Maddog Manufacturing Open in 2021

[JED]

You can have any colour as long as it's green!!

[Dukemaddog]

Yes they did Joe, but I think I've already surpassed their wartime production. Then again, very few of these are Ford.

Jed, I love it!

Someone else on another Forums asked; when they saw my latest completions: "So, are you up to Corps level assets now?"

My answer: I think so!

[BUCKY]

Great bunch of work. I don't know how you keep up with all the parts! I have trouble doing two at a time! LoL

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Bucky! Kit boxes are fantastic for keeping track of the parts. Plus, I leave them on the sprues until I need them. Sometimes, I'll do some subassemblies by gluing the extra parts to the biggest one while it's still attached to the sprue.

[BUCKY]

I try building subassemblies,too. Kinda helps reduce the number of parts.

[JCON]

Subassemblies are a must on some kits for sure!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Yeah, I always look through the instructions to see what subassemblies I can get done ahead of time. Makes the final assembly faster and sometimes easier. It's easier to find them too when I can keep the subassemblies attached to the sprues.

[Dukemaddog]

Well it has been awhile, mostly because I actually picked up a couple jobs. However, this means I will have a pretty substantial update here today.


Let's start with my aircraft. All aboard the tram to the hanger, and remember to keep your hands and feet inside at all times.


To start with, I had a smudge in the paint on my Antonov that would not go away. Upon closer inspection, it seems that somehow all the white had been sanded away. So, I masked off the whole thing except for the bunged area to shoot some white:





A couple coats later and after drying, I have a now very white patch! Not sure what to do about this:





I went ahead and shot a gloss over this so that I could seal it in, seal the decals more, and moved ahead on this. No such luck. I waited three days to shoot a clear on this, and once it hit that blue stripe, it all crackled again:





You can see the white was fine, but the Humbrol blue cracked like shattered glass. Once more into the breech....


I masked off the strip where it cracked and sanded the cracking smooth again:





Sorry for the bad pic there; but this was ready for re-painting that section of blue. Already done as of this update. This time I'll be trying Future again, now that I have a new bottle.


Moving on to something easier, I painted the pilot of the Vampire and then glued on the canopy:





After that dried, I used my Vallejo masking agent to cover the clear portion of that canopy for painting:





Moving on, I started two new aircraft. While I was building my armor, I was chatting with a friend and we were talking models. The F-27 Friendship was mentioned and since I was already planning to build it, I was motivated to start it today. Here is the interior of this plane all assembled:





Just for fun, I dry fit that into one side of the fuselage:





Nice! Later I glued the wing and tail halves together (not to each other though) so that I wouldn't have to worry about that later:





That was good enough for now because we also started talking about the ancient Matchbox Noorduyn Norseman which I also happened to have in the stash. So, out it came and the most basic interior was completed:





Here's what that one looks like inside one side of the fuselage:





I then cemented the float halves together to ease construction later:





There's where I stopped more or less. I wanted to focus on my armor now since I have so many under production. So, next stop for this tour is my motor pool portion of this factory....


My first one I did was the Canadian Cadillac Gage, which needed the interior, basic as it is:





Not even sure why I did that, it won't be seen once this is closed up. Oh well, it was fun!


Next up was the Russian CLUB M Coastal defense missile system. I'm doing this four hours at a time for our SoCal AMPS 20 hour build. Before I finished up the chassis, including the photo etch. This time, I started on the cab with the interior first:





The outer cab was then done, first the interior dashboards:





...followed by the windows:





After that I started the generator cab, getting it assembled:





Then I started on the launch tube cabin, first assembling and then mounting the launch tubes inside:





Here's the whole set of sub-assemblies sitting on the chassis:





This is the other side which shows how this will look:





I need to paint that interior before I add anything more. And yes, this will be shown open because I figured out how to make the launch tubes elevate....



Moving on to my Centurions, my first one is my Australian Centurion Mk.5 LR. I had already built the basic lower hull, so this time I moved on to the turret:





This has a turret basket on the back so I built that. Later I'll be adding photo etch to it:





Then the top part in front of the commander's hatch disappeared so I scratched out a new one and installed it on the turret:





It looks close enough to the original kit part so at least I'm happy with that:





Next I decided on a new approach to adding the tracks to these beasties. First I added the inner wheels and sprockets:





Then I cemented the run of tracks to the bottom of the roadwheels, making sure the guide teeth were up against each one. Yes, I used the glue shown in the pic. It works!





