying to find the decals for that. Meanwhile in the next slip is the Tugboat Long Beach in the same state:

This one did get the decals and some additional detail parts, just looking for the last ones:

Finally, the small boat slips have the PT-109 in this last slip; all details are on except the most breakable ones and the gun on the deck is secured; it just needs the tie-down ropes on it:

Now on to the larger ships. In this next slip is the USS Montrose Assault ship:

After some time, she got all the detail parts and masts:

In this next slip we laid the keel for a British submarine, the HMS Astute. It's a fast and easy build:

This got paint and is now waiting for decals for finishing:

In these next two slips are the two French frigates Normandie and Aquitane. Both are now painted and the Aquitane is waiting for additional parts to finish up:

In the next slip is the hospital ship SS Hope, now all built up and painted:

In the next slip is the USS Alaska still waiting for full assembly:

Meanwhile, we laid the keel for the USS Albany a Chicago-class missile cruiser after it's conversion:

Finally in this last slipway, we laid the keel for the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier:

As I've been waiting for this, we continued with the interior of the main hull:

Interestingly enough, Trumpeter 'took pity' on us modelers and painted and decaled the main deck and ski ramp:

Here it is dry-fit on the hull:

That is gonna be interesting.

That completes the tour of the Shipyards, so on to the back lot where other projects are underway....


Here in the Automotive Garage, we have one of the cars I've been trying to build. This seems to be as far as I can go with this until I get another kit to cannibalize since the box had been weakened and a bunch of parts are missing:

Now going back into the Back Lot, we have this figure of the Red Knight of Vienna waiting for paint:

As well as the European auto dealership that seems to be stalled due to the sprues for one of the buildings are missing:

And in the Space Port, the little UFO is still waiting for final paint coat:

And that completes our tour showing every current active project we're working on. Thank you all for looking in, I hope you enjoyed this preview of the many (I hope!) projects that will be completed in this new year. Stay tuned for more, and comments are always welcome!

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Busy as usual eh Mark? So far so good. Seems like in my memory at some point I built a tug boat kit, and those two you built look to be the same molds. What scale are they?

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Paul! My apologies for the late reply; I'd been spending the week showcasing my collection of vehicles in 1/72 scale at our St. Crispin's Irregulars Hobby Day Hall. The tugboats are 1/96 scale and yes, they are the same mold. The original one is the Long Beach; and the second one is a re-release with the Lucky XI markings and scheme.

 

[Brokeneagle]

Wow, you have been busy!

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Ian! I've got more to post soon.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Well, it's been awhile, mostly because of all the time spent with my display hosting visitors who came to see it. Now that things have settled down a bit, it's time for another tour. We've been quite busy during this time with a lot of new projects as well as come continuing work on others.

All aboard the trams, our first stop is the Hangar....


Here in the Hangar, we've been busy with a lot of projects. In this first bay is one of the continuing projects, the Matchbox 1/72 scale Fairey Seafox. The last time we saw her was before the upper wing went on. Now it's on and the clear parts have been installed as well:

In the next bay another British aircraft in progress; the Harrier jet, got the decals applied:

All the rest of the bays have new projects that were started recently. First up in this next bay is a French Spad XIII that I found in the stash while cleaning up. It's so small and simple, I just had to get it started. First I built it up to the top wing as usual:

After a bit, I added the top wing to it. Now to figure out it's camouflage pattern:

In the next bay is another French aircraft, albeit from the United States. It's the Revell B-26 Marauder in 1/72 scale. I have two of them so I decided to build them both and make one French and the other USAAF, since the kits provided decals for both. Here is the French one so far:

As you can see from the upper left, I won't be getting much further on this until I find the other half of the one nacelle. I can build around it until then.

Meanwhile in this next bay we have the US B-26 Marauder. The cockpit is built, the wings are assembled and everything else that was done on the French plane is done here too. Here's a shot of the cockpit and wings together:

In this next bay is a commemoration build for John Eaton; this is a 1/72 scale Roden C-123 Provider that I saw in his stash and since I had one too; I started it for this. First the basic cockpit was assembled, with the rear cockpit wall following:

Next the wings were built:

The cockpit was then painted and added to one side of the fuselage after I'd painted a bare metal silver on the fuselage halves, along with what I thought was adequate weight in the nose:

It wasn't adequate as I found out when I taped everything together, dry-fit the wings and tested it. So, additional weight was added to the front of this plane:

Once that was confirmed to be enough, I closed up the fuselage and glued on the nose:

Just for fun, I also glued on the tail feathers and re-dry fit the wings to see how this was gonna turn out. This is a big bird!

That's where I'm at with that one so we'll head to the next bay to see the 1/72 scale Mach 2 US Navy PBM-3 Mariner. First up is the cockpit as always:

This was then painted after it dried:

Yeah, it's kinda rough, but not much of it will be seen when it's closed inside the fuselage...

Before we got to that, I got the wings assembled:

Afterward, everything got closed up inside and the wings and tail were glued on:

That completes the tour of the Hangar, now on to the Shipyards....


