SPA Modeler

Well, it's now 2016 and time to do a recap of last year's unfinished models as well as the new projects I got started on this year.

Here are the models I still had on the bench at the end of last year that didn't get finished.

I'll start out with the Ships and Boats I was working on all last year.

First up is this Airfix Rescue Launch in 1/72 scale that I started and only just recently got something airbrushed on it:



I had also started an old Lindbergh President's Liner that took a ton of tape to assemble correctly:



And of course, I also started the USS New York:



In Autos, I had two cars going: a Monkeemobile and a Volkswagen bus:






Now on to my aircraft, I have a small Czech Plane still waiting for decals:



I also have my Columbus Raffle Prize Airfix Mustang also still waiting for decals:



Then there is this F/A-18 that refuses to go together:



I'll have to close that campaign out without the ribbon; the tail piece broke off again and disappeared. I don't believe I'll find it in time or get it fixed and finished in time before the Deja-Vu Second Chance runs out.

Next I started a review kit for these Forums, the Revell Stearman:





Although it is not a plane per se, I did start this Space Shuttle with Boosters which is getting closer to the painting stage:



And finally, here is the C-46 I've been slowly plugging along on:



...as well as my Columbus gift, the Be-6 Madge:



In addition to all those, I'm still fighting this Aurora Jet Commando:



It was finally all perfectly white and ready for a clearcoat to seal it in when it fell and broke the tail again! Now it is a dirty mess that needs to once again be painted!

Finally, here is an F-35 I started some time back and have yet to get back to it:



Time to remedy that situation and get this on the shelf.


When it comes to my armor, I haven't too much left to do. First off there's this little IBG Chevy CWT truck I found again after I'd started it some months back then put it away:



However, most of the work I still have to do is on these two Russian Armored Trains:





Meanwhile, I also have this Abrams TUSK in progress that is approaching the finish line:



And along with that, I am still working on these two SCUDS:




That is the run down of what was left on my workbench at the end of 2015.

Now to show you the progress I made on some of these kits; as well as show you some of the new models I started for this year.

Thanks Carlos! Wow, you didn't even give me a chance to finish my part II. You want more? Here it is!


Now here is what I got done at Maddog Manufacturing over the last few days of rain that came through Southern California here.

We'll start our tour at the Aircraft Hanger where my aircraft are being built...

I applied the decals to my C-46 and then when they were dry, I shot another clearcoat over them to seal them in as they were threatening to crack and shatter. Once that was done, I masked and painted the de-icing boots on the wing:



Next, it was time to assemble the propellers. And I mean, assemble the propellers! They gave two types of hubs and propeller blades that you had to assemble:



You can see the three-bladed hub parts (with one part missing) on the upper left of the pic. The upper right of the pic shows the four-bladed propeller hub pieces.

Now, my version was supposed to have three bladed props, but due to one vital part being absent as seen above; I had to opt for the four bladed propellers:



So, as far as I'm concerned, this aircraft was retrofitted with the new propellers but never got re-painted due to being on some remote airfield somewhere in..... a remote area.

Here are the two propellers fully assembled and sitting in the black-painted engines:



Later on, I dry-brushed Steel on the engines and painted the hubs dark grey:



Here's the engines and propellers all painted up and sitting together. Later, I added the engines to the cowl/nacelle assemblies:



Finally, here's a shot of the aircraft with the propellers and engine nacelles dry-fit on the wings:



All that's left for this is to remove the window masking, cement the engines into place, add the landing gear and gear doors and other fiddly bits. Then I can touch up the details and this bird will be done!

Meanwhile, I finally closed that awesome interior up inside the two fuselage halves of the Be-6 Madge:



Man that went together so well! So very few seam issues anywhere. Hopefully the same will hold when it's time to add the wings to this. Speaking of the wings; I finished them off and also finished the tail for this bird:



I had already finished the outrigger floats for this as well.

Just for fun, I decided to mock up this aircraft to see how it's going to look:



Yeah, she's going to be a fun bird to finish!

Once again, I also had pulled my Jet commando out to seal it after finally having a white coat I was happy with and the stupid thing just fell off the paint stand onto the floor and broke one of the tail surfaces off again. In the process of fixing it; I messed up the paint again.... Back to the drawing board.....

No pics of that Epic Fail; one posted in two weeks is enough!


Moving on, it's time to tour the Shipyards as they've been quite active this week.

