Maddog Manufacturing Re-Opening for 2026

[Duke Maddog]

Today marks the culmination of another week of solid building, thus there's enough here for a new tour. So without further ado, anyone wishing to join this latest tour, feel free to board the trams and get ready for another exciting tour of the facilities. I must apologize for the quality of some of these pics; the auto-focus went out on my new camera and so I've been having to do things manually with not so successful results. I am using the best photos I was able to take.


As always, we start in the Hangar. Work has picked up a bit in here. In the first bay here we have a new kit I recently acquired from Brookhurst Hobby's collections tables at the back of the store. This is a little Australian Navy helicopter they've dubbed the "Squirrel". It's from Mach 2 so it's a very crude and difficult model to do. After some fighting, we got to this stage:

Naturally right after this, the tail rotor and one of the tail stabilizers went walkabout, making this impossible to finish unless and until these parts are found or suitable replacements installed

Later, despite the missing parts and to try to make it look better, it got it's base coat of grey. :

Moving on to the next bay we have the Iraqi Eurocopter finally assembled:

Later it got a base coat of paint but that will be shown later. In the next bay is a kit I got from the Distressed Kit Auction that was mostly started. So, I assembled the main fuselage and painted it, later adding things like the canopy, engines and other detail parts. Then I built up the main rotor to get this:

Later the rest of the helicopter was painted:

In the next bay, the F-86 that had been languishing was finally painted in a camouflage pattern I chose because I hadn't ever built an Italian Sabre. Here it is all painted up:

Later this got landing gear and I'm planning on giving this one sidewinders too.

In the next bay, we have the C-46 that I'd gotten from a friend who'd purchased it painted and mostly unassembled from a thrift store. After some finagling and interior painting, this was finally assembled. Putty was then applied in places where gaps, steps and seams appeared. Given this is a Williams Brother's kit, there were a few...

In the next bay, my British Horsa glider got it's full paint work done:

Now to get decals and landing gear on this and some more detail painting done and it'll be finished,

Speaking of gliders, we have the US Army Waco glider also sporting it's complete paint work. This one will also just need landing gear and decals for completion:

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

In the Shipyards, only one model got attention, the USS Enterprise which had been languishing for three years while I searched for the assembled missing island to no avail. It had been sitting like this for all that time:

Finally I got fed up with the fruitless search and purchased a new kit of the same model:

Using that I was able to finally build and complete a full replacement for the island that is still missing:

Finally I can move forward on this model. Detail parts and some touchup painting are all that's needed besides the air wing (all of which I'm also taking from the new model) and this beastie will finally be done:

Moving on to the Motor Pool, things have been active here. In the first bay is the German KF-51 Panther that got the camouflage pattern on it:

Yes I went with the standard Bundeswehr pattern, it fits my German army more perfectly, and I hate the look of that digital camouflage so this was my choice. All that's needed are decals and weathering and it'll be done.

In the next bay, the US Army Buffalo got the full basecoat on it, although additional detail parts are needed on it:

They went on later. In the next bay, the M2A3 Bradley got the interior finished:

Later I'll add some Value Gear inside, once I find the container that has all of it. This then got all the basecoat on it, ready for final completion:

Next I worked on a couple simple models I got from Brookhurst during our SoCal AMPS Build Night. The first one in this bay is the ICM Russian gun truck. It was so fast and easy, I got all the way to this point before I finally took some pics:

The other fast and easy ICM kit was the cabin trailer that the instructions said could be an ambulance, repair shop or command post:

I decided to go with a repair shop since I didn't have any of those, so I added some factory furniture I got a decade ago:

Later that got painted. This also means I won't be cementing down the roof so this detail can be seen.



And that concludes this tour of Maddog Manufacturing, thank you all who stopped in to tour and comment. Comments are always welcome.

 

[Duke Maddog]

It's July now and Happy Birthday America and Happy Anniversary to me. It's time for another tour of Maddog Manufacturing so all aboard the trams to see what's happening now.

Our first stop is the Hangar which only had one project going this time, but it's a big one! I got started on the AN-225 transport, starting with assembling some of the wheels:

Granted that's about 1/5th of the wheels this beastie has, and each wheel consists of five parts. I'll be working through these gradually as this progresses. Next I started with the main landing gear bay. The first part was easy:

After that, every landing gear assembly needed to be built and installed one at a time. Each landing gear sub-assembly has 17 parts in each one and there are two types of main landing gear. Here's the first one installed into place:

Later I got the rest of this first type of landing gear installed. This is still only one-third of the total landing gear assemblies:

Once that was sufficiently dry, I installed two of the second type of landing gear to get them started:

After that I got tired of dealing with all those tiny detail parts. So, I started on the engines, each of which had over twenty parts. I finally got all six of them finished and worked on their pylons next:

After some more sanding and finagling, I got all six engines mounted on their pylons:

After that I decided to start on the tail, cementing the two uprights to the horizontal part:

Note the Exacto knife in the corner to show how big this monster is...

After that, the instructions call for installing all these little posts in the wings to hold the engines and wing fillets. The posts came in these little rods that had to be cut into fourths to place in each hole. After drilling out the holes in the wings, I started by gluing the posts in place; then when they were dry, I cut off the top 3/4's and glued to the next holes, then cut them down again, lather, rinse, repeat until all the holes had posts:

Later, after sufficient setting time had passed, I added each engine pylon:

Later the wing fillets went on and as they all dried, I started the other wing with the posts:

Again, the engines and wing fillets then got glued on to this one and now both wings are completed:

Later on, I applied a thin coat of Gator's grip glue to each pylon and fillet to reinforce the CA glue and to fill any small gaps that remained. That is all drying now and waiting for paint.

That completes the Hangar portion of this tour, on to the Shipyards.

The Shipyards have been busier, several keels were laid down for new projects. The first of these is a Mahan-class destroyer:

Later after that was dry, the deck, hull and superstructure were painted:

Now we'll be able to get the detail parts all added. Meanwhile, another ship's keel was laid, this time a Liberty class cargo ship:

[IMG ]https://modelersalliance.org/galleries/wip-liberty-ship-i-jpg.132758/full[/IMG]

Then the superstructure and some detail parts were added:

Later this was painted along with the destroyer:

One more keel was laid, this time for the USS Olympia. I had this in the stash for awhile, it's time to get it built:

The superstructure was then built and added to the hull later:

Once all that was dry, the lower hull was painted red and then masked when dry so the upper works could all be painted white later:

One last new project, the USS San Francisco was then laid down. I didn't get much further than this though:

One of the two current projects were worked on as well. The Japanese ship JMSDF Chikugo (mislabeled Chikuma) got a coat of paint on it:

More details will be added and detail painted and then decals will complete this little ship. Meanwhile, on the USS Enterprise, some touch up painting was done:

While that was drying, I worked on the air wing, getting them all built and painted. The the deck-edge details and other small assemblies were added and this bird farm is ready for decals and final details:

That completes this tour of the Shipyards, on to the Motor Pool which also had only one more project going. This is the Russian BAL-E coastal defense system truck, designed to take out ships offshore, The chassis was built first, of course:

Later the driver's cab, engine cover and command cabin were built and installed on the chassis:

Next, the missile tubes were built:

Once this was all assembled together, it got it's base coat of green:

It won't be much longer on that one.


That completes this tour of the facilities for now. Thank you to all who stopped in and commented, they are always welcome.

We'll see you at the next tour.

 

[Brokeneagle]

Nice, I don't know how you do it Duke but the machine is back!

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Looking good Mark!