Maddog Manufacturing 2025 Grand Re-Opening!

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Tom! I finally managed to finish a few of those, feel free to check them out.

Thank you Stuart!

Thank you Carlos! That is a brilliant idea! I do believe I will do that when the LCAC is done! LOL!

[Duke Maddog]

Well, it's been over a month since I was able to open up for another tour. It's been a crazy, stressful and frustrating month so in order to prevent me blowing my brains out, I've taken every opportunity to work on my hobby. Our Hobby Day Mondays and Hobby Day weekends have been a tremendous help for me and has allowed me to make a ton of progress. This will be a good long tour, mostly in the Motor Pool since I'm rapidly closing in on my latest milestone and want to get to it as soon as possible. That being said, I've been indulging in a couple of projects in the Space Port, so we can start our tour there.



Here in the Space Port, I started a fun little project that a friend had gotten me; a 1/72 scale Flying saucer. It is a great little diversion to work on between vehicles. First, we built the interior that it came with. It has astronauts too! It's pretty basic, but it is a small saucer:



Later on the undercarriage went on:



She's a great little thing! And no, that is not paint; it is the bare plastic that the kit was molded in. I'll be spraying a metallic blue on that just for kicks:



The next thing in the Space Port we've been working on is the Millennium Falcon. In this shot you can see where we started on the engine deck. It's about a third done here:



The other areas that were installed underneath were also added before that pic was taken. The next shot here shows the entire upper hull completely done:



The gun tub and the radar dish are just dry fit here. All the landing gear legs were completed as well in preparation for working on the lower hull:



Finally, all the engine inserts were added to the rear section:




And that concludes the fun tour through the Space Port, now we'll start in the Motor Pool tour. We might have to break in the middle of it since there is so much to see.



Here in the Motor Pool, we'll start in this first bay with the continuation of the US Army M142 HIMARS by Foreart. The cab interior had been completed so a bit of color was added:



Once that was dry, I tried installing it inside the cab. It fought me on that:



And this is supposed to be the best rendition of this subject in 1/72 scale! Finally, some "gentle" persuasion convinced it to go together correctly:



The rest of the assembly went well on the chassis:





The launch cradle was then assembled and was fairly easy to do:



The launch tubes however were not a satisfactory fit:



It all eventually got sanded smooth and put together. However, again this model was a disappointment: No provision was made for the launch cradle to elevate and lower; you have to pick one position or the other. I'm working on a way to make that happen. Meanwhile, I decided to start the Dragon HIMARS which was panned because Dragon molded the windows closed and gave no interior. Well, I decided that wasn't acceptable. I drilled out then cut out the windows on the cab:





Then I raided the copious spares box to find some reasonable facsimiles of the interior parts provided in the Foreart kit. Some chairs, an instrument panel, steering wheel and console parts modded to fit and we have an interior:



Granted, most of that will be barely visible once the cab closes and windows go in. I still painted it and once closed up it will look close enough to the Foreart interior from outside:



Chassis assembly was much easier and smoother that the Foreart kit and even a bit better detailed:



The beauty of this kit is they do provide a way to make the launch cradle raise and lower with these parts:



It didn't take long to get this fully assembled and the painted:



It shouldn't be too much longer on those two HIMARS....

One other Marine subject I started was a Pegasus Hobbies M-46 Patton tank. I started with the torsion bars first:



I then did the turret while those were drying so they would stay aligned:



Later the wheels and sprockets went on, followed by the tracks:





This beastie was ready for paint:



And so paint it got:



Now I thought I had Marine decals for this, but I don't so I'll have to get some ordered, so this one will be waiting a bit.

Moving on, I got started on a few models I found while clearing the storage unit, some because they were fast and easy, and others because they've been sitting on my shelf for far too long waiting to get started. One of the easy ones I started briefly is the Dragon LRDG truck with the 20mm cannon. I might have one of these built but if I do, I'll find a way to LRDG modify it. I first started with the chassis:



The cab was next:



And that's as far as I got with that. Mostly because of this next model. Talk about a long time Shelf Queen; I found this Churchill that I'd built when I was about ten or eleven. It looked like this when I found it:



Yes, really rough! So, I got to work fixing all the messes I made back then, filling gaps mostly:



Later it got repainted and even a bit of preliminary weathering. Now I need to search for some Canadian decals for this:



In the next bay is my other fast and fun project, an ancient ESCI kit of the German Opel Ambulance. I got this far before I remembered to take pics:



Now I know I already have one of these completed, so I decided to make this look a bit different. I painted the cab in a camouflage pattern and then painted the box a straight dark yellow. Kinda like the back of the truck got demolished, but the cab and engine were intact; so someone decided to take the box off the back of a broken down ambulance and fasten it to the truck hat had no bed:



Now I just need decals. BTW, the windows were filled in with Micro Crystal Clear window cement since this had no window clear parts.