To start out with; the USS New York got a coat of grey paint on her.... not that you can really tell from looking at grey paint on a grey-plastic-molded model:



Meanwhile, three other slips laid the keels to some additional ships for my US Navy that may just be available to escort the USS New York on her maiden voyage. In Slip Two, we have the USS Forrest Sherman; an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. I started out with the main superstructure and bridge tower:



You can see the first of a ton of photo-etch that is included in this model. This will be a tremendous challenge to me to finish because of it:



Here is the progress I got done on the Forrest Sherman so far:



The other two ships will be a bit easier to complete. In Slip Three, is the USS Ingraham, a 'stretched' Perry-class frigate:



And the last one is a Spruance-class destroyer christened the USS Arthur Radford sporting an experimental enclosed mast amidships:



As I recall, the experiment was not deemed a success; the enclosed mast made the ship too top heavy and she tended to roll heavily in moderate seas. Still, it is an interesting looking vessel. I've had it in my stash for a very long time, I figured it was time to start it. This one and the Ingraham will be waterline models; the Forrest Sherman will most likely be full-hulled.



Now on to the Maddog Manufacturing Vehicle assembly line...

To start out this part of the tour, we'll look at my M1A1 Abrams SEP TUSK that finally has a basecoat of sand color on it:



It's actually the wrong kind of sand color. Instead of a US Army Desert Storm sand color, I ended up getting a British Desert Stone color that was in the wrong place! Oh well, I wasn't going to drive all the way back down there to change out one bottle of paint! With the right weathering and other effects, I think I'll be able to change this sufficiently. I started with a brown wash, followed by a black wash over the grills and grates on the engine deck. It is really hard to see the brown on the tank in this pic, except in certain places:



I didn't do anything on the SCUDs yet as I was going to research more of their interior for painting purposes. I'll get to them hopefully at Hobby Day.

Meanwhile, I started a one model and fixed up another one that someone else had sent me from another Forums. The fixer-upper was a German WWI A7V tank that was leaning to one side and the builder didn't want it anymore. So I traded him for it and when it arrived, I took it partially apart and re-sat the tracks so it would sit level now:





This one already has a base coat of dark grey on it; I just didn't get pics of it yet.

Finally, I started this new model I recently got and boy was this a quick one! This is the Dragon 1/72 scale M-103 heavy tank. I started assembling the Hull:



Then I was going to add the fenders, but decided to wait. Still, here they are next to this tank:

Next, I assembled the turret:



Then I assembled the track runs; they came in two halves that I put together:



All of this and the track assembly took all of ten minutes:



After working on some other models for an hour or so, I came back to this and sanded the joins down to smooth everything out and then add all the fenders and fiddly bits:





That was another fifteen minutes or so, mostly because of the weird way the headlight guard braces had to be assembled. An hour or so later, after doing more on other models and then firing up the airbrush; I came back and shot a basecoat of Olive Drab in this, which took all of three minutes:



Later I shot a gloss clearcoat over this when the OD dried and then gave it a black wash over all the engine deck details and select other places; another five minutes worth of work:



All in all, this model took about an hour of actual work time to get to this point! I love it! It is a funky looking tank. The turret appears to me as if someone had gone up to the gun muzzle of an M--48 and blew real hard to make the turret puff out like that!


And that brings us all up to the present with what's happening at Maddog Manufacturing this week. Tomorrow is Hobby Day and I'm hoping to get more done this Hobby Day weekend on some of these projects while also starting a couple WWI planes for a Canvas Eagles game that we are planning in the future. Stay tuned for more and thanks for looking in. Comments are always welcome.

No my friend, I just love your manic build pace. I love how you do it so rapidly and consistently. Just giving you more motivation...

Blooming 'eck! and I thought I had a lot in WIP!

Those are all brilliant MD and I'm looking forward to seeing them all completed in 2016!

Stikpusher wrote: No my friend, I just love your manic build pace. I love how you do it so rapidly and consistently. Just giving you more motivation...

Thanks Carlos! Just trying to reduce the stash as best I can! Some of this ain't all that consistent, sometimes I just get tired of constantly working on something to make it look good and just finish it just to move it out of the way so I can concentrate on something that builds better.


Keep going with the motivation though, the more comments I get, the more I am motivated to keep going.

portman wrote:Blooming 'eck! and I thought I had a lot in WIP!

Those are all brilliant MD and I'm looking forward to seeing them all completed in 2016!

