Italeri 1/72 F-35 B Lightning II

[Guest]

Beavering away at this over the past week, in between waiting for paint to dry on my other project.

Cockpit is simple. I took some liberties and am not looking for accuracy since it'll have a pilot and the closed canopy is smoked. The interior on the real things is very simple too. Apparently this thing flies itself...:surprised:





Here's my attempt at painting the PJ pilot, again an approximation is good enough at this scale and with the canopy closed most of the definition will be obscured.





Finally the cockpit assembled and a dry fit of the canopy. The canopy will need a little work to fit properly, which I was desperately hoping to avoid. Oh well. :disappointed:

[boatman]

'Back in the day' they were one of the few manufacturers that the little (now long gone) model shop in my home town would stock that offered all the helicopters I wanted to build so I used to build loads of Italeri, along with Hasegawa US Navy kits. I remember the fit being terrible, having to spend lots of time cleaning off flash and seams and the decals taking an absolute age to release from the backing.

HI Chris personly i dont mind Italeri kits as they have some good ideas in the kits my merlin helo on my HMS NORFOLK is a Italeri kit an what i loved about that was it was made to all come to bits so the main cabin just clipped togeather an that was very handy for me as i wanted to fit in the main rotors motor an havein it working an so to take apart again for servicein an i found it a very good fit an any flash was just cut off as thats what modeling all about makin the kit an havin fun to see if it all turns out ok
chris

[boatman]

Nice work Chris on the pilot an the canopy looks great but why oh why they made it tip forwards i just cannot understand :thumb2:
chris

[Guest]

...thats what modeling all about makin the kit an havin fun to see if it all turns out ok...

Absolutely right. Cleaning up parts is no big deal, it's just nice when it's not necessary. Like vacuuming. Do I enjoy it? Not really. Do I wish the carpet would do it by itself? YES.

Nice work Chris on the pilot an the canopy looks great but why oh why they made it tip forwards i just cannot understand :thumb2:
chris

Thanks, I thought it looked ok. The pose is off because the F-35 control stick is to the right instead of central and he can't quite reach it, so he is mid button press!
As to why the canopy hinges forward, I have no clue. I imagine they needed to relocate the mechanism to make space for the turbine. Whatever the reason I quite like it and it's largely inconsequential.

[Guest]

Have been working on the internal subs for the engines and landing gear. All cleaned up and primed.

Only issue here was some injection marks on the inside of the intakes and the vertical vent. I checked and checked and reasoned you'd only see them if you went looking for them, but decided in the end that I knew they were there and that was enough for me to get rid of them.

The fit of everything so far is perfect. The seams on the landing gear legs and rams were hefty and took a little time to clean up, but otherwise I can't fault it up to this point.

[papa 695]

Looking good Chris, very nice work on the cockpit and pilot.

[Guest]

Thanks Ian for stopping by!

Looking again at the pilot I’ve decided to give him / her a wash, so let’s see how that goes!

[Swagman 070]

Looking great Chris. Keep up the good work.

[Steve Brodie]

Nice work Chris on the pilot an the canopy looks great but why oh why they made it tip forwards i just cannot understand :thumb2:
chris

Google search -

F-35's canopy has a forward hinge because there's a lifting fan to the back of the canopy in the B model. Since the canopy is a common part amongst the three models, the models without the lifting fan also have the forward hinge

[Guest]

Snatched an hour this afternon and got on with some things I had to do that I wasn't looking forward to.

The first was a little step in the exhaust, which is covered in dimples. I've fixed the seam (I think) and will inspect once reprimed. Any ideas how I might resintate the little dimples that have been unavoidably removed?



Next, the undercarriage.
Ordinarily I would be over the moon that a model manufacturer has thought about weighting the wheels. However, on this occassion I am not displaying it 'on the deck', so weirdly I find myself