Since we're looking at German subjects, this next bay has an IBG German Maultier halftrack. I decided to build this because the running gear for the tracked portion is supposed to be better and more sturdy that Roden's Maultier. So I started with the engine:



There's ten parts in that engine, and then the photo etch fan. The chassis was built next and the engine mounted:



The cab was a fast and easy assembly:



Here it is dry-fit on the chassis. It is gonna take some finagling to get that to fit:



The bed was then built up:



While that was drying, the tracked suspension parts were installed:



They are stronger than Roden, but still pretty delicate. The IBG instructions did not make that easy to build

Decided to dry fit everything again to see how tough this was going to be:



It's gonna be a nice looking model! Later some preliminary paint went on:



Then the tracks were installed (they were link and length and very, very tiny! I'm stunned I didn't lose a single one! I did break two though...), more paint added and decals applied:



Not much longer on that one!

Another German subject I started, once I found the box; is the early version of the SdKfz-9 halftrack with the crane. The one I built before was the Late version. Once again, started with the engine:



Followed by the chassis and roadwheels:



After that I'd had enough!

Moving on to the next bay, we have another punishing model; the IBG Lancia 3Ro cargo truck. Punishing because once again I had to assemble 17 parts into this tiny engine:



I then finished up the chassis and mounted the engine:



The truck cab was just as difficult as the previous one; and this one wasn't messed up by a glue spill:



The bed was a bit better, but those railings sticking up kept me on edge:



Because there was no way to paint and weather that when the upper grid went on, I went ahead and painted and weathered that ahead of time:



It's kinda hard to see in that pic, but it's there.

Moving on from there, all the next bays have Soviet/Russian subjects in them.Some are old PST kits I found, others are ones I've had for decades and decided it was time to get them built. Others, well.....

First up is this Russian M-20 Howitzer, an ancient PST kit. I assembled all the sub assemblies and I'm waiting till they dry sufficiently before putting the whole gun together:



Next is another old PST kit. I had already built the gun that came with this halftrack, so now it's time to build this Zis-42. It was fast; I got this far before I needed a break:



Later I painted this because I still have the color out after painting something else:



I'll get to the tracks later. And yeah, windows by Micro Crystal Clear....

Moving on to the next bay, we have another ancient model from a company called ZZ Models. I'd been sitting on this and two other kits from this company due to the resin and photo etch parts in them. Well, now it's time to build them. This first one is the Russian PRV-10 system, and the first thing yo do is build the resin box:



The radar is full on photo etch. I had to assemble that whole framework. The white blobs are Gator's Grip Glue that dried nice and clear:



Surprisingly enough, that flat part glued in very nicely on the framework:



Here it is propped up on the box so you get a general idea of where it goes:



Finally, I added the frame and then mounted the radar:



Now that that was all done, this is where this whole kit went off the rails. For the life of me, I could not get the crossbase off the pour block. It doesn't look like it much but two pieces broke off and flew when I tried cutting it off the block. Therefore I decided that it doesn't matter how inaccurate this was gonna be, I was going to steal a base from my spares box, modify it as necessary so that I have a base that this sits on:



After that was built, I stuck a pin through two discs, cemented a ring on the other side so I have a way to attach the cab to the crossbase and still allow it to turn:



I glued the one side to the cab and later glued the base to this other disc:



It works:





In the next bay I started the Russian P-15 radar system. This one is truck mounted so I built the truck first, starting with the suspension and lower cab:



Next I assembled the resin cabin where the crew sits to monitor this system and dry mounted it on the chassis:



You can see where the rough casting made it necessary to fill it. These are extremely short-run kits! The radar dishes were built next on their frame mast:



Here it is propped against the cabin showing you a rough idea where it is supposed to go:



This is an even better demonstration of how it is supposed to look:



Later it all got mounted and a preliminary coat of paint was applied:



The dishes themselves have extensions in front, but the resin extension pieces could not be cut from the pour block without shattering them. Ask me how I know. Back to the sheet styrene to make the end pieces for the extensions:



Later those got mounted but I didn't get any pics. Now in this last bay, my final project is the Russian P-18 radar system. It is another truck mounted radar, and this one is NATO code named "Spoon Rest" and it's one of the two radar systems I need to complete my SA-2 SAM site. First I built the truck again starting with the chassis:



Later the cab was built up interior and out and painted, and the resin cabin was built, filled and sanded and the photo etch tower was built. Here is the tower dry mounted on the fully finished truck:



The radar for this is gonna be a real bear to build!


And that concludes our long and extensive tour of Maddog Manufacturing for this half of April. Stay tuned, more is coming. Thank you all for looking in comments are welcome!

[Stikpusher]

Mark, you sure have been one busy bee! That is one serious amount of work that you’ve done here!

[LyleW]

Busy hands! My goodness, quite a run!

[KSaarni]

Oh my, what can say..

Just amazing !

Really interesting story of the Churchill tank ! I would say, rather excellent quality build for 11 year old Mark!

- Kari

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you guys! Your comments are so motivating!

Carlos, thank you. I have been trying to keep busy between all the other crap going on.

Lyle, thank you. It's been a fun run!

Kari, thank you! Your comments on my Churchill are most appreciated. I had just learned about painting models from a friend of mine two years prior and decided to go all out on this one. It's time to find some Canadian decals and get this over the finish line.

[Stuart]

WOW! Awesome work as ever Mark - loving the ground Radars!

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Stuart!

[BlackSheep214]

Wow... you've got a lot going on, Mark! Good show!

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you Tom!