Thanks Portman! I do hope to get these all finished in 2016, but past experience has shown that some of these will languish yet another year. I will, however; give it every effort at 110%!

Okay, after a nice relaxing week filled with model building, I finally have something to show for it.

I'll start with my aircraft and real space.

At Hobby Day in November, I was given a box of approximately 30 1/72 scale plastic model WWI aircraft kits that came from the estate of a gentleman that had passed away the previous week. He had planned on building all of them and using them in a large game called Canvas Eagles. I approached my friend Harmon with these since I didn't want all of them, offering to donate them to our Hobby Club, the St. Crispin's Irregulars, of which Harmon is the founder. Note: the St. Crispin's Irregulars is different than IPMS; this is a more informal group that does both tabletop gaming and model building. Harmon and I decided to distribute these aircraft free to anyone who wanted to build one; with the stipulation that they use the aircraft they build in the game of Canvas Eagles that we will be hosting when almost everyone is done.

Okay, here are two of my aircraft that I'm building for the Canvas Eagles game, a Revell Fokker E.III:



...and a Roden Nieuport 11:



I did get a little further along on these but forgot to take pics.

Moving on, I went to work on my Space Shuttle, adding the clear parts for the main windscreen:



Later on when they were dry, I masked them using Hobbico Liquid Mask:



Afterward, when the mask was dry, I shot a coat of Mr. Surfacer 1000 from a spray can over the areas where this is going to be white. I figured that would give me a better chance of having a complete and consistent white coat:



You can't really tell in that pic, but there is a light grey Mr. Surfacer on that model. While I was at it, I shot a coat of Mr. Surfacer 1000 on the booster rocket parts that are supposed to be white as well. You can also see in this pic the Aurora Jet Commando aircraft that had been giving me all this trouble. Since I had a hard time getting a consistent white coat on this too, I shot it with the Shuttle boosters:



The grey Mr. Surfacer is a little easier to see in this pic.

Moving along, it was time to get the C-46 completed; or at least as close to completed as I can get it. I added the landing gear and the landing gear doors to the underside of this. Here she is standing on her wheels for the first time:



You can see I also removed the masking on some of the windows.

Good news: I found the fourth part I needed to make the three-bladed propellers for this plane, so I assembled them. Now this model can be a bit more accurate:



Now it was time to paint the windscreen. The model had come with a set of Eduard masks for this aircraft when I bought it, so I decided to try these out. This is the first time I've used Eduard Masks for canopies/windscreens ever. The first side seemed to go on okay:



The other side needed to be trimmed since it was all different sizes. I was following the diagram on the instruction sheet too, but these were poorly cut:



Anyway, long story short to keep from boring you; I trimmed the masks, applied the rest of them, trimming where needed and then shot a coat of OD on the canopy/windscreen of this model. That's when I saw the seam lines where the clear parts had been glued to the fuselage halves. So, I started to sand these seams away to smooth this plane out. Here's a pic showing the start of the sanding after I completed the masking and shot the paint:



I don't know why the plane looks so brown in this pic. The rest of them look more accurate.

Finally, I got it all sanded smooth. Before I shot another coat of OD again, I painted the landing gear and the landing gear doors underneath this plane so I could minimize the handling again after I shot the final OD on the canopy frames:



Now I shot a final OD green on the canopy frames. It is still wet in this pic:



Now if this dries right, I'll be able to remove all the masking on the side windows and canopy and declare this thing done. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a completed C-46!



Now for a view of the work I got done on my armor.


I'll start with the little A7V that my friend had sent me. I shot the grey basecoat on this first:



Later on, I tried to freehand the OD splotches on the sides and top. The OD was too thin and ran too much though. First one side:



...and the other side:



Next I started to apply the photo-etch to one of the Russian armored train engines and tender:







Believe me, that is only one-third of the total photo-etch that is supposed to go on this part of the train! Oh, and for those that remembered that this train had the happy face drawn on the front; it is behind that P/E plate on the front of the engine. No paint bleed-through here....

After this, I needed a break so I painted the details inside the SCUD cabins that had it:



Later on I shot some grey primer on the two missiles themselves to see how the seams worked out. They didn't......



I added some more Mr. Surfacer 500 to the seams and will try to carefully sand them smooth without removing too much of the excellent detail on those missiles. I also added the clear film to all the windows on the cabins of the two SCUDs and will soon be painting them.

