Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Show off your completed work! One or two pictures and a brief explanation. Let others have a quick look at your finished masterpieces!
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Duke Maddog
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Duke Maddog »

Thank you guys for all the fantastic replies! I'm sorry I'm so late in responding, things have been crazy with no time to log in.

Thank you John! I am happy with the progress on those Vospers boats. They are coming along better than expected, especially considering the age of those kits. A-400 has paint already, and is now clearcoated with a gloss. Decals will hopefully be added soon.

Thank you Brandon! Yeah, I do tend to work on a lot. Someone once told me, "I admire your patience to do this hobby." to which I replied, "I don't have any patience! That's why I keep working on so many models because I want to be doing something while I'm waiting for glue or paint to dry!"

Thank you John Eaton!

Thank you Stuart! I'm glad you told me that; I was going into that Concorde build with the idea that it would be fast and easy. Boy did I learn the hard way! I'm going to be watching it more closely to see if I can take care of the issues better now.

Thank you Lyle! Preach it Brutha! I'm also thrilled at how well the Big E is coming together. I'm not exactly looking forward to painting that deck though!

Thank you Steve!


Happy Valentine's Day weekend to everyone, and now it's time for the Valentine's Day weekend tour of Maddog Manufacturing. Thanks to a fantastic Hobby Day weekend, we were able to get a lot done. So, all aboard the trams, the tour begins now....



Starting in the Hangar again, we have a little bit of work done on a couple aircraft. This first one is the Iranian F-5B Tiger II which got a shot of Tamiya bare Metal Silver out of the rattle can. This can was almost empty so the results were not what was expected or hoped for. It looked like a metallic leopard to be honest. So, a bit of a strip, another shot of primer and then a new attempt with a Testor's rattle can of metallic aluminum. This wasn't so good either:


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Back to the drawing board with that one. Gee for an easy and uncomplicated build, this sure needs ridiculous effort!



The next aircraft we worked on was the Concorde. we tried to get the linkages inside the nose to work correctly but failed. So, we capped off the nose with the final nose cone:


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No, the nose isn't broken, this is as far as the nose droops despite my efforts to make it work correctly. At least it works partially:


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After all that, we cemented on the tail section and the engines, and snapped on the forward fuselage to see how big this is. This beastie spans nearly three feet; or 1.8 meters for those across the Pond. You can kinda get an idea from the standard sized paper clip that is barely visible above the forward fuselage. I forgot to put something down to show length, and that was there after I took the picture so that's the size reference:


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There's going to be a lot of filling and sanding on that monster, then hopefully it'll be made smooth enough for a white coat later on.




That is all in the Hangar, as I mentioned, not much done. Let's head over to the Shipyards now to see the work done there.


This past week, all of the work was done on the smaller boats. Starting in this first slip, we have the 71 foot Vospers masked up ready to paint the boot stripe:


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Boot stripe was then painted and set aside to dry:


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After that was dry, the boot stripe was taped over and the bottom of the hull was painted the hull red from Humbrol. Here it is still wet:


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Later on after that dried, all the masking was removed and we got to see how much touch up was going to be needed:


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In the next slip, the 73 foot Vospers was still masked off for paint. The lower hull is supposed to be painted mostly black except for a section at the bow:


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...so paint was laid down:


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When that dried, it was masked off to prepare for airbrushing the light grey on to the rest of it:


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While we had the black out, We decided to mask off the aft of the Vospers Perkasa to shoot black:


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...and the black was shot on:


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Then we saw that the S-100 Schnellboot had a black lower hull, so that was masked off to be shot:


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Black paint was shot:


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And later the mask was removed to see how well it looked:


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We'll be able to move forward on that fairly quickly.


That completes the tour of the Shipyards, now on to the Motor Pool....




Here in the Motor Pool, production has finally picked up. There has been a lot of projects I have been wanting to get going on in addition to the SCUDS we're building. These were pulled out to get started.


In this first bay, we built the hull and running gear for the Russian SA-5 Gainful. This went together very fast and easy:


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Next all three missiles were built:


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The we built the launcher assembly and loaded the missiles on to it. The missiles are not glued in:


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Gee, that took all of 15 minutes to do. This is now ready for paint.


