Maddog Manufacturing Now 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:

[Stikpusher]

Nice update of your factory for the new year. Does that FV.432 have a metal barrel for the main gun?

[jeaton01]

I might have to get one of the U-125's but I'd have to build it as a BAE 800. Odd that they gave it the 125 designation, the full civil number is 125-800.

[tempestjohnny]

So many different things. I'd lose track

[Medicman71]

And he's off! Look out everyone!!

[Duke Maddog]

Nice update of your factory for the new year. Does that FV.432 have a metal barrel for the main gun?

Thank you Carlos! Yes, it has a metal barrel. It came as part of the conversion set.

I might have to get one of the U-125's but I'd have to build it as a BAE 800. Odd that they gave it the 125 designation, the full civil number is 125-800.

Thank you John ! Yes, it is a beautiful plane; I'd love to see you build it. That would be cool to see it as a BAE 800. Interesting indeed on the number designation.

Thank you Johnny! Sometimes I do too! But hey, what else is there to do when the glue and/or paint is drying and you still want to build?

Thank you Mike! I do hope to have many more tours of Maddog Manufacturing this year!

[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.

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.

[Medicman71]

Awesome work as always! I wish I could build that quickly.

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks Mike! I was just on a roll and didn't want to stop. I hope to get more done soon. I have a few to finish!!

[Stuart]

Jeez Mark, where to start?

Loving the British AFVs, it's a real shame that turret came off but I'm glad you got it fixed.

The RAF Launch is coming along well, I built one of those about 12 years ago, it was the first 'big' kit I had - great stuff.

Loving your selection of aircraft, the Ninja is a new one on me though, looks great!