F-35B

Ready for primer. Internal weapons bays and the upper fan and auxiliary air inlet masked with their respective door skins as their hinges are separate. Other doors with integral hinges don't fit. Main gear and puffer jets masked with tape cut around the doors. The front wheel well was masked with foam which I haven't tried before.

Light grey Vallejo primer applied.

The Eduard masking set includes masks for the canopy edge and the centre was filled in with liquid masking fluid. I could only get the masking to work by leaving a narrow frame. The F-35 has quite a wide frame so I may have to remask an the canopy later. I will try to use stark full panel black & white pre-shading with a thin coat of medium sea grey to try and mimic the sharp panel variations of the original.

The cockpit is complete, and I intend to fit this during final assembly.

All door interior surfaces and undercarriage bays/legs are painted insignia white, and the lift fan parts have been painted.

Here are two British F-35Bs showing completely different levels of tape visibility. The paint finish is very even per panel and the colour seems to vary depending upon viewing angle.

I masked the outer vertical stabilisers and sprayed black panels.

A couple of thin Medium Sea Grey coats has left a slight but defined colour difference which varies with viewing angle. Not 100% successful but I am inclined to leave it. Once I removed the horizontal stabilisers I masked the 'tape' and painted it with the AK Light Ghost Grey. I actually used Post-It notes for the masking. This worked well and has the advantage of masking the surrounding area from overspray. This will be ideal for masking around the Eduard 'tape' masking areas.

The Medium Sea Grey is a bit light, even for the earliest UK planes, but I don't want to have too much contrast to the Light Ghost Grey. I added a couple of drops of Dark Sea Grey for the main surfaces. The ailerons and rearmost panels of the tail surfaces, in contrast, had a couple of drops of Light Grey added. The effect is subtle.

A gloss coat has been sprayed ready for decals. The plan is to add decals when the varnish is dry. Then I will spray a a final matt coat before using the Eduard masks to spray the tape in Light Ghost Grey. This AK colour has a satin finish which I hope will give a specular contrast. The engine and lift fan are also painted, as are a u/c doors etc. Final job will be to assemble the model!

Decals now in place ready for a matt clearcoat. One benefit of doing this before assembly is that alignment of decals on the stabilisers etc. can be compared back-to-back. I added the harness decals onto the pilot figure (and promptly dropped him, breaking off his arm). The decal colour is very similar to the Light Ghost Grey I have, when they should really be noticeably lighter. On the other hand, the two dark panels on the upper starboard fuselage are not much darker than my main body colour so it couldn't have been much darker. I now have to decide how much of the Eduard 'tape' masking to use.

I want to be able to display the finished model in either stealth or 'Beast Mode' so I prepared the wings to accept magnets at the pylon mounting points. Drilled to take 2mm dia. x 1mm thick magnets. I bought a 1.8mm diamond mill bit so I could flatten the bottom of the holes and allow the magnets to sit more square than was the case in my previous Buccaneer. As the wings are quite thin at the outer position I used permanent marker on a magnet temporarily placed in each of these four positiont to mark the inside of the top wing. I drilled shallow 3mm holes at each of these marked positions and used the mill bit to flatten the bottom.

Twelve magnets in place. I used thin CA glue in the recesses and a strong magnet on the underside of the wing to seat each magnet. The strong magnet was marked at one end to ensure all the magnets had the same polarisation so that store pylons will be interchangable. I found it important to secure each magnet with CA setting spray before attemtping to position another magnet anywhere near.

Eduard masks in place. Patience is definitely required, but the fit is very impressive. The only problems were the rings around the panels on the nose - simply too fiddly to align as a ring. I'll either cut them or maybe just forget this panel entirely. The front and rear masks for the lift fan doors also seemed a bit wide and I had to introduce a 'pleat' in the top corners. Now to protect the rest of the plane and spray the Light Ghost Grey. Eduard do provide additional thin strips cut the full width of the sheet, but I don't intend to try and mask all the remaining tape locations on the underside of the plane.

Make or break time, ready for spaying the tape on the top side. Post-It notes are the ideal size to contain overspray, but the cheapo versions I bought were not tacky enough tö stay in place without help. Masking was much easier without stabilisers getting in the way. If you look carefully, you can see I missed a bit ?. Canopy has also been remasked to produce a wider frame.

It worked! I even managed to rescue the 'NO STEP' decal that I forgot to mask and sprayed over. I realised in time and cleared the paint off it with a cotton bud and warm water.

The underside is also OK. I didn't use the provided mask for the large panel as it often appears 'tape'-coloured in photos.

Together at last! Much later in the process than 'normal'. Cockpit, undercarriage and engine/fan assembly fitted. No noseweight was used as this kit sits fine without.

Flaperons and rear control surfaces finally fixed in place. The prominent hoop inside the canopy is not included in the kit: I added one from a length of black twist tie used in e.g. USB cable packaging.

With canopy in place.

Plenty of doors to fit. All painted Insignia White inside. I used a thinned grey wash to accentuate the detail in the bays and on the doors and landing gear parts.

Nearly finished! Internal stores and all those doors finished and fitted.

External stores also ready including magnets fitted in all pylons.

Beast Mode! I was hoping to fit the outer bomb bay doors closed, as depicted in the box art, but they wouldn't quite clear the mounted JDAM.

Calling it done! The reverse build worked well, thanks to the very accurate fit of the the upper and lower halves. As hoped this unusual assembly order allowed the majority of the airframe including decals to be finished matt, while the lighter Ghost Grey tape, nosecone and intake areas were left satin. This provides a contrast in reflectivity, as well as colour.

My block pre-shading on the vertical stabilisers is barely noticable: certainly less pronounced than on real F-35Bs.

Not quite fifty shades of grey, but still quite a few...

The magnets worked as hoped allowing the battle penguin to become beastly at will. This also adds a little welcome colour. I managed to mount one of the 24 magnets upside down. This was in one of the thin outboard pylons and it was a challenge to remove the tight fitting magnet fixed with CA glue. There was just enough room to drill a diagonal hole behind the magnet and get some leverage from underneath. The magnet was flipped over and refixed in place.

While all the open doors are, admitttedly, impressive and absolutely define the capability of the F-35B, they do mask the underlying design. I'm now tempted to build a more recent, darker monochrome, version in flight and fully buttoned-up. Maybe the Airfix starter set would scratch this itch...