Maddog Manufacturing Open for 2024

[dukemaddog]

It's been awhile and real life has gotten in the way a bit, but now I have a chance to re-open Maddog Manufacturing to show our 2024 production. There's quiet a bit to show doe this tour, so it might have to be broken up into two posts. The trams have been maintained and updated and so they are ready for the next tour. All aboard whenever you're ready!



Our first stop as always is the Hangar. There's a lot of wonderful activity happening here. In this first bay, we still have the Russian Schtormovic waiting for the propeller replacement as well as a few other parts that need to be found:





​In the next bay, we have the German Me-110 all painted with a base coat, waiting for more camouflage:





Next we have a Nigerian Mi-24 Hind that needs some modifications to fit the new canopy we got. Then additional parts can be added to finish this off:





Speaking of helicopters, we have this Russian Ka-26 Helix waiting for the rest of the camouflage before more work can be done on it:





Now we start getting into the bigger planes. In this bay we have the British Airways Concorde SST that needs more filling and sanding work before any further work can be done:





Next is a new project started this year. It;s a US Air Force B-66 Destroyer aircraft that got the cockpit assembled first:





Later the wings and engines were assembled. These went together far better than expected for such an old kit:





In this next bay we have the Russian Tu-142 Bear H bomber that has been built up to this point:





Bot sure what else needs doing before we assemble it, but we'll be revisiting this bay sometime soon. Further down we have one of two Tu-16 Badgers under construction. They have both been built to this stage, but I'm only showing the one for now since the pics are the same:





Finally in this last bay we have a simple model of the Russian As-15 Kent cruise missile. There are two in the box, one in flight and one on the transport trailer. They are both ready for paint:





That concludes the tour of the Hangar for now, lets head out to the Shipyards to see what's under construction there.





Here in the Shipyards there's a good bit of activity. First, let's head to the small slipways where a couple of my motor torpedo boats are under construction.


First up is this Japanese PT-15 torpedo boat that has been halfway assembled. Painting will be easy as it's all one color once all the greeblies go on:





In the next slipway is the British Vospers Perkasa boat that is a little further along. We just have to start adding some of the detail parts:






Now we can move onto the bigger drydocks where some new carriers and a steamboat are under construction. This first drydock has the German Aircraft Carrier Peter Strasser which is mostly complete and ready for deck paint:





The next drydock has the USS Shangri-La which finally got the hull completed. The deck is just dry fit on this right now:





In the next drydock over is the USS Enterprise 1980's fit that needs the deck painted with the lines:





In this final drydock, the Robert E Lee is slowly taking shape. This first pic shows it mostly mocked up to this point to give an idea of what will be done next:





What is actually happening here is this.... the side pieces with the lettering were quite warped so part of them was glued into place with spacers to make sure they glued into the proper and correct position:





Then once they were dry in front, the back ends were glued and clamped into place:





Additional work will slowly commence. It;s like every part is warped out of true so they all have to be warmed and re-positioned not the proper shape, or slowly glued down on one end and slowly worked into place with glue and clamps.



That concludes the Shipyards part of this tour, next is our catch all workshop that currently has two cars under construction.


This first one is the 1929 Coca Cola delivery van built up to this point. The red coat has been giving me a lot of difficulty laying down smooth:





This second car is the Packard roadster that has been fighting me for quite some time. Hopefully it gets finished this year:








Now that we are through all these sections of Maddog Manufacturing, we will continue the tour of the Motor Pool in the next post.

[dukemaddog]

And the tour now continues in the Motor Pool here.


There's loads to see as we have started a number of new projects while trying to get some shelf queens off the shelf of doom.


Let's start in this first bay...


Here's something we started near the beginning of the year last year and I figure now it's time to get it going again. This is a simple horse drawn supply train from Caesar Miniatures:





Another shelf queen of sorts, this is the German SdKfz 9 with a crane that is slowly moving forward:





One more shelf queen, this is a Russian Aerosan that we've been trying to build for a game. This will take some finessing but will get done soon:





One of the last shelf queens; this Russian SCUD C has been giving me fits. You can see why in this shot, the launcher arm was glued on too high:





After some careful work, the launcher assembly was repositioned into the proper place:





In these next two bays are two models waiting for additional replacement parts. First is the South African Eland 90:





The other is this French AMX 61 self propelled gun, waiting for replacement gun mount parts:





We might be able to move forward on that in a bit while we wait for parts.