After this dried, I wrapped it around the sprockets and connected them at the top of the run; cementing them to each wheel and sprocket:





Once that was done, all I needed to do was add in the outer wheels and sprockets and Bob's your Uncle!





I did the same with the other two Centurion variants and it worked out exceptionally well. Here you can see the progression from first gluing on the left to finished on the right:





After that, I completed all the plastic assembly for the tank. Next up is the addition of all the photo etch:





I then worked on completing the hull and most of the turret on the British Mk.5:





Later I also assembled the hull and turret for the British FV4005; or as I like to call it, the British KVII! The first thing I did, since the turrets were sticking on the previous two Centurions; was to fix and test the turret ring panel before installing it on the hull:





Should've done that with the other two Centurions...


Got the hull all assembled and stuck the turret on it:





Later I completed this all the way up to photo etch:





I also brought the British Mk.5 up to the same level. Here are all three sitting together ready for photo etch:






And that completes the latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing, I hope you enjoyed it.


Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

[JCON]

Congrats on picking up some work...

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Sorry about the paint reaction.

[JED]

Great work as usual Duke

[JCON]

Aug 5, 2021 9:15:28 GMT -6 dogfish7 (R.I.P.) said:

Sorry about the paint reaction.

Wonder what really caused that reaction... was the paint too hot chemical wise?

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

One reason, I don't trust Krylon for Modeling.

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Joe! I'm hoping it'll be enough to get me to Vegas and back.

Thank you Bruce! It was a bit of a surprise, but nothing insurmountable.


Bruce and Joe, this is the first time I ever had issues with using Krylon for my models. It has always laid down well and never reacted to any of my paints from Testors at all. This particular blue paint from Humbrol is the only one that did it. Perhaps it was too hot for the Humbrol paint. No worries; I've already repainted the blue and will be coating this with Future now to gloss i back up again and seal everything in.

[BUCKY]

The last time I used Krylon was on a Jeep pickup. Everything was primed at the same time. I sprayed the Krylon on all the parts at the same time. However, the paint on the hood (bonnet) wrinkled up like a prune! I stripped it, and repainted it, and it came out alright. I've been a bit leary of using Krylon since.

[JCON]

I quit using it for the same reason!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Well, here it is about three weeks after the Nationals. After coming back, I'd been super busy and so was only able to build a little here and there. Then Hobby Day came, and I was able to really move forward. This will be a long tour so please forgive me if it gets too boring. I do have a lot to show.


Now let’s get to it. All aboard the trams for this latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing. We’ll begin in the Aircraft Hanger.
At the Nationals, I picked up the FROG Southern Cross trimotor and I’ve been wanting to start it since bringing it home. First chance I got I popped it open. Naturally, I started with the “cockpit”.



Then I built the wing. It is fatter than I expected! Here it is on the original box:



I then painted the crew and closed them up inside the fuselage:



Just for fun I then dry-fit the wing on the fuselage. It looks like it’s crushing the fuselage:



I’ll keep them apart until I finish painting the wing and fuselage.

Moving on to the next one. I painted the interior of the Norseman, including the pilots:



Here is what the interior looks like inside the fuselage:



Before closing it up, I added the center top window and started masking some of the windows and windscreen:



I then closed it up, filled and sanded it down and then added the wings and tail:



Next came the basic float assembly. This was a delicate assembly to do:



Once they had dried sufficiently, I installed them on the plane:





I then moved ahead, adding the windscreen and flaps to the wings and tail. I also finished masking the rest of the windows. You can see where I also re-filled the wing joints with more putty:



The putty was sanded smooth again, the engine was painted and I added some more struts to the floats that I’d forgotten to install earlier:



Out came the Silly Putty which went over the engine, and then I pressed the cowl over the Silly Putty so I could shoot paint on this:



And then I shot the first white coat on it to see what additional imperfections I missed:



Looked good, but there were a few imperfections that needed sanding out, as well as some dust and debris that stuck to it, so I started to re-sand it for the next coat. Of course, I naturally was doing too well so my hands stopped working and dropped the plane making it break into pieces. Here it is after I started to repair it; I placed the floats on some Silly Putty to hold them in place, re-glued the struts and am waiting for them to dry before attempting to re-attach the floats:



Enough of that! I moved on to something I felt I could do better on. Out came the Fokker F-27 Friendship again. I started by painting the interior:



Fuselage went together next, I clamped it to remove a step in the forward fuselage:




Wings and tail next went on:



