Maddog Manufacturing 2023 Grand Reopening!

[JCON]

Well I switched internet carriers and low and behold things load so quick!!! Can now have both phones in our home connected, the printer and two laptops and still have enough to play a movie streaming on my smart TV!!! Wifi Calling actually works now where my cell phones were really spotty and cutting out all the time, now they are crystal clear! Whoo hoo!!! Unlimited too and a 4th of the price I was having to pay for limited slow service!!! I'm a happy boy now!!! So is my bride who does genealogy online and her quilt forums!

[Dukemaddog]

Great news Joe! Now you should be able to enjoy this latest tour....

Well, it has been awhile since the last tour, mostly because of difficulty with the PC which ended with erasing my entire ten-year history of photos taken with my camera. I'm also dealing with an unknown condition that has made driving for me too dangerous. At least I still have my hobby and now my PC is fixed enough to be able to start some more tours.


All aboard the trams, we will be departing soon for the Hangar....



Here in the Hangar, there has been only one project that we worked on, but a serious amount of work was done on it. This is a simple yet difficult kit from RPM; a very short run kit that I decided to start just to get it off the stash. It is a Russian Be-4 float plane, and the instructions had us start on the engine and cowling. After some intensive sanding, test fitting and sanding again, thwe engine finally sat in place correctly. There are no attachment points or guides for any of these parts:





Next we started on the "highly detailed cockpit". That consisted of adding the pilot seats to the main floor...that's it. Only they wanted us to place the seat bottom first and then 'scratch build' the seat backs! Forget that... I went straight to my parts box and added these seats instead:





Next the bulkheads went in place. They took a bit of finagling, as again; there's no guides or attachment points to put them in their proper place:





Finally, the "interiors" were added; I happen to find a third seat for the gunner/radio operator's station that matched the two pilot seats. You can see in this pic how the floors and bulkheads will need to be trimmed and sanded before the fuselage will close:





After a test fit, we moved the seats back:





After some snipping, sanding, test fitting, adjusting, readjusting, we finally got the fuselage together. It went together better than expected for such a short run kit:





There were still some seams and steps to deal with so out came Mr. Surfacer 500:





After test fitting the gunner's dome, I realized that seat needed to be trimmed so we got that trimmed down to fit:





Another test fit later; this time of the wing, we noticed that the pylon was too short and that the propeller would cut off the nose of the plane so an adjustment had to be made. We took some sprue from the kit; cut it to length, bent it a bit and then glued them into place:





Some judicious trimming and sanding later and the pylon is ready to take the wing and the propeller will be able to spin freely:





Speaking of the wing, it came in six parts. the center section is here:





The two outer halves on each side needed to be cemented together as well. We did this along with cementing all the outrigger floats and the tail plane halves together as well:





This poor molding leaves us with a butt joint that would break if you looked at it wrong:





Well, if they were not giving us a proper way to cement this together in any manner that would hold, we added some sprue runners that the end parts would be able to grip:





Here is the first attempt to glue the ends of the wing to the center:





You can see how poor fitting these are, worse than the fuselage. So, further adjustments were made...





...and made....





And since I still wasn't satisfied we took them apart and re-started them, hopefully finally getting the wing to look right. Pics of that forthcoming later during a follow on tour..


Meanwhile, the pylons were added to the outrigger floats:





You can see where we had to fill some holes where the pontoons themselves were short shot. They are ready for installation one the wing turns out satisfactory enough.


While waiting for the latest adjustment on the wing to take, we painted the interiors:





When test fitting the main canopy, we found it was too short to cover the whole cockpit opening, so we trimmed a piece of black sheet styrene to shape and added it to the front of the cockpit opening:





The results look much better and will look even better under paint:





Well, that completes the latest work in the Hangar, let's move on to the Motor Pool...