Moving on, here are a number of New models started this year. First in his next bay are a series of Swedish light tanks, starting with the Strv M38. Lower hull was built first:





Then the rest of the main assemblies were completed. Here it is all mocked up:





Next to it is this mocked up Strv M39:





Then we have the Strv M40K:





And finally, this Strv M41L:





All of them are in this bay, ready to move forward:





In this next bay, we have a new project, the first of my Christmas presents to come in. This is the Dragon Stryker Engineering vehicle. The hull was built first and here it is shown with the dozer blade parts next to it:





We then built the dozer blade assembly:





Additional detail parts were then added to the main hull:





Here it is with the dozer blade positioned in place for a dry fit:





Finally in this last bay we have a fast and easy model in production. This is the Dragon M103A2 that I've been wanting for awhile. After twenty minutes, the main hull was almost complete, except for easily broken parts:





Later the turret was assembled, except for a number of easily broken parts. This little tank is now ready for paint:





And that completes the remaining part of this first tour for 2024. Thank you all for coming in and enjoying the tour, comments are always welcome.

[stikpusher]

Nice tour of MM Mark! The hull on the M103A2 could easily be mistaken for a M48A3 or A5 if you don't count road wheels... Once the turret goes on, there is no mistaking the two types.
On the B-66 which version are you making, and which kit is that? I always liked the type.

[kyledehart5]

Ah, a brilliant tour here! You have a ton of great stuff going on to start off the year.

[TJ]

So many builds at once.

[Joe Rix]

Impressive array of builds Duke. As always, I am quite impressed.

[handiabled]

Nice tour of all the different builds you have going on! Looks like you are aiming for a very productive year ahead

[mrt51]

SHAZAM! Mass production.

[lyle]

Mark, what an assortment! By the way, in the fourth picture, I think you got the paint a little heavy in some areas.

[dukemaddog]

Jan 24, 2024 19:25:57 GMT -5 stikpusher said:

Nice tour of MM Mark! The hull on the M103A2 could easily be mistaken for a M48A3 or A5 if you don't count road wheels... Once the turret goes on, there is no mistaking the two types.
On the B-66 which version are you making, and which kit is that? I always liked the type.

Thank you Carlos! I agree, that M103A2 looks so much like a Patton tank without the turret. I can't wait to get paint on it! The B-66 will be the Air Force bomber version, done in bare metal finish. It is the Italeri kit issued decades ago. I am very happy with how well this old kit has gone together!

Kyle, thank you! I do hoe these get finished as fast as they are all coming together. Except the paddle steamer...... that is gonna be awhile!

Thank you TJ! Thank God for Hobby Days to help me get these done!

Thank you Joe Rix. What would impress me is getting so many of these done as fast as they have gone together!


Thank you Handi! Yes, I want to see if I can surpass last year, even if by only a little bit.

Thank you Terry! Hey, it's the best way to keep the impatience at bay!

Jan 25, 2024 10:12:36 GMT -5 lyle said:

Mark, what an assortment! By the way, in the fourth picture, I think you got the paint a little heavy in some areas.

Thank you Lyle! Yeah, I guess I'd better peel that off! LOL!

[jeaton01]

Thanks for the update, Mark. And thanks for showing the 1/72 D-7 not long ago. I got mine done and it was a fun build.

[dukemaddog]

Thank you John and you're welcome for the D-7 pics. I'm glad I was able to help. It is a fun kit isn't it?

[jmarc]

YYYYYYYYYYYYYes SIR ... I'm here also !...GO,GO,GOOOOOOOOOOO !

[Steve Zuleski]

I am always impressed at how much you can get done, Duke, fine builds.

Ruck On, Bby!

[lyle]

Looks very productive. Neat stuff.

