Maddog Manufacturing 2020 Production

[JCON]

Wow, you have been busy!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Thanks Jed and Joe! I'm trying to keep busy during this time. Hopefully more to show soon.

[Dukemaddog]

After another week worth of work, here's another update. It's kinda small compared to many I've done, but I do feel that I got a lot done. It feels great to see progress.

First off, here is a preview of the main landing gear for the AN-124 Condor. I did one complete one without wheels, and started a second on. The finished one contains 10 parts, not including the wheels. I have to make ten of these:



I also completed a third engine, but I think I mentioned that before. Okay, enough of that....

Next up, I'll show the progress on my three aircraft that are so close to the finish line right now.

To start; I got the decals on the German Huey. These were tough as they had to conform to many curves and recesses. I think I managed to get them looking good enough:



Yes, the tail ones silvered. I fixed that later after taking these pics.

Yes, for some reason my gloss spray fogged the side windows. Fortunately, I still have the set from the kit I've been cannibalizing to complete this one. The nose decal gave me the most difficulty; but then again, I might have put it on over some masking tape:



Later on I masked the pilot's door window hoping it would not be fogged, but I couldn't save it. Despite that, the dullcoat went on well. I was even surprised that the decals sucked down so well over the detail underneath:




Next, I added the last decals onto the Israeli Sufa:



...and then shot the dullcoat over it:



I then removed the masking from the tail feathers and the canopy. Now all I need to do is add the final details, the landing gear, the underwing stores, and then detail paint the last parts to finish this off.

Finally, I added the decals to the German Gotha Go-244:



They curled, despite using both Micro-sol and Solvaset. This one eye was so bad I had to paint it on. Not very well; but then I was contending with an engine nacelle in the way:



You can also see I painted the wheels on this.

Later I shot the dark gray over the masked canopy:



Now all I have to do is add that canopy and one other small window to this and it's finished. I'll even have the little Kubel that goes with this completed as well:





Speaking of vehicles, here is the latest on my armor I've been doing this week along with my aircraft.

I'll start with the 1/35th scale M-48 Patton. I don't remember what I'd posted before so here's the most recent work I did.

I think I left off with this pic of the Patton where the main hull and turrets were built up:



Next I added the fenders and the turret bustle rack:



Next I built the TC's cupola shown here dry-fit to the turret:



Finally, I added the mantlet cover and the main gun to this. The mantlet is made from the DS Styrene so it is flexible, allowing the gun to move:



I'm calling this puppy ready for paint.

Now on to my smaller stuff....


On the Modeler's Haven Forums they are running a 1/72 scale Group Build. I decided to go with the M-109 A-nothing for my 1/72 scale Group Build subject. You can follow that in it's own thread as well. Here though, is the shot of the main hull all assembled:



I then assembled the turret sans gun and mantlet:



Here they are all together so far:



I will later on be doing some carving and modifying the mantlet, frame and gun so that it will elevate. That is one of the more frustrating things about this Revell kit: they make you fix the gun in place. Hopefully I'll do a better job than I did on the German Paladin; live and learn.

Moving on, I started assembling the other M-1 Abrams SEP with the mine plow. Here's the upper and lower hull dry-fit together:



Next came the turret:



And to show that I'm not recycling pics of the first SEP Abrams, here they are side by side:



I then started on the mine plow for this Abrams. Here are the main blades:



There are 18 parts in that pic above, nine per side. Flyhawk really did these right!

Moving on, here's more of the mine plow:



Those skids are fully poseable too!

Here is the full mine plow almost done:



That thing is a model unto itself, and fully articulate as well! All I need to do is add the chain to it.

Next I had to make these ready for paint. That meant adding all the P/E screens and other parts to these. First the regular SEP Abrams:



Then the mine plow Abrams next to it:



BTW, the 'white' squares on the engine decks of these tanks are the P/E screens reflecting my bench worklight.

I then finished the P/E on the SEP TUSK I Abrams too:



Then came the basecoats of dark green on all three of these. The M-1A2 Abrams SEP:



... The M-1 A2 Abrams SEP with mine plow:



And the M-1A2 Abrams SEP TUSK I:





And that is where I left off so far this week. More to come soon I hope. Stay tuned and thanks for looking in on this latest tour. Comments are always welcome.