After that, we pulled out another quick and easy model; this time the fifth SA-2 SAM launcher for the SA-2 SAM battery I'm trying to build. Again, fast and easy:


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The missile was built next:


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Later the missile was loaded onto the launcher, but mot glued in to make painting easier. This is also now ready for paint:


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Since the battery needs some reload trucks with missile reloads, I decided it was time to bring out the ancient Airfix kit and get started on the truck. First, the basic chassis and underside was done on the tractor portion:


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Next, the transport trailer was completed:


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Finally the whole thing got mocked up to see how it's gonna look:


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This kit also comes with a launcher as well, so I'll have my sixth launcher for this battery.


These were all simple kits we worked on in between work on the SCUDs. Starting with the SCUD C, we built up the first of the body sections, this one goes right behind the driver's cab:


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That was a bit of a diversion to relax from having added all the axle and wheel hubs to the main chassis, as well as the plates underneath:


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Finally, the remaining body sections were built and staged on the chassis t see how they will fit. You can see I left off the sides of the command cabin so we can get the interior painted first:


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After getting that far on the SCUD C, we moved ahead on the SCUD D, completing the basic chassis:


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Later the engine was built and installed on the chassis:


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After that we managed to get two of the four body sections built. Again, the sides of the command cabin are left off for interior painting:


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Finally, on another Forums, a Sherman Group Build was started, so I decided to make one more attempt to finish a UM Models Sherman. I had started five others previous to this and failed miserably to complete them. This is the UM Sherman with the T-17 rocket launcher mounted to go along with my Calliope. The hull was started first as usual:


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You can see the front of that 3-piece tranny cover did not turn out right. Despite my best efforts, those five pieces refused to fit right; the curve of the hull parts came nowhere near the same curve on the bolt arches. I cannot worry about that anymore, or this will be another UM Sherman confined to the Shelf of Doom, never to be completed. We moved on....


The upper hull was mounted on the lower hull and the turret was started:


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The turret later got finished up, all except for the most delicate parts hat would break during consequent building. The upper hull also got a few caps and other round parts added:


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Next we added the photo etch parts and the remaining fender pieces to the hull. The drive sprockets and idlers were added as well:


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Finally, we came to the running gear. Normally I've had no issues with building these; it's always the photo etch skids that have invariably tripped me up, making it impossible for me to finish (if the kit wasn't already missing vital parts...that's another story)


Slowly and carefully we assembled these bogies; when it came time to add the photo etch skids, we annealed the etch and used the included jig to bend them into place. They ain't perfect, but they're DONE!


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We wasted no time after these were sufficiently dry enough; they got installed on the lower hull and the tracks were then added:


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After all of that, we were done for the day. Any further work will be done another time.



That concludes the Valentine's weekend tour of these facilities. Thank you all for stopping in and joining the tour. Comments are always welcome.
The Duke
Virtuoso of Miniatures

"Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I get and beat you with 'till you understand who's in ruttin' command!"
-Jayne Cobb, Firefly Episode 2 "The Train Job"

We are modelers - the same in spirit, in hunger to insanely buy newly released kits, hustlers in hiding our stash from our better halves and experts in using garbage as replacements for after-market parts.
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Medicman71
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Medicman71 »

Great work Mark!
Mike

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Duke Maddog
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Duke Maddog »

Thank you Mike! Glad you stopped in!
The Duke
Virtuoso of Miniatures

"Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I get and beat you with 'till you understand who's in ruttin' command!"
-Jayne Cobb, Firefly Episode 2 "The Train Job"

We are modelers - the same in spirit, in hunger to insanely buy newly released kits, hustlers in hiding our stash from our better halves and experts in using garbage as replacements for after-market parts.
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Stikpusher »

:shoutout: :shoutout: :shoutout:
Some great subjects there Mark! I really like the SAMs!
"Surely I have made my meaning plain? I intend to avenge myself upon you, Admiral. I have deprived your ship of power, and when I swing 'round, I intend to deprive you of your life."

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tempestjohnny
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by tempestjohnny »

My head is spinning just looking at all these beauties. Nice work Mark
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Stuart
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Stuart »

Amazing work as always Mark!
Stuart Templeton 'I may not be good but I'm slow...'

