SPA Modeler

tempestjohnny wrote:

Stikpusher wrote:Are those 1/1 scale with complete interiors?

And can I decal them with Cool Whip

Winter whitewash?

Stikpusher wrote:Are those 1/1 scale with complete interiors?

Yes, but no photo etch. All the interiors were aftermarket due to the time and difficulty of scratchbuilding them.

tempestjohnny wrote:

Stikpusher wrote:Are those 1/1 scale with complete interiors?

And can I decal them with Cool Whip

That might be easier than the ice cream vacuform.


Lyle, I would but I don't think one of those would survive the trip. You would probably find your mail carrier with a suspicious looking stain on their chin. However, if I can ever get over to Louisville, maybe I can bake you one there.

Pies!!!!

Okay, now that all the other stuff had been gotten out of the way, I took some time to work on some things this week.


I'll start with the Leopold Rail Gun. I assembled the lifting apparatus inside the hull of the thing as shown here:



Later, I also assembled the main ammo box/crane system with the little ammo cart:



I know, I'm kinda working backwards on this, but I want to get the simpler things done first before I have to build and line up all the wheels for this.

Moving on, I assembled the engine for the Pershing II tractor. It was a lot smaller than I thought, as indicated by the Exacto blade:



Here it is installed on the main chassis, along with the bits and bobs for this side of the chassis:



Afterward, I added all the bits and bobs to the other side of the chassis:



Still a lot more to add to this, but it's going to go much easier now.... I hope.

Oh, in all the above pics the cab is only dry-fit on the chassis to make sure I have everything lined up properly.


After that, I decided to make another leap of faith. I had ordered a replacement part for my SMERCH so I could move on with this. Trusting that Modelcollect would come through; and inspired by another gentleman named Graham who is also building this, I went ahead and continued to work on this model.

First, as per Graham's advice, I assembled all the parts that go inside the two chassis rails, starting with the engine and radiator:



After that I also built all the other parts (transmission covers/differentials, etc). Here you can see them all lined up according to where they are supposed to go:



After fighting this model for another half hour, I manged to get the entire chassis assembled, sans wheels on one side:



Since the replacement part hadn't arrived yet, I figured that I'd tackle the rocket tubes. I had already taken all the half pieces and assembled them together, so now it was time to mount them on their respective frames. Here you see the first two sets of tubes installed on the frames:



You can see one was fired off already; I had lost the nose cone that was supposed to go inside there.


Here is the entire rocket set fully assembled:



Now I have to assemble and install the lifting apparatus for these tubes.

Finally Modelcollect came through and in a BIG way! I had asked for one part as indicated by the arrow. They sent me all THIS:



Now I was able to complete the chassis on this model! I promptly went to work building all the remaining axles and installing them on the chassis. First one side (which had already been done):



Then the other one with the all new parts:



You can see I also added the fuel tanks(?) and other bits and bobs too.

That's all I got done for now before life closed in again. At least I have all my Christmas cards mailed, bills paid, and now I can concentrate on finishing up my job I'm doing. I may not even get back to the bench before the end of the year, but stay tuned; one never knows.....

Man those are some intricate builds! Even more impressive knowing that you're working with such small parts! For the lost rocket warhead, you can probably scratch one up very easily from stretched sprue filed to shape and cut to length.

Thanks Carlos! Yeah, even I have been wondering what I was thinking sometimes while working with all these tiny parts! Still, these will look pretty impressive once finished. Thanks for the advice about a new nose cone. I'll have to look into trying that out.

Okay, I got a new update.... and it's a big one. Today I was able to marathon some builds and fire up my spray booth and MAN did that feel good! First though, I'll include the update I did before this while this Forums was down. Here it is:

I’ll start with my little Japanese Centauro-wannabe prototype vehicle. It had been sitting and waiting for the second color of its camouflage pattern for awhile now so I figured it was time to get going on it. I pulled out my Silly Putty and masked off the areas I wanted to remain green:



Now when I have time to get to my spray booth, I’ll give this a second color. I’ll also clearcoat my Japanese Patriot PAC III system while I’m at it. That has been waiting for a while to be finished too. No pics of that as I haven’t done anything pic-worthy yet.