[dukemaddog]

Jean-Marc, welcome! Glad to see you stop in!

Thank you Steve! I am rucking on indeed, the next tour starts shortly.

Thank you Lyle! I'm trying!

Well, despite having a lot of time to work on my hobby thanks to Hobby Days; I have had no real time to start a new tour. Because of that, this will be another two part post so all my projects can be viewed.


So, all aboard the trams everyone, it's time to start our tour!




As always, we start in the Hangar. We only worked on one aircraft this past week. It's the old Italeri kit of the 1/72 scale B-66 Destroyer. The cockpit had been built already so it finally got painted. Yes, it might look a bit sloppy, but it won't be seen once this gets closed up inside the fuselage:








Later that is what we did, we closed this up, cemented it and allowed it to dry:





It was so surprising how well this fuselage.wings and tail fit together! As you can see here, half the cockpit can't even be seen:





The canopy was added and masked off for paint next:





...which came later. We hit this with a black primer to see what issues we had:





We found a considerable number of small issues, (all of which I brought on myself!) so some filler, sanding and more filler and sanding happened:





We had started out with Tamiya putty, then moved to Mr. Surfacer 500. Later we shot a gloss black coat on this to see if everything got fixed. It didn't so another round of sanding and filling will be happening.... not that you can see here:





Finally, the little AS-15 Kent had it's trailer painted up. Not too much longer before that one gets done:








That completes the tour of the Hangar for now, our tour continues in the Shipyards....


​Here in the Shipyards, we tried to mask off the main deck of the 1/600 scale USS Enterprise. It started out pretty good:





However, we found out that the flexible Tamiya tape doesn't play well with the cold and humidity we had that night. Expensive lesson to learn:





The regular Tamiya tape seemed to stick well, unless it was on the flexible stuff, so everything will be replaced with Tamiya tape later.


In the next slipway, we have the Tamiya British Vospers Perkasa. The main bridge was painted and detailed before being closed up inside the cabin:





Meanwhile, the barrel broke on the 40mm Bofors so we had to fabricate a new one and replace the broken one. I can hear the comments now, but this was the best way to make sure it glued straight:





The crew at least showed up to prepare for training:





We started adding some of the detail parts to the main deck; the Bofors is only dry fit right now, that is why it's cocked. There isn't much to see here:





More parts went on....





....and still more. The torpedoes are only dry fit to see how well they place, we still need to touch them up. The hand rail stanchions are installed, they just need to be rigged:





That is as far as we got on that one, so we move on to the next slipway where the Robert E Lee has been fighting me. In this shot, you can see the incredible warp of the rear railings that required us to glue, clamp; wait for it to dry. Then move a little further, glue and clamp, etc. You get the idea:





Later the rear deck got added. Because of a mistake made earlier, I had to compensate for it by shaving a section of one side of this so that the paddle wheel housing would fit where it's supposed to... or close enough:





Once that was dry enough, we added the upper cabin walls to the deck. These too needed to be finessed into place. The curved section next to the housing needed to be shaped to fit:





Later we added the front portion of that deck after prepping the upper parts of the cabins and pylons below. This also needed to be shaved on the one side so it would sit straight and not have a huge gap. You can see here how much persuasion it needed to hold in place:





When the tape came off, it looked pretty good:





While all that had been drying, we went to work on the Grand Staircase:





Again it took some serious finagling to get that staircase installed. We had to fix the railings three times before everything stayed in place as it supposed to do:





Here's the look over all so far. It's starting to look like a riverboat:





Later the forward cabin went on the deck. This was slightly easier to build, but we still had some issues with some gaps, too-long pieces, and other issues. After dealing with them and getting everything cemented down, I'm happy with the results:





Just for fun, we test fit the upper deck on top of all this. It's going to be a bit easier than the previous two decks:





That concludes this tour of the Shipyards for now; as we head on over to the Motor Pool, you can see some damaged buildings and sandbag emplacements we are working on for another project:





I found a whole mess of Matchbox bases that they used to include in all their armor models, some were even duplicates. My idea is to find a way to arrange them all on a board in some manner, add these ruin pieces, fill in the area between them with putty or something and create some kind of scene/base. It'll be interesting.....