And finally I added the engines and most of the landing gear. You notice I opened one of the small cargo doors on the side. That is because I didn’t have enough weight in the nose:



I also finished masking all the windows on the sides of this plane after adding the windscreen:



I then added the additional weight to keep this on its feet. They fit nicely in the cargo nets! Later I’ll close this up:



This one then got its first coat of white paint:



After this, I had noticed an MPM multimedia kit of the Me-262 Swallow; this one sports a rather large gun in the nose. I had gotten it for two bucks at a show from a guy who had started it already. I didn’t think It would be an issue, so I pulled it out and started it too. I built the rather basic cockpit and then closed it up inside the fuselage. I then added the photo-etch plate to the top of the cockpit opening. The joint looked good:



The landing gear bay had photo etch to frame it, so I added that:


When I went to test fit the wing section to see how the photo etch looked and fit, I found out why this guy stopped and sold the kit:



The instructions said I needed to cut sections off that center section so I did, not realizing that the measurements they gave were off:



While I took time to figure out how to fix that, I went ahead and assembled the upper wings and engine pods:



Later I glued the whole wing assembly together and here it is dry-fit to the fuselage assembly. I also need to find the tail feathers for this too as they are lost:





Those were quite the fight so far so I pulled out something completely different and supposedly much easier. This is the new Airfix Higgins Boat in 1/72 scale. I started with the crew station in the back:



I did clean up that mess later after I took the pic. And to show you how easy this was, I got this far before I realized I had forgotten to take pics:


Just for fun, I noticed this little trailer in my Centurion Mk.5 LR kit that goes behind a British Centurion used in the Suez Crisis. Even though I wasn’t going to use it, I went ahead and assembled it:



That is a nice little transition into my Motor Pool division of Maddog Manufacturing where I have a number of projects going, including at least one that I started. I’ll begin with that one.

This is my M-1240 M-ATV that I got at the Nationals as well and I’ve been eager to get started on it. I should have waited. Here is the chassis; it was more delicate and difficult to build than I expected. There are several pieces left off that which were too much effort to add so they are not on here:



Next I built the interior of the main cabin:

modelersalliance.org/galleries/wip-m-atv-ii-jpg.126883/full[/IMG]

Then I assembled the main cab and hood:



And finally, I assembled the rear cargo compartment:



After that I’d had enough of that! Out came the two Japanese APC’s which needed an interior painting. I painted the interior white and then the benches a dark, leather brown:



Not much will be seen once these get closed up:




Easy peasy! Next it was time to move forward on another project that had been languishing; my M-41 Walker Bulldog. All it really needed was the P/E and tracks. I started with the P/E, adding most of what was included:



Afterward I added the tracks. This one is ready for paint:



Another easy one (or at least fast) was my French APC. Since I got the tracks for it, I added the wheels in preparation for installing the tracks:



Next I went back to adding P/E to tanks. I started with my Australian Centurion Mk.5 LR, finishing off the photo-etch:



I did the same to the British Mk.5 tank since I was doing the same thing:



After that I added the final parts to these Centurions: the turret rings above the vision blocks. Here you can see it on the British Centurion:



These two Centurions are ready for paint now.

Next I started on another model that had been languishing: my Italian B1T Centauro. It needed the suspension on the bottom to start with:



Next I finished the turret as best I could. There are a number of brackets that are too short shot to use so I’ll need to fabricate them from styrene rods before I can add the outer armor. Here is the turret all assembled and sitting on the hull:



This is a better shot of the turret basket:



Now to wrap up this tour with the final model that I was able to start. Since the replacement parts came in for my Israeli Centurion Sho’t Kal Alef, I got started on it right away. First was the basic hull:



Followed by the turret as I wanted to make sure it would turn in the turret ring:



It turns well:



Later on I added the suspension before starting the wheels:




That is where I stopped.

Now this tour of Maddog Manufacturing is over. Feel free to browse the gift shop or check out the snack bar as you leave.

Thanks all for coming in, comments are welcome.

[JCON]

Nice works, unfortunately the snack bar was out of soft pretzels once again...
Gonna have to go back and visit Heidi's again for the real meal deal!

[Dukemaddog]

Well duh! They keep delivering them to Heidi's! They never have any left when my snack bar places an order,I just can't compete. After all, mine is just a snack bar....


Thanks Joe for posting. Love the cat! Looks like one I used to have a number of years ago.

[JED]

WOW I'll just put me feet up,have a cup of Rosie Lee, and take it all in!! Great work Duke