My blog: https://stuartsscalemodels.blogspot.com/
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Stuart
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Stuart »

Amazing work as always Mark!
Stuart Templeton 'I may not be good but I'm slow...'

My blog: https://stuartsscalemodels.blogspot.com/
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Duke Maddog
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Duke Maddog »

Thank you Carlos! I'm happy with the SAMs too; I have an SA-4 floating it's way over from Hobby Easy, probably get here in April but I'll at least have these done.

Thank you Johnny!

Thank you Stuart!
The Duke
Virtuoso of Miniatures

"Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I get and beat you with 'till you understand who's in ruttin' command!"
-Jayne Cobb, Firefly Episode 2 "The Train Job"

We are modelers - the same in spirit, in hunger to insanely buy newly released kits, hustlers in hiding our stash from our better halves and experts in using garbage as replacements for after-market parts.
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Duke Maddog
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Duke Maddog »

Welcome to the next tour of Maddog Manufacturing. It's gonna be a pretty long one, but most of the work to be seen will be in the Motor Pool. Very little was done in the Hangar and Shipyards. So, all aboard the trams, and remember to keep hands and feet inside at all times.



That being said, let's check out the progress in the Hangar....


One of my shelf queens I've been trying to move forward on is the C-54 that I started quite a few years ago. This has been a far more complicated model than expected. This week, all we did was to complete the last of the four engines that still needed to be built. Each one had seven parts to it:


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Those will be painted sometime later then we'll be able to move on.


Over in the Shipyards, a little more progress was done, almost all on the British Vospers 73ft MTB.


First, after the black bottom dried, it was masked off so that the light grey could be shot on the hull:


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Here it is after the Grey was shot:


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And now the masking has come off:


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Later this will be gloss coated and decals added, then the clear parts will go in the portholes and we'll move on.


The last thing that was done in the Shipyards was painting the green on the deck of the Vospers Perkasa:


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That's all we have for this week in the shipyards, it's time to go check out the Motor Pool...


There's a lot that's been happening in the Motor Pool this past few weeks. First up is this Russian truck that I chose because it as simple and easy to build. This is the Hobby Boss Russian Ural 4320 cargo truck, and the first thing that was done was to assemble the rather basic engine:


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It won't be seen so that is the extent of that work. Once dry, it was added to the chassis along with all the other suspension parts:


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Later we added the spare tire cradle that sits behind the cab:


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The cab itself just needed fenders attached:


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The interior was done next, there's a lot of detail inside:


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Here is a dry fit to see how it fits on the chassis. Because of the unique way it goes around the engine, this was a tough fit. It looks great in the end though:


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Finally, painting was begun. Inside of the cab was painted first, and then I found a decal for the dashboard. Cool! That went in next:


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We then assembled the bed of the truck while the decal was drying:


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After that, the exterior was painted. Here is everything roughly dry fit together:


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Hopefully a gloss and decals will go on soon.


Moving on to the next bay, we have another truck, this one pulls the trailer holding the SA-2 reloads. Paint was added to the interior, but there's still more to do. I have the driver to paint. Meanwhile additional parts were added to the bed and the cab was dry fit to the front of the truck:


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The trailer then received all the remaining detail parts to be ready for paint:


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Next we just had to assemble the load, one SA-2 SAM:


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That missile has 20 parts to it. Not like the Hobby Boss one that I built before!


Moving on, we dry fit everything together. Looking good:


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After that, the launcher had to be built:


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Finally, the paint came out again. The whole exterior got shot with the green basecoat:


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Don't worry, the launcher base did not break, it comes apart so I left it that way until later.


Since the green paint was out, the next one to get a basecoat of green was the SA-6 Gainful in the next bay:


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That is coming along well. We also went to the next two bays where we painted most of the parts for the two SCUD trucks. First the SCUD C:


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And then the SCUD D:


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Finally, we shot the green basecoat over the SA-2 launcher; the Hobby Boss one. I call it Launcher No. 5 since it's the fifth one I'm building for my SA-2 SAM site:


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After all that, it was time to get back to building something. We started on this old PST Russian PMZ-2 fire tanker still sealed in the shrink wrap. Out it came and the basic chassis was built:


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The the cab parts and the tank were built. Here they are dry fit on the chassis:


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That's where we stopped on that. After that I was looking for something quick and easy and so the dragon Stryker Dragoon came out. I was always trying to get this to add to my Stryker family, and finally it had come in. The Hull was built first; it took all of 15 minutes:


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Next the turret was built. Another five minutes, but we were taking our time:


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Next the inner wheel hubs were added. Dragon makes them so they all roll, and they roll well! The outer wheels will go over these, after the tires are glued onto them. Additional parts were added to the hull as well and the turret was placed:


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The inner wheels were masked and the whole thing got it's basecoat of green:


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Wow, that was fast!