Here in the Motor Pool, a lot has been happening. We have two civilian automobiles in progress, one big scale and one small. On the small one, the Zebrano Model A Ford, we finally got the main body assembled and fastened to the chassis:





You can see all the dust that blew in from the Hangar after all the work on the Be-4


Later all the rest of the fenders, headlights, and radiator, as well as the wheels were added:





That's as far as we got on that one. On the larger one, the Monogram 1/24 scale Packard, a lot got done. The main fenders got their coat of gloss brown:





Since the fenders were being painted the dark brown, we also masked off the main body and shot the same brown trim on it:





A bit of a test fit later, we see how well this is gonna look....provided I don't screw it up first. You can also see that the seats had been painted leather.


The main hood over the engine had been giving us problems with the green base coat, but it finally went down smooth and the gloss coat as well. This was then masked off for the brown trim to be painted as well as some chrome bits molded in place:





Final result, better than expected:





You can see we started painting the chassis as well. More to come on this later.


There's a third civilian vehicle we're working on the ACE 1/72 scale Ford 1937 stakebed truck. First assembly was the chassis:





We then got half the cab finished:





Finally, the stakebed:





Great detail on this ACE kit. Here it is all mocked up:





These next few vehicles are ones we started since I've been wanting them in the collection or awhile. First is this French AMX Mk.61 self propelled gun. Basic lower hull was assembled first:





Another French AMX vehicle, this time the AMX-13 DCA. Again, lower hull assembled first:





We got a little further on the South African Eland 90, even building the basic turret:





Finally there's the Russian Br-5 280mm mortar from ACE. This one took a bit of time since the main tracked running gear had so many parts to assemble. First were all the road wheels on the main part:





Then the two outer casings went on, trapping the (twin) idler wheels, drive sprocket and roadwheel assembly inside:





Had to do this twice:





And we still have to add the link and length tracks! Moving on, we assembled the main carriage:





Finally we got to the gun:





The trunnion will be a tough build so we left it at that....


Our last project to look into is the M1070 gun truck. We took some time to get the main chassis almost fully assembled:





The cab was started next, leaving room for painting the interior before it is closed up:





Finally the gun bed was built up, sans barriers. There's lots of interior detail that can barely be seen:





There's still a center section to build up, but these three components are pretty much done overall:






One last treat before we conclude this tour, Rocket the Raccoon has been mostly painted up. I still need to do his nose, eyes, teeth, gun and his outfit:






That concludes this latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing, I hope you enjoyed it. As always, comments are welcome.

[JCON]

Fun stuff Mark!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Joe!

[JED]

Amazing amount of work going on

[Robbo]

Can you polish that canopy up with something

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Jed and Robbo! My apologies for the very late response; I've been out of town on my nephew's dime and having no access or time for online, I've been unable to reply until now. Still wrapping up some post trip issues but I hope to start posting again soon.

Robbo, I might try to polish that canopy out, but I'm not confident anything would work. I might just have to accept it as it is.

[Dukemaddog]

My apologies; I have been gone for awhile, but now I have time to actually start a new tour of Maddog Manufacturing. This will be a rather short tour, as I've had a lot going on and not as much time to work on anything much except when I got to Hobby Days. Even then, Hobby Day production was down.


Anyway, without further ado, let's board the trams and get this tour started!



Once again, we start in the Hangar.


Not much to show, but we did get started on two models that two friends purchased for me at the latest Distressed Kit Auction back in June. These were the Matchbox F-6F Hellcat built up to this point:





Next was an ancient Airfix Avenger as part of that deal. We got it this far:





Again, short tour, that's all there is in the Hangar. Now to check out the work in the Shipyards....



Over here in the shipyards, only a small amount of work has been done on a couple of the small boats. First, the Vosper's Perkasa boat hull was masked for painting the lower hull:





Next, we got all the greeblies added to the front and second decks of the Japanese PT-15 torpedo boat:


First the front deck:





The extra holes are for the railings that will be going on last. And now a shot of this with the first two forward decks cemented in and the rear deck just dry fit in place:





This is almost all ready for paint at this point. The decks and greeblies and deck houses all have the same Neutral grey color.



Moving on to the Motor Pool, there's been a little more done than in the previous departments, starting with a couple French vehicles that are based on the AMX-13 chassis.