The Motor Pool tour will continue in the next post due to the large quantity of pics for that tour.......

[dukemaddog]

And now for our tour of the Motor Pool. There's a lot going on here that also includes a couple of started models as well. So without further ado, let's visit this first bay here.



In this first bay we have the M103A2 Marine tank getting it's base coat:





After that dried, we added the decals and some detail painting. This one is very close to being done:





Speaking of almost done, in the next bay we have this Russian SCUD C that has been a bit of a challenge all this time. It finally got the correct launcher arms on it:





Then all of the new parts were painted up:





Later on we weathered the wheels and tires; put them together and installed them on this model. Some additional weathering was applied to the vehicle as well:





On this model, they had no call outs for decals, even though there was a full sheet of them included. Well, I had to add something, so this beastie now sports a Guards emblem on the doors:





Final weathering was added and the missile was sent out to be painted:





Yeah, that beastie is almost done too.


Moving on, in this next bay is the Stryker engineering vehicle. It's got it's basecoat of green, now we just need to find the decals so we can finish this one too:





In this next bay is a model we previously started, it's one of two GAZ AAA trucks that has been slowly worked on between other projects. Here we have the cab half built and the bed installed:





Only a few additional parts were added to this:





In the interest of working on something fast and easy, we pulled out this M109A7 from Foreart and got started on it. Hull was done first:





While that was drying, we completed the basic upper turret assembly by adding many of the detail parts to it. We had been having difficulty with the gun mount so that is why we went this route:





The hull was indeed fast and easy, we got wheels and tracks, detail parts and everything else installed that wouldn't break with handling:





Finally we got the gun mount sorted and were able to finish the turret almost completely:





Yes, that turned metal barrel and 3-D printed muzzle brake came in the kit, not aftermarket. It's coming togfether nicely:





Next we assembled the turret baskets and then added all the photo etch to this vehicle:





Moving on to the next bay, we have this long-term shelf queen. It's the Modelcollect 1/72 scale BMP-3 with full cage armor! It has to have been close to nine years since I picked this up again. First thing that we needed to do was to try and assemble the turret cage armor. This was the result of trying to get the main parts at least completed:





Here's our first attempt to mount it on the turret. I figured it would be easier putting the straight lengths of the rear cage on after the main parts had dried:





It got done, but still looks like crap! Even then something was off on it:





Our attempt to fix it resulted in the loss of a strut:





While that was drying, we went ahead and installed the tracks on the wheels and sprockets. These tracks will be covered in deep skirts so we only did the lower runs of track:





In testing this in the hull, we found numerous protrusions on the bottom of the cage armor that kept snagging on hull parts... and I hadn't even put in all the hatches and such:





Eventually, we attached all the hatches and other additional detail parts to the main hull. Some filing had been done on the bar armor, but it only helped a little:





I originally had hoped to paint this with the three tone camouflage, but that ain't gonna happen. Now that the turret is mostly completed, it got a coat of the base color that I'll be painting it:





After all that, we wanted to get back to a simple build, so out came this Academy 1/72 scale French Le Clerc tank. Upper and lower hull got assembled first:





Then the wheels and sprockets were added, later the tracks went on:





Finally, the turret was completed, the tracks added and the side skirts installed:





And that quickly, this was ready for paint:





Finally, in this last bay, I decided that the last Roden bus I needed to build should be done. Out it came and the main body and chassis were assembled:





We then added the interior and painted it:





The underside got the suspension installed afterward:





While that was drying, the pigeon loft was mostly built:





It made for a pretty good fit. This is only dry fit too, I want to keep it separate until everything was done before it gets cemented in place permanently:





After that,the lower part got painted, the wheels and fenders got installed and the main window covers went on:





Once that was sufficiently dry, the remaining headlights, steering wheel, and other detail parts were added:





The top pigeon loft was also painted and for fun, here it is dry fit again on the bus:





While that was drying, we went to work detailing the pigeon loft. Pigeons like to nest in straw, so we added some to the pigeon loft interior:





We used this rough twine cut into 1/8th to 1/16th inch lengths:





Then we slathered the floor with Gator Grip glue and poured the straw inside, pressed it down and then shook the loose straw out:


Now that the straw was in place, we started adding the screen material on all the sections we could before closing it up:





Once again the loft was dry fit in place, and the pigeons came home to roost:





I expect that in a day or so, we might have this bus finished!



