Tamiya 1/72 F-35A Lightning II

With the air intakes, nose and main gear bays painted, these were all glued together and when the nose was set it was glued into the fuselage along with the main gear bay. The fuselage halves were then glued together and masking tape applied to keep the fuselage closed up;

This will be left to set for the rest of the day and with the excellent fit of parts so far, I’m expecting a very light clean up only with no gaps to fill.

Once the fuselage is ready, the tail, stabilators, slats and flaps will be glued on next and that will be more or less it for the build. Obviously the cockpit and exhaust still need painting but it is pretty much built.

I won’t be attaching any weapons or pylons as after watching live streams from RAF Lakenheath here in the UK, the F-35s are generally ‘clean’ with maybe a couple fitted with outboard pylons only. Also after building the Italeri kit in full ‘beast mode’ I thought the aircraft looked hideous so no weapons will be on my model.

A very impressive kit so far!

Published by andyk21

I've been a modelmaker for a verrry long time and still show no signs of growing out of it after 50 plus years. I mainly build tanks, aircraft and paint figures but generally do whatever takes my fancy whether it's historical, Science-fiction, a 'what-if' or because it has pretty colours and looks nice. I'm hoping that you find my blog interesting and useful, particularly if building a model that I have built and documented here. View more posts