[JCON]

Yup you have been a busy boy!!! The decals didn't treat you well but you still kept at it!!! Love the Abrams and that tiny Kublewagon!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Thanks Joe! Hopefully soon I'll be able to call some of these things done.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Wowzer!

[ogrejohn]

Busy busy busy Mark. Love the Gotha! 

[Dukemaddog]

Thanks Bruce!

Thanks John! I'm trying to stay busy. I am enjoying that Gotha too. It went together surprisingly well considering the age of that ancient Italeri kit.

[JED]

Amazing amount of work Duke

[Dukemaddog]

Thanks Jed! I just wish all that work would allow me to actually finish a few! This past couple weeks was not as productive as I wanted.

I'm a bit late for this week's update, but then again I haven't gotten that much done in the Hobby Room given all that I had to do this past couple weeks and the drop in mojo it caused. This will be a small update, just so I can show that I'm still doing something in my Hobby Room besides staring at the walls when I'm in there...


I'll start my aircraft, of which there are two I worked on. One is the Japanese Val; an aircraft that I never had in my collection before. It's high time I rectified that and since one was in the huge box I was sent; I got started right away. This is the Fujimi kit that is very basic in detail, but still looks good when built. I started with the cockpit.... such as it is! Most basic:





Next I did the spatted landing gear... even more basic: it was too halves without a separate wheel in the spats. Hopefully I can make it look good enough with paint:





Next up was the engine and cowling. This was surprisingly more difficult than expected, but I got it done:





After that I did the propeller:





Finally, the wing tops were glued to the bottom wing half:





Now all I have to do is paint these little subassemblies and then I can get it built. Hopefully next week.


The only other aircraft I worked on was the Israeli F-16I Sufa. I just added all the final greeblies and touched up the paint. I also painted the burner can too. Now all I need to do is add the landing gear and the ordinance and this bird will be done:





While I was at it; I started the capsule on my Mercury Redstone rocket since the main body of it was all painted and clearcoated for decals. Here is the capsule with the escape system:





Later I added the lattice parts that hold the escape system to the capsule:





The ring at the bottom of the escape tower is just dry fit on the capsule making it removable for ease of painting. I might be able to shoot these soon.



Moving on to my armor; I only worked on a couple little kits. This first one is the little Kubelwagen that comes with the German Gotha G-244 transport. I simply clearcoated it and added the decals:








Now I just need to dullcoat this and then weather it a bit. I don't know that I'll weather this much as it's supposed to be a staff car being transported in an aircraft, but I will dust it up a little. Meanwhile I went to work on another kit that I had been putting off working on.


I pulled out my M-109, knowing I had a lot of effort to put into that model to make the gun elevate, so it was time to stop putting it off. I made the necessary cuts, and then fashioned a couple braces to trap the gun mantlet so it would elevate. Trap it how? I added a piece of sprue to the back of the mantlet as you can see:





Here it is all assembled, minus the mantlet. I was able to bend that enough to get the mantlet in place:





Success! I was able to get that mantlet to elevate. Of course, I ran into another issue, the top of the mantlet cover doesn't look right at full elevation as you can see in the following two pics:








Oh well, I'm not going to worry about it now. I may change it later but for now I'm happy with how this elevates.


Later on I added the roadwheels and assorted other detail parts to the hull. Here is the whole model all assembled to that point:






Well that completes this short update for this week at least. I'm hoping I can get more done this weekend if possible.


Stay tuned, more to come. And for those who did stop in to comment, I thank you very much, comments are always welcome.

[BUCKY]

It may be a small update, but it's more than I've done, lately! LoL Looking good, Mark!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

You have been busy Mark. Great progress. Thanks for keeping your assembly line crew employed.

[JCON]

The Israeli's have such cool plane camo!

[ogrejohn]

Lots of fine work going on there at the factory Mark! 

[Dukemaddog]

Thanks for the fantastic comments guys! These keep me going. This coming week seems to be as jammed as last week so not sure about any further progress for awhile. Stay tuned though, more should be coming eventually. Who knows? I might even finish a few.

Thanks again guys!

[Dukemaddog]

Well, despite the obstacles and other issues during this week I managed to get a surprising amount of work done on the workbench. This is my semi-weekly update showing my latest progress. So, sit right down and buckle in; this tour of Maddog Manufacturing is about to begin.