Moving on, I worked on my Pershing II system too. I built the engine cover, but did not glue it down yet. I also added the front armor plate in front of the cab, as well as other bits and bobs:



The cab and engine cover aren’t glued down yet as I have to paint the engine first; it is slightly visible under there:



After this, I started the trailer for this model. It is a very complicated assembly so this is as far as I got so far:



This is going to be one big beastie when I get done with it:



After this, I started on my SMERCH. I finished adding all the remaining bits and bobs to the chassis on this. Finally that part is finished:



Just for fun, I dry-fit the main platform on the top of this:



Upon inspecting the pieces and seeing the instructions, I decided that the pivot point for the launcher and the platform where the launcher traverses was too weak. I want these rocket tubes to traverse so I went to work trying to find a way to strengthen this so the tubes would traverse. To start, I added the retaining pin to the launcher:



Then I added rod styrene to the groove between them to solidify this and make it one larger post:



Later I’ll sand that smooth to make sure it fits in the hole smoothly.
Speaking of the hole, I widened it to make sure it would be big enough:



Later on, I’ll attach that with a bigger plug plate to make sure it stays in place and allows the tubes to traverse. Hopefully this works.
Finally I got some work done on my Leopold rail gun too. I decided it was time to get the wheel/axle assemblies finished. I put them all together; making sure they were all lined up straight, then I installed them on the trucks:



Later I finished the trucks up, adding all the bits and bobs needed:



After that, I finished up the ammo crane/generator box, except for the railings:



I know the shell on the top looks crooked, but it’s an optical illusion from the angle. I checked it.
I left the railings off this and the trucks because I know I’d break them if I added them now. I’ll put them all on last. I did the same with the Dora and it worked.

Finally, I also got the main gun installed on the main gun carriage and finished the basic construction on it. It works:





Oh, all the models I mentioned in this post above (but not all pictured) are the last five models I need to finish to reach my goal. Once they are done, I’ll have reached my latest milestone.


Okay, now for the present update from today. I'll start with my aircraft. I was looking over my C-118 and found even more flaws that needed filling and sanding. So, I scraped and sanded some areas but the cockpit here:



All four engines needed some work as well, so I filled, sanded and buffed all these to see if I could get them smooth enough for another coat of metallic:





I'll need to wait till I get more metallic paint before I can move on this further.

Then I pulled out the airbrush, fired up the compressor and started to sling paint. I pulled out the Vigilante that I'm doing as a tribute to Hippy Ed and masked it off:



Later on, I shot grey paint on it:



I also shot some grey paint on my F-8 Crusader that was already masked off:



After these had dried a bit, I pulled off all the tape. First on the Vigilante:



Then on the F-8 Crusader:



Both of those are ready for a clearcoat and decals now.




Okay, that's all the progress on my aircraft now. I moved on and tried to marathon my armor builds to see how close they would all come to being finished by the New Year.

First off, since I already had the airbrush out to spray my aircraft; I pulled out the little Japanese ARV prototype and shot the second dark brown color on it:



Later on when it was dry, I pulled off all the Silly Putty and set it up to see how it looked:



Pretty nice I thought. I did feel the brown was a bit dark, but I didn't want to re-mask it to shoot something else on it.

After that, I decided to have a bit of fun and try to color modulate the green on the Japanese Patriot PAC III. I used an Olive Drab since I was also going to use that color on my Pershing II Tractor:



It didn't turn out like I wanted, but then I'm not that good yet. I will still dry-brush some OD on it to highlight some points later on though.

Later on, I finished adding all the last detail parts on my Leopold rail gun. This is now ready for paint. I'll add the railings afterward when this is done so I don't break them all:



Here it is with the first coat of paint:



Tomorrow I will mask off the red-brown spots now and then shoot the dunlegelb.

Moving on to the Pershing II system, I started to paint the engine and drive train for the tractor first:



And since I already had the OD out, I masked off and painted the rest of the tractor to the Pershing II when the internal parts were dry:



Later on, I pulled the masking off and touched it up:



This will need a little more touch-up paint but it is just about ready for decals.


I also went and continued to work on the trailer to this Pershing. I finished up most of the bits and bobs on this trailer:





Later on, when some of these parts had dried better, I added all the parts that hold the missile in place. That was tricky with some of them being so delicate an all. Here it is all finished (sans wheels) with the Pershing missile dry-fit in place:




Finally I went back to working on the SMERCH. I started out again where I'd left off, strengthening the pivot point for the traverse. I got the post sanded smooth:



Then I looked it over and decided I wanted a bit more reinforcement in this. So, I pulled out some metal rod, drilled a hole in the post, and added the metal rod to it. You can also see the new plug in the bottom right corner:



Later on, I installed this on the floor panel; cutting the brass rod down to size and cementing everything with CA glue:



It worked! First the 'stowed' position:



And then in firing mode:



Man, I'm stoked about that! Moving on with this model, I started painting the inside mechanisms in the chassis of this beastie, since I had the paint out from painting the Pershing:



Then I started to work on the interior parts of both the cabins; the driver's cabin...