And that concludes this latest tour of Maddog Manufacturing! I do hope you enjoyed the latest progress we've made here. As always, comments are welcome, thanks to all who came in to take this tour!

[tcoat]

1/72 pigeons must be FUN!

I have not done any small scale vehicles in many years and am amazed at how far they have come.

[stikpusher]

Man you've been one busy beaver Mark!

[fermis]

 Holy Hay-Zues, man!!!

[dukemaddog]

Tcoat, thank you! Yeah, those 1/72 scale pigeons were a blast to be honest! Yes, 1/72 scale vehicles have come light years from where they were in the 70's and 80's. Sometimes it's almost scary. As for having the patience of a saint, not really.... that's why I'm working on so many at once! I haven't the patience to wait for something to dry, so I move on to something else!

Carlos thank you! Yeah, I've been trying to stay busy. Hobby Days are a huge boon for my productivity.

Jeremy thank you! Yeah, it's been a good couple weeks!

[stikpusher]

Yeah, you do always seem to get a lot done on your Hobby Days. Our IPMS chapter here is going to start "Build & BS" sessions on one Saturday a month, starting this month.

[kyledehart5]

Excellent and productive work!! Another highly enjoyable tour!

[dukemaddog]

Carlos, that is great to hear. You'll be amazed at how much more you get done during those.

Thank you Kyle! Hopefully the next one is just as fun!

[stikpusher]

Feb 16, 2024 15:52:12 GMT -5 dukemaddog said:

Carlos, that is great to hear. You'll be amazed at how much more you get done during those.

Thank you Kyle! Hopefully the next one is just as fun!

We shall see. The BS part of 'Build and BS' can interfere... lol!

[TJ]

Incredible work Mark

[dukemaddog]

Thank you TJ!!

[dukemaddog]

Now after all the effort to putting all my ground vehicles on parade for inspection, it's time to start a new tour. This one will mostly be in the Hangar and Shipyards as we've been focusing on projects in those departments. Now that we've reached that milestone, it's time to get some long time projects off the workbench and on to the shelf. So, without further ado, let's all board the trams and see what's happening at Maddog Manufacturing.


Starting in the Hangar, we have these projects going, most of which are quite large and been sitting idle for awhile. First, let's visit this first bay where we have a 1/72 scale MQ-9 Predator under construction:


Basic assembly of the body and wings happened first. They didn't say in the instruction sheet that weight was needed in the nose, so that was carefully added later:





Later the engine and landing gear were added, that's where the weight issue was discovered:





Weight was carefully added and then all the final detail parts were added, this bird is ready for paint:





Next it it, we also have another MQ-9 Predator. Two came in the kit with options for two other versions. I chose to build this for my RAF, and now this one is almost ready for paint as well:





Moving on to the next bay, we go back in time with this Airfix 1/72 scale Dogfight Doubles set. It was a gift for me from a friend and avid WWI aficionado. The first plane from it is this British Se-2C scout plane that went together fast:





Later the engine was assembled and installed in place:





The beauty of this kit is that Airfix included these strut alignment jigs so the struts line up perfectly so we thought we'd try them out:





The jigs worked, simplifying the top wing mounting:





Later we got all the painting done on this.







​

While that was drying, we started on the other half of the Dogfight Double set, the German Eindecker E.II. Basic fuselage assembly was fast:





The rest of the plane fell together perfectly so we starting painting it as well:








And now both of them are ready for final decals and rigging.