Moving on from there, I added the decals to the M-103:





I went with the markings for the 24th Infantry Division according to the instruction sheet. This only needs dullcoat, weathering and the two antennas and machine gun on top to be done.

Speaking of almost done, I also made excellent progress on my M1A2 Abrams SEP TUSK II. I assembled the tracks, painted them and weathered them:



These looked great on the model:





Then, while talking long distance to a friend in Miami, I added all the tiny clear parts to the TUSK kit and the periscopes on the hatches before I started to add everything to the turret. Here's the first of the TUSK kit to be installed along with several other detail pieces:



After finishing the rest of the turret assembly, I added the side skirts to the main hull:



Finally, I got the whole thing assembled! All that this needs now is a dullcoat and weathering:






Now for those who are interested, the last two tanks have been completed and are going to be posted in the Armored Forums as my 678th and 679th completed small scale vehicles. Feel free to go check them out over there.

That's all I have for now. I may get a little more done tomorrow before my IPMS meeting but I don't expect to be posting anything tomorrow. Maybe next week I'll have something to post, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

Again a new and enjoyable episode of Maddog Manufacturing.

Many pics, good pics, interesting topics, interesting subjects... Me like a lot !

The Shuttles rockets, they are BIG !

Looking forward to the next episode! :-)

- Kari

Thanks Kari! I apologize for the late response, for awhile I hadn't been getting my alerts but that is fixed now. Anyway, here's where I am so far on all these projects.

I'll start with the three that have been giving me fits. The Jet Commando needed another coat of paint so instead I masked off the leading edges of the wings and tail and painted on the black de-icing boots:



There was bleed-through as I knew there would be, so next I'll mask off the black parts and engine exhaust and re-shoot some more white. Then it'll be sealed again (hopefully!!!) and decals applied.

Next, I shot another coat of primer on the Shuttle with Boosters:



When it was dry, I shot another coat of white. The shuttle (so far) has remained white:



...but the boosters got screwed up again. Back to the drawing board...

The lower chassis of the two SCUDs got a coat of black on them:



Here is everything dry-fit together. What doesn't show is the inconsistency of the green coat on these that requires another spray session:



Finally, I had painted a dark blue deck color on the USS New York, but wasn't happy with it since there were brush marks galore on this. So, I stripped off the deck color and will try to airbrush it on and then mask to shoot the superstructure again:







After dealing with all this frustration, I decided to pull out some other models that I hoped to have better success with. I was rewarded with some success on these models.

This first one is the USS Ingraham with some additional bits and bobs added. I'm ready to try and shoot her deck along with the deck of the USS New York:



Next I pulled down the Russian Be-6 Madge and went to work on her so I could clear another large aircraft off the bench. I got the fuselage all cemented together and the main canopy/clear part installed. Here she is sitting on her wheels which are snapped into place:



While that was drying, I drilled out two parts that look like exhaust pipes that go under the wings:



They aren't very near the engines so I'm not sure what they vent out. Moving on, I also assembled all the underwing ordinance this bird is going to carry. It is quite a load:



Now that the fuselage had dried, I completed the assembly, adding the wings and tail. The front of the engines are snapped in on this picture here; I kept them removable so that I wouldn't break the props when it came time to mask off all the windows:



This is one big bird! As mentioned above, I now removed the engine cowlings and started to mask off all the windows:



That was a couple days ago. Now that the masking is dry, I can now add the cowlings and start painting this bird. Hopefully I can get to it this week.

Moving along, I pulled out another model I'd been working on. It was time to get the Stearman closer to completion. To start, here are all the engine parts before assembly:



And here they are afterward:



Now, when it came to the wheel spats; I realized that sanding the seams smooth on these, and then re-spraying them with my airbrush was going to be difficult if I installed them on the plane first. So, I went out of sequence on the instructions and cemented the two halves together on the sprues so I could more effectively sand these seams:



Success! Here they are all sanded smooth before I added some more tan to these to smooth them out before assembly:



Finally I was able to start on the decals. I chose to apply them to the upper wing first:



Some time later, all the decals were applied:



You can see here that I didn't bring the wing and tail decals together on the front of the wings and tail surfaces. Lining them up and getting them pressed into place made doing it this way much better. Any attempt to bring them together only complicated the application causing one to become misaligned while attempting to line up the other. Sometimes I almost tore them so applying them like this was far easier.