Following these, we pulled out an ancient ESCI M48A5, the only Patton variant issued in 1/72 scale that I didn't have in my collection. First, the wheels were grooved to give the appearance that it's two roadwheels per axle and not one big fat slick each. Then they were all installed on the lower hull:


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Next most of the detail parts went on the upper hull:


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And then the turret was built, just a basic assembly at first:


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We added the tracks and then dry-fit everything together to see how all of it fits. Looking good:


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Just before painting, the last detail parts were added and the searchlight was built and installed. While trying to get the hand rails on the side of the turret to stay where they are supposed to, some of the holes we drilled ghrew too big. We made an effort using acrylic putty to fill them in. We were mostly successful:


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The dark green basecoat was applied next. Later we'll break out the Silly Putty and start adding the other three camouflage colors:


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While contemplating another project while the Patton dried; I spied another ancient ESCI kit: a Churchill with mine rollers. I'd already built one, but this gave me options for a Canadian one, so we got started on that for my Canadian Army. First we built the mine roller frame:


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Next we started on the basic hull getting most of it assembled:


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This is gonna be a long beastie again:


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Later the turret was built, and placed on the hull, again with the frame positioned in front:


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Finally, the tracks were completed and the fenders installed, along with most of the additional detail parts. I had trouble with those fenders as they were pretty warped:


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Yes, I left the turret hatches off; there's a TC that goes there and I wanted to have them left open for him to pop his head out.


Finally, all the mine rollers were completed and installed on the frame. Once dry, the whole assembly was glued onto the tank:


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After that dried, it got a basecoat of Olive Drab:


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Finally, I tried again to get the T-17 rocket mounts to work. The instructions show one end of the barrel mount attaches under the T-17 rack and is not supposed to be glued so the whole thing moves when the gun is elevated and lowered. However, There is no hole or pin to go there to hold it; the "ring" on the bottom of the rack is molded solid and the rocker arms also have closed up ends where this is supposed to be pinned to move. So, after five efforts later to get these things opened and fastened correctly in a way that allows movement, I finally ended up here. The white strip on the side of that rocker arm is to hold the larger loop in place; it kept breaking off. After gluing it back five times, I decided to reinforce it with that. The other one got one too later. The Exacto blade shows how small these things are:


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These are all the parts for the rocket rack's mount along with the rack itself. If you look closely, you'll see my attempts to get the upper rocker arms done right to make this work. The side mounts went together well at least. This was taken before the reinforcement attempts, but you can see the outrageous parts I have to deal with. It's no wonder I never never finish a UM Sherman:


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Back when we shot the green on the Perkasa deck, we had also shot the same green on my Packard. The first time it had some dust on it, so we sanded it down with very fine grit:


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Later a second coat was airbrushed on. Yes, it looks a bit grainy, but it is a dull color. I'm going to buff it and then gloss it:


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And that concludes our latest tour tour of the plant. I hope you enjoyed it, feel free to leave comments, they are always welcome.


Thank you for coming in!
The Duke
Virtuoso of Miniatures

"Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I get and beat you with 'till you understand who's in ruttin' command!"
-Jayne Cobb, Firefly Episode 2 "The Train Job"

We are modelers - the same in spirit, in hunger to insanely buy newly released kits, hustlers in hiding our stash from our better halves and experts in using garbage as replacements for after-market parts.
User avatar
Stuart
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Re: Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

Post by Stuart »

Blooming 'eck Mark - that's an awesome amount of work! :shoutout: :shoutout: :shoutout: :shoutout: :shoutout:
Stuart Templeton 'I may not be good but I'm slow...'

My blog: https://stuartsscalemodels.blogspot.com/
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