...and the fire control cabin:



There's not much inside these so that went quick. Besides, there's not much use detailing them further as almost nothing will be visible when these are all closed up. Later I will add the windows to this so I can paint the interior of these cabins and close them up. Then I might even be able to paint this model!



Okay, that's the end of this update so far. Tomorrow looks like another day of marathon modeling so I hope to be much further along on these. I might even be able to post another update then. We'll see. Meanwhile, comments are welcome, thanks all for looking in.

Okay, someone on another Forums had challenged me to get my last five armor models finished by the end of the year. Well, I marathoned these models as much as I could these past couple days, but.... I'm out of time. On New Year's Eve I have too much going on to do anything on the bench so these will have to wait till the New Year. I got as far as I could with them, but there just isn't any more time.

I'll start with the easiest ones I had left to do. The first of these was the little Japanese prototype vehicle. I clearcoated this, washed it and got the decals on this first:



After that I dullcoated it, added the wheels and then drybrushed it:



There's still a few bits and bobs left to put on it but I'll have to wait.


On the other JGSDF vehicle; I also clearcoated this Patriot, added the support arms, washed it as well and added the decals:



Later on I dullcoated it, drybrushed it:



Still more to do with this one. More little detail parts that complete this will go on later.



Moving on, I shot the olive drab basecoat on the Pershing missile trailer and missile:



While that was drying, I assembled the rear axles for the trailer. That was a tricky assembly:



I then clearcoated the tractor, washed it and added the decals:



Later on, I did the same for the trailer and missile:



Finally this whole thing got dullcoated and all the wheels added to everything:



Still a lot to do on this. Again, out of time.


Next I had a lot of work on the SMERCH. First off, I added the windows to the cabins and assembled both of them:





Here is a couple shots of this thing dry-fit together, testing out the rocket tubes again:





Next up, I added liquid masking to the windows on the cabs and set them aside to dry. Meanwhile, I shot the basecoat of Russian Earth Brown on the rest of this model:



This is the first color of the three-tone camouflage pattern I'm putting on this. Afterward, when everything was dry, I shot a basecoat on the cabins. When they dried, I installed everything together for the first time:



Finally, I wanted to see how this thing sits on it's wheels. It is early, since I wanted to get done painting this first, but I just got too excited and wanted to see this on wheels. Here it is, testing once again the rocket tubes elevation and traverse with all that paint on it:





There's two more colors to add to this before I can finish off all the last detail parts, so this one has a long way to go compared to the rest.


Last but not least, I took a lot of time masking off the Leopold rain gun. That took quite a lot of time adding all these little splotches of Silly Putty. I did the main gun first since there was so much to do:



Next I added the Silly Putty to the rail cars and generator shed:



Finally, I shot about a bottle of Panzer Dunklegelb all over this model:



Gee, all that work for ten minutes of spraying! Wow, I guess that's how it goes...

Finally, when it was all dry, I pulled off the Silly Putty again. Gotta love Silly Putty:



Finally, this beastie got his decals:



There's still a lot to do on this one too. Not to mention, I need to review how to weather one of these somewhat.



Okay People, that is the final workbench update from Maddog Manufacturing for this year. Next year, I'll start another Maddog Manufacturing 2017 series. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

Now to go post my Year in Review.

I know it's 2017 so I should be closing this out, but I just wanted to add my final model in.

It's a small update anyway because yesterday I finished up four of the last five vehicles that I wanted to finish. These are simply the last steps I took to complete the SMERCH. This model fought me the whole time I was building it, but I finally beat this into submission.

First off, I masked the whole thing with Silly Putty to add the second color to this:



SPECIAL NOTE: If you build this model and use Silly Putty to mask it; be sure to LEAVE OFF the rubber tires!! Silly Putty fuses to them! Ask me how I know.... :facepalm


You can see where I started the second color already. here's the shot after I finished that black striping:



Next I moved some Silly Putty or added some Silly Putty to cover the black and then shot the final color:



You can see where some pieces came off. As I said; this model fought me tooth and nail...

Here it is after all the Silly Putty came off:



Then I added some extra parts that I had apparently forgotten to put on this model, as well as replaced another wheel hub that had broken off and disappeared:



Finally, I clearcoated this and decaled it, after painting all the 'new' pieces and letting everything dry:






When that had dried, I dullcoated this and weathered it. I tried to go light on the weathering, just for my personal preference. You can now see this model and the rest of my finished ones n the Armor Forums.

Thanks all for looking in and having patience with me.