BTW, the top wing is only sitting on the inner struts of this model for the pic. I removed it here so I could install the engine:



Installing the engine was very difficult. There's an inner assembly that made attaching this extremely difficult. Not only that but there are several notches that need to be lined up and they are quite small which compounds the difficulty. I made every attempt to get this engine assembly installed property, but every effort to close that gap was unsuccessful. Any more, and I would probably have broken this model so the gap remains. One recommendation is to leave off the rearmost assembly behind the engine and it might fit far better. One can't see it anyway when the engine is installed.

Finally, here is a pic of the whole plane with all the bits and bobs and decals attached. Once again, the top wing is only placed on the inner struts for now:



Later I painted the leading edges of the wings and tail with the red color. I also added that red color to the engine cowl to try and reduce the seam a little more.

I won't attach the top wing until I have the EZ line delivered and get the first part of the rigging done. That way, I'm not having as much difficulty with getting it rigged when the time comes.


Okay, that sums up a long and difficult two weeks on the workbench. Hopefully this week and next will be far easier and more productive. Stay tuned for more and thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

Wow, looks like I was able to slip my last update in quietly enough so that nobody noticed!!
Let's see if I can do it again!


This is going to be a short update (for me) but I wanted to post this after finally getting further ahead on several key projects.



Okay, after a week of frustration and disappointments; today I went into my Hobby Room to wage unrestricted warfare against my Space Shuttle with Boosters. I was determined to get this beast painted white and clearcoated as perfectly as possible so I could move on to masking off and painting the rest of it. Four and a half hours later; after wiping down the pieces with tack rags; misting the air around my spraybooth; shooting white; sanding off dust; wiping down the pieces with tack rags; misting the air around my spraybooth; shooting white, over and over, ad infinitum and ad nauseum; I was finally able to get a good enough coat of white and Future on this model! VICTORY!


Shuttle:



Boosters:



After that, I decided it was time to tackle the SCUDs as well. I re-shot the green on them and then after working on a few other things while they dried, I came back and shot the tan color on my Iraqi SCUD:



After that, I shot a clearcoat over the Russian SCUD to prepare it for decals and washes:



While I had the airbrush going; I pulled out the Shuttle Fuel Tank and shot the orange color on it:



That took a whole Testor's Model Master bottle of International Orange. That's a lot of paint!

Moving on, I also put the airbrush to use painting some ships decks. First off, I hit the USS Forrest Sherman:



Next I shot the USS Arthur Radford:



I forgot the superstructure pinches in the middle so I need to re-shoot this one.

Then I shot the USS Ingraham:



Finally, after all that practice, I hit the USS New York:




Whew! That was enough painting for now. Time to relax with some easy building....


I decided to pull out a commission build and get it started. This is the new Tamiya 1/35th scale Panzer II that a guy has asked me to build for him. I started out building the wheels as per the instructions, then moved on to complete the basic hull construction:



That's right, you've seen it here first: the Duke of Small Scale armor is building a 1/35th scale tank. Well people, it ain't for me so it's not staying in my collection, but go ahead and get your licks in now.


Moving on, I started a couple models for two campaigns I joined on another Forums. This first one is a 1/72 scale PST Russian Fire Truck. This is one of two trucks I'll be doing for the campaign. I started by assembling the chassis:



Next I assembled the cab and test-fit this thing on the chassis:



It's a good thing I did because there was a lot of cutting I had to do to get this cab to fit right. Afterward, I added the wheels because I had a feeling they were going to be difficult to get lined up. I was right:



You can see some of the cutting I had to do to make this cab fit. The rest was on the bottom of the cab itself.

Moving on to my next campaign project, this is my 1/72 scale Heller C-118 Liftmaster. I knew this beastie was going to be giving me serious fits in the future when it comes time to paint it (White over Bare Metal: double trouble for me!!) so I went through the instructions and found everything that was in halves and assembled everything except for the fuselage.

I started with the cockpit, naturally:



Then I assembled all the wheels that were split in half:



Those will stay there until I'm ready to put them on the plane.

Then I assembled the two halves of the horizontal stabilizers:



Finally, I assembled the wings, followed by the four engine nacelles which I then added to the wings. This was one of several lessons I learned from building my DC-6 which is essentially the same plane:




There. Now all I have to do is add the windows and mask them; then fix all the seams and other issues. That means I have the rest of the year to do battle with this model as I try to lay down a smooth, even white coat over a smooth, even bare metal finish!


Okay, that is all the work I managed to get done today. I finally feel like something went my way for once. Thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.