Here in the Shipyards, a lot has been going on. Again, some new projects and some continuing ones as well. We'll start in this first slip with the British HMS Astute getting all marked up:

That one is almost ready for launch, just a few more systems checks...

In the next slip, we have the French frigates Aquitane and Normandie also all decked out in new deck markings, pennant numbers and names:

Aquitane:

and Normandie:

These too are almost ready for launch...

In this next slip, we started another kit that was found in the stash and looked to be fast and easy. It was, as you can see here:

Later, this got paint, although it doesn't show well here in this shot:

Next up in the following slip is another fast and easy ship. I was having such a blast building this that I got this far already. This is the old Revell 1/500 scale SS United States already built and painted up so far:

Finally in this last slip, we are back to the HMS Queen Elizabeth, where the pri-fly island was built up:

This was then test fit to the deck:

Almost looks like a US supercarrier.... LOL!

The main island was then built up and also test fit on the deck:

There's more to do on the main island, and then this ship can be painted up. Until then, this is all I got done on it so far.


The Motor Pool is still on hiatus but things are tooling up to start production soon, so by the next tour, we should see something from there soon.

Meanwhile, in the Space Port, we started up and old Airfix Lunar Lander in 1/72 scale, staring with the lower part:

These is a base included, but in my opinion it's too small, given the number of experiments this includes in this kit. Here it is with the lower part on it:

I like how it has the footprints on the surface!

Here's one of those experiments that is part of this:

After that I built the upper stage:

Here you can see everything together on the base. The experiment is tucked away on the right so you can see what I mean about the lack of space.
See what I did there?

We have some more construction happening in the back lot as well. Along with the Gazebo, the Lumber Mill and the Blacksmith shop, we now have a farm house with a garage, chicken coop and outhouse going up:

Finally, a little entertainment for the workers here; we have the old Airfix Zoo set under construction for them now too:

That is gonna be fun!


That's the end of this tour for today, thanks all for looking in and remember comments are always welcome.

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Be sure to save something to build during March Mark. Busy builder as always.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Paul! I think I have a few things I could do for that.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Happy St. Patrick's Day, it's time for another tour. It's gonna be a short one, but hopefully a fun one. All aboard the trams and get settled in. First stop is the Hangar....

In the Hangar, we got started on an SH-3C Sea King helicopter in Japanese markings. The cockpit and interior were built up first:

Later the interior was painted. Once thew fuselage parts are painted, this will be closed inside:

In the next bay, our tiny Spad got all three colors painted on:

That's all for the Hangar, it's not much but we still need to get the paint booth worked up to airbrush so many projects. Hopefully soon. Now on to the Shipyards....

Here in the Shipyards a little more has gotten done. In this first slip the HMS Revenge got her hull taped off for painting, some of her final details added; and the forward mast was added using styrene rod since the parts for it were missing. It is a Distressed Kit from the Auction after all:

In the next slip, the USS Alaska got many of her finer details added and the superstructure was cemented into place. However; until I find all the missing parts that disappeared when the box full of sub-assemblies fell over and scattered them, this is as far as I'll be able to go on this:

Since several ships had been launched, we had some free slips ready for more projects. This next slip, we laid the keel for a modern Japanese landing craft. This built up pretty fast as the model is only about 6" long:

It doesn't show well here but the deck was painted:

Now the hull and superstructure was painted and additional detail parts were added:

This one is getting close to launch...

In the next open slip, we laid the keel for the IJN Shokaku, a Nichimo 1/500 scale model of this famous carrier. This had been in the stash for decades and the time was right to start it. The first things done were the fore deck and aft deck details:

All the side sponsons went on next on one side:

Followed by the side sponsons on the other side which can be seen on the far side of this shot:

While those were all drying, the tiny island was built, sans antenna:

Here's a shot of the whole thing with island and flight deck dry-fit:

That completes the tour of the Shipyards, now let's head over to the newly opened Motor Pool where we have a few projects started now.

In this first bay, we have a British Austin Armored car. I got this to use the decals from it to complete another Austin car for a commission, which had the wrong decals in it. Now that the commission is done, I'm building this one for myself. The suspension was built first:

Later the upper hull was built:

That is it for that so far.

Next up is the WC-18 ambulance by ACE and the chassis and suspension were done first:

Next I built up one side of the body, adding the interior of the cabin inside, leaving it this way to paint it later:

After checking references, I chose an interior paint scheme and painted it up:

This allowed me to close it up and add some more interior details:

Finally in this last bay, I couldn't resist starting that little locomotive that my friend gave me. I started with the upper body first:

Once the wheels and linkage were done, I got it painted:

Next up will be decals and some detail painting.I'm looking forward to seeing this done.


That completes our tour of the facilities today, short and sweet. Thank you all for looking in, comments are welcome.

 

[Brokeneagle]

I know I always say this but man, I don't know how you keep up the pace! You are the most prolific builder I have ever seen!
Great work MD

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Ian! I can tell you, without my Hobby Days at the hall; I most likely wouldn't be getting this much done. I can go down there with friends and sit and model for anywhere between six and ten hours. It is so relieving to be able to just get away and enjoy some free modeling time.