I'll start in my aircraft hanger. I've been working on a couple rockets here as well as this one helicopter that has been giving me fits. To start with, I changed out the windows on the Huey's sliding doors. You can see the old fogged windows below the doors holding their new windows:





Next I added the missing pieces to the tail. Now I can add the tail rotor when I get it painted:





I went to replace the pilot's door window since it was also fogged, but I found that I didn't have the spares in the second kit. So I tried to clear that one up using very fine sanding pads (from 2800 to 20000) and then dipping in Future. No go. This was as good as I could get it so this will still be a poor rendition of this model, until I find a third kit I can cannibalize! Here it is installed again after all that week of sanding and buffing:





Finally, I moved ahead on this for once; building the main rotor. Afterward I'll be painting it:





Yes, I added the droop.


Here is the whole thing up to this point. All that's left is detailing the replaced parts; painting and weathering the rotors and adding them in and then I can call this PITA done:





Moving on, I had to repair the top cone on the Redstone capsule since it broke when I tried cleaning the attachment point off. Here it is after I'd covered it with Mr. Surfacer 500, let it dry and then tried sanding it smooth:





Later I'll primer that and see how well I did....


Meanwhile the Convair Atlas was also calling my name. This beastie was another two-steps-forward; one-step-back kind of deal again. Here's the breakdown...


I started by filling the seams and slight gaps in the nose cone with Mr. Surfacer 500:








That's both sides filled. Later I sanded this down after that dried:





Afterward, I also noticed the tube going up the side had a few gaps in it that I filled with Vallejo acrylic putty:





When that was dry enough, I shot some more white primer on this and let it dry. When it was dry, I looked it over and found a few more dimples and seams that needed correcting. So, I sanded some of them down and the rest I filled with Mr. Surfacer 500 again:











That's where I left off on that one. I was too tired of sanding anymore to get on it so I put that aside for next week.


That completes this tour of the hanger, now on to my armory...





Here in the armory, I first went to work on my 1/35th scale Patton for the Tribute Build/AMPS Group Build. First I masked off all the vision ports in the cupola with Tamiya tape and Silly Putty so I could paint it:





Later when the airbrush came out, I shot this with the OD color:





Next I shot the hull. Lower first:





The the upper hull:





They are attached, by the way....


Then I shot the turret:





Here's a shot of everything together:





After that I brush painted the mantlet cover with Field Drab. The DS plastic made it look gloss even after it dried:





That is where I left off on that. I'll do something about that mantlet cover later. I have a few ideas for trying to make it look more 'fabric' and dull.



Moving on to my next project, I started adding the (almost) final detail parts on the M-109. On the back of the turret, there are these four boxes that attach to the rear stowage baskets. They had these dimples on the ends that I had to sand down. Here are two of them already sanded beside the other two so you can see what I had to deal with:





After they were done, I added most of the rest of the parts to this so I could get started on painting it. Aside from a few parts that I know will break off during handling, painting and weathering; this beastie has everything it needs on it for paint:








Finally, I decided to go ahead and hand paint the camouflage patterns on the two M-1 SEP Abrams since there were only three views on the paint pattern chart in the instructions: front, back and one side. Nothing for the other side or the top. By doing hand painting, I could at least freehand the hidden side and top. These two patterns are slightly different, but they are all based on the existing pattern from the instruction sheets.


First is the M-1A2 Abrams SEP:








And here is the M-1 A2 Abrams SEP with the mine roller. The mine roller is only sitting in front of this at this time. I'll be adding it later when all the final work is done:








The M-1A2 Abrams SEP TUSK I with be airbrushed as I already have the Silly Putty on it. Hopefully next week.



After that I looked around for something else to work on but nothing screamed at me so I put everything away.


That concludes this latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing, I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for stopping in and comments are always welcome.

[JCON]

Nice work fella!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Some amazing progress, Duke. I still don't know how you work on those tiny bits. Was it the CA glue, that caused the hazing on the chopper windshields?

[Dukemaddog]

Thanks Joe!

Thanks Bruce! I just take off my glasses and go to work on them. And no, I didn't use CA glue for the chopper window; I don't use that for gluing clear parts. I'm not even sure what caused that fogging, but it seems like it's inside the part since all buffing of both surfaces on each side didn't remove anything. If I can get a replacement window I'll put it in. Until then, this is how it's gonna look.

[JED]

Great work Duke in both amount and quality