First is the AMX-61 102mm self propelled gun. We got it all assembled to this point and then promptly lost the gun mount assembly seen in the lower right of the picture:





Looks like that won't be done for awhile until that sub assembly shows up again, or a new kit is purchased. Story of my life, especially recently...


The other French vehicle is the DCA. We first got all the main roadwheels on it:





By the way, the plastic is not that blue....


Later we assembled the radar set in parts as we tried figuring out how it was supposed to look. The instructions show it facing aft and I wanted mine to be facing forward:





You can see above that while sub assemblies for the radar set were drying, additional parts were added to the turret. Later we got things figured out and assembled, as well as most of the remaining detail parts that won't break off during painting and handling:





Finally, the lower hull for the Israeli Shot Kal Gimmel was assembled:





We also had gotten the same assembly done for the Shot Kal Dalet but since it looks the same, no need for a pic.


​Additional progress was made on the Russian 240 mm tracked artillery piece; the tracks were added to the bogie assemblies:





Later on, all the sub assemblies were put together to see what adjustments would be needed:





Last but not least, we got almost all the assembly done on the South African Eland-90. The only problem now is that the main gun has gone missing so until we get another, or find the sprue that has it; this one will sit unfinished for awhile:







Finally, in our semi-rarely used spare workshop, we have a couple little projects happening.


First off, the chassis to the 1/24 scale Packard was glued inside the fenders since anytime we tried adding additional chassis parts, the whole chassis kept breaking apart:





Hopefully, this will stay glued; this plastic is so brittle it barely holds together!


Finally, for fun, we've been working on the ancient UPC model of a Roman Racing Chariot. No scale is given, but based on the size of the guys, it is probably somewhere between 1/50-1/56 scale; possibly 1/48 at a stretch. First, the Roman crew was painted up with the colors available at the time:





Later, they were completely painted, waiting on washes and drybrushing:








Two of the horses were done next; the other two will be black stallions. The two whites will need a bit of touch up:





Finally, the chariot itself was built up and then painted. It said to make the chariot black but I decided we were going to paint it white:





You can see some of the other details were painted as well. Later all the painting was done; all that's needed are some touch ups and then the decals can go on:










And that concludes this latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing, I hope you enjoyed it. As always, comments are welcome.

[JCON]

Lots going on... as to the lost parts... maybe less amounts of kits being built at once would make it easier to keep track of parts.

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Joe. As for the suggestion to reduce builds, I don't think that would work. I've had less on the bench before and still lost parts and/or decals and in some cases instruction sheets at the same degree of frequency. It is easy for me to keep track of parts since I always place them back in the same boxes they came in. The issue happens when they fall out of my hands and disappear or they get set aside to dry (in the case of sub assemblies) and then are not in the same place I put them to dry. Case in point: I'm building a TKS in 1/35th scale as a commission and when trying to dry fit the exhaust assembly to the main hull, the sub assembly fell out of my hands and hit my shoe. I saw it hit my shoe. When I bent down to get it; it was no where to be found. I searched for two and a half hours all over: my shoes, my clothes, the floor everywhere, including moving things around in the extreme case it bounced behind. No joy. It's as lost as my camera which has been missing for almost a year now. How something so large (camera, exhaust system) can disappear so thoroughly is unbelievable to me. I start new projects because I can't go any further on other ones; otherwise I'd have to stop building altogether until every part is found or issue that I can't resolve is resolved. I don't know what else to say.

[JED]

Good stuff. That old Airfix Avenger certainly has a lot of paneling going on!

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Jed! Agreed. They sure embellished the details back in the day!

[Dukemaddog]

Despite more issues happening, we managed to get more progress done. The next tour of Maddog Manufacturing is preparing to start. All aboard the trams for this next trip through Maddog Manufacturing. remember to keep hands and feet inside the trams at all times.

Once again, we'll start in the Hangar.


Some time before, knowing that the weather was going to improve, we masked off the various aircraft that we planned to paint. The Hellcat got Silly Putty in the cockpit and wheel wells:





The Avenger was masked off the same, with tape and Silly Putty:



With the weather more amenable to airbrushing a couple days later, some of these finally got their first paint.