Moving on to the next bay, we have a 1/72 scale Super Model Italian Macchi C-205 that was sitting in a very broken up box. It was time to get that one done. Basic fuselage and wing assembly was quick as there weren't too many parts. What parts there were certainly had some pretty serious fit issues. The propeller is in a cowl that glues into the opening of the nose so the propeller will continue to turn. It'll be one of the last things I glue into place:





As you can see a lot of filling was needed for the gaps around the wing roots, under the plane and around select panels. You can also see how confident the pilot was in the abilities of his plane; he bailed out before it is done. Again, propeller assembly is dry fit into place:





Some judicious sanding and shaping and this is starting to look much better. The pilot is still MIA so we closed up the canopy and started preparing this for paint:





In the next bay, we finally got the fuselage halves together for the British Westland Sea King. It went together pretty well with only a little bit of persuasion:





There were some seam issues that got addressed and then the main landing gear sponsons got installed along with portions of the glass:





Now on to some of the Big Stuff. The B-66 Destroyer had been sanded smooth after the second coat of primer wrinkled up. Now a third coat was shot on it. Overall it looked fine, but there are a few small blemishes that will need attention again before a metal coat goes on this:





In the next bay is the Egyptian Tu-16 Badger, one of two we're building, here is a reminder:





The cockpits were painted, the cockpit modules were assembled and the engines were mounted on the fuselage halves of the Egyptian plane. You can see both cockpit modules here too:





We got one set of glass cockpit and nose masked and ready for paint:





To make things easier, we installed those parts to one of the cockpit modules; the fit is amazing:





Now we'll try to catch up on the Iraqi Badger so this is where this stands. Meanwhile in the next bay we installed the inside engine and landing gear nacelle to each wing of the Tu-142 Bear:





I decided we should dry fit this together to see what we're dealing with. Remember this is sitting on a standard TV tray:





Finally in this last bay, we have the British Airways Concorde, here it is with the cockpit module dry fit to the rest of it. This is alkso sitting on the same TV Tray:





Work was done on the flaps for this, all these ejector pin marks needed filling which we started after adding the actuator casing to them:





The tail feathers were attached after that:





Here's another shot showing how big this is again:





Later we got half of it inside the spray booth for another couple coats of white primer:





Yep, more paint will be needed for that.


That concludes the Hangar portion of this tour, now on to the Shipyards....






Here is the Shipyards, things have been slowly picking up. We even started this project here in this first slipway. This is the Revell 1/106 scale tugboat that I'd been gifted so it was time to lay the keel. Mind you the instructions are missing so everything done in this slipway is done sans instructions. Here's where this boat was after the the first few steps:





Yep, badly warped main railings. Glue was applied on the rear portions and then after it dried, we glued the remaining parts in with a bit of persuasion. That allowed us to get this far:





While that was all drying, we started on the main superstructure, again all sans instructions. It went together quite well:





A test fit shows how well this is gonna look:





That was about an hour's work. More projects were taking a lot longer. One of them that didn't was the main deck of the USS Enterprise; white paint was finally shot after the last of the masking was added:





Later we'll paint the yellow portions and then see how much cleanup I'll need to do before moving on.


Finally in this last slipway, the Robert E. Lee was slowly being built up. The outer railings were added to the two lower decks; Pyro did it right making them one piece that spans both decks. Even so, due to issues from earlier deck and bulkhead misalignment and some slight warpage these still took a lot persuasion:





Some of those issues, I am not sure how I'll address them.


Still, more progress was made building up the Texas skylights, Texas deck house, pilot house and other minor details. We had also re-sanded and re-shot the main stacks so I decided to dry fit them here for this picture. The Lee is starting to look like a steamboat:





Finally, as we drive by the Motor Pool on the way back to the main lobby, you can catch a glimpse of one of the newer projects to expand the land forces again; we started an Egyptian Su-100 for my Egyptian Army:





Work will commence on that and others after the crew gets a good rest from vehicles.



Thank you again for coming on this latest tour; comments are always welcome!

[keavdog]

Hey Mark - that Concorde is very cool. What a beast. I have the 1/144 Revell kit in the stash.
BTW - are these the instructions for your Tug (1/108) www.scalemates.com/products/img/2/7/1/1143271-62-instructions.pdf

[stikpusher]

Mark, here are the instructions for the Revell Tug


Revell Tug Instructions