The two Spitfires got their undercoat:

[IMGhttps://modelersalliance.org/galleries/wip-british-spitfire-mk-ix-a-jpg.129969/full[/IMG]



Followed by the Russian Il-2M3 Shtormovik:



Then we shot the blue on the Russian Be-4 flying boat:



Followed by the white underneath the Avenger:



Once the paint dried sufficiently on the Avenger, more masking was applied for the second color:



I masked the tail wrong; it was supposed to be an angled white section; I masked the entire moveable part. That's how it's gonna stay. The intermediate blue went on next:



Finally, when the intermediate blue was dry, we masked off the blue for the final color which will hopefully go on later this weekend or next week:







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



This next one was a kit I got in a Distressed Kit Auction; I had thought it was a 1/72 scale boat. So we got started on it, getting the hull and some major parts assembled:



That took all of five minutes. Another fifteen to twenty minutes later, it looked like this:



That's when I realized this is actually more like 1/96 scale, The crewmen and stubby torpedoes kinda gave it away. Oh well, it is all finished assembly and ready for paint so I will finish it and leave it on the shelf.





That's all that was done in the Shipyards, so on to the Motor Pool....


Here in the Motor Pool, things have moved on better. First off, the little Russian fire truck got a better coat of red paint on it, prior to moving forward on the finishing:



The M48-A5 has been finally masked with Silly Putty for the second of three (or four) colors on the camouflage:



Meanwhile, further progress was made building the detail parts and sub-assemblies for the Russian 280mm tracked artillery piece:



Still a lot more pieces and sub-assemblies to do for that little gun. I feel like it's taking forever, but at least I can see progress every time I take more pics.

Moving on to the next bay we have the French DCA getting it's tracks on:



Later on we added almost all the photo etch to this. I wanted to let the turret P/E dry before adding the last P/E part on the other side of the turret:



Finally everything dried enough to add the final piece of Photo Etch.This one is now ready for paint:



Moving to the next bin, rapid progress was made on the Israeli Sho't Kal Gimmel. The upper hull plates went on, the wheels went on, and the basic turret was assembled. Then I noticed we put more than half the wheels on backward and had to pull them off and re-install them properly:



Later we tried to get the next Israeli Sho't Kal Dalet caught up but only got the upper hull plates on, the wheels installed (correctly!) and half the turret assembled:



Hopefully further progress can be made soon. I want to get these both in the spray booth at the same time.


Finally, in our separate Assembly Yard, we have progress done on a couple of unique and different models. First is the Packard in 1/24 scale. This beastie has been causing so many problems. First off, the instructions say to place the engine cover on and then glue the radiator assembly on since the engine cover is supposed to come off to show the engine itself. After adding the fire wall, we did just that, making sure it would dry right with tape:



You can see it didn't quite make it. That is mostly because the engine cover itself wasn't seated properly. While it was drying, we added half of the parts to the rear of the car. Some parts were missing, so I just need to find them somewhere in the hobby room to finish this part:



Naturally I wanted to see how well the wheels lined up and touched the ground. What I found was disappointing to say the least. This rear wheel was so misaligned that the car looked like it was lifting the back wheel to water a fire hydrant! Our attempts to fix it resulted in a shattered leaf spring , some of which was re-glued on:



Then I thought we should build the canvas top, and found this issue when we did:



Look on the left and you'll see how warped this was. Just like everything else on this warped brittle model, it was one more thing that made me box this up and stick it back on the shelf for now.

Finally, we did make some progress on the last fun little project. The horses and chariot are now glued together and mounted on the base. Now all that is needed is the reins and whip and we can call this done:







And that now concludes this latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing. Thank you all for stopping in and taking the tour, it's a pleasure to have you aboard. As always, comments are welcome.

[JED]

Great work Duke, the chariot team make a great divergence from the usual stuff, very nice.

[JCON]

I agree with Jed!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Jed and Joe! I like to try and build something different and unique occasionally; especially if it is something nobody else has built in quite some time if ever.

[Dukemaddog]

Well we have had a pretty productive week this past week, so now it's time to host another tour of Maddog Manufacturing. The trams are boarding now, so all aboard and remember to keep hands and feet inside at all times.

As always, we start in the Hangar.

We had a great opportunity to bring out the spray gun and so base paints were shot on all aircraft needing it topside.

First were the two Spitfires:





Then the Russian Be-4:



You can see the paint was a bit too diluted so we took another shot. The second shot was far better:





And the Be-4:



While we had the better paint in the sprayer, we also shot the Il-2M3:



While all that was drying, we switched and shot the final Navy blue onto the Avenger:



Later that masking came off that and now the Avenger is ready for clearcoat and decals:



Personally, I do not know why the turret frosted like it did. I was certain the masking was sealed properly so I have no idea what happened. I will try to buff it out and shine it as best I can, but I am not going to go to outlandish lengths to make it as perfect as possible.

So that is all that has been done in the Hangar so far. You can see everything has been set up for the remaining camouflage patterns before clearcoat and decals. There might be a few aircraft crossing the finish line this month!




Since nothing of note has been happening in the Shipyards, we'll move on to the Motor Pool.


Here in the Motor Pool quite a bit has been done. To start with, here in Bay One, we found an ancient ESCI kit of a Hetzer that we were trying to sell. The box was busted up, and the thing had no nibbles, even when priced at a buck. So, out it came and the basic first steps were made. You can see here the main lower hull was assembled, but when it came time for the front plate to be installed, it broke while we were cleaning it up. So this is where it stands now:



Moving on to the next bay, we have the first shot of green on the base of the Russian 280m tracked artillery piece. Like the aircraft, I didn't like it. Besides, certain pieces were left off so they had to be added before we shot it again. You can see it here with the gun dry-fit into place:



Later, the base part got it's second coat:



Meanwhile, I felt it was time for the second tracked artillery piece to be started so we pulled out that and assembled the main gun first:



Later the base part was started, but a semi-vital piece is missing. I might just say 'screw it!' and move on anyway....



That is as far as we got on that one. In this next bay, we shot the base coat on the French DCA anti-aircraft system. It does NOT look this blue in person:



Later came clearcoat, a wash, and decals:



This one was later driven out onto the parade ground for breaking in by it's crew.

In this next bay, we decided to move forward on the Sho't Kal Dalet by completing the basic turret. For some reason, this turret was far more rough than the Gimmel turret was:



Later after some cleanup, the main gun was added to the turret and the fenders were added to the sides:



Now this is more or less caught up with the Gimmel. Moving on to the next bay, we have the M48-A5 Patton. The base had already been shot on, so the masking went on and the second color was shot:



Additional Silly Putty was added to cover the second color when it was dry:



And the third color was shot:



When it was dry, I hand painted some black shapes on the edges for the fourth color. They may be a bit hard to see in this pic, they look like shadows:



Finally, everything came off when it was all dry:



Later a clearcoat and decals went on:



After that, some dullcoat was applied, and the final details were added and this was driven off by it's crew for familiarization....

In another bay over here, the M1070 gun truck finally had some progress done. Base paint was applied to the inside of the cab and the outside:



The windscreen and side doors were masked off, both inside and out:



Finally, base paint was shot on the rear gunner's box, the clear parts and the other sub-assemblies, as well as a lighter OD on the anti-RPG panels:



That is where we left that one, but there's more. While organizing my parts, I found a small machine gun turret for my T-28 kit. I had just put that kit up and so I found it again and was able to finally have the whole kit again! This tank had already been basecoated green before the turret got lost, and so now, I am finally able to finish this Shelf Queen after ten years! Silly Putty was added for the second color:



Then the tan was shot:



Finally the unmasking:



This one then got final details added and was then turned over to their crew for breaking in.

That's all for today. Nothing esoteric this time, but still hopefully some interesting items in the tour.

Thank you all for looking in, comments are welcome.

[JCON]

Definitely productive!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Thank you Joe!

[JED]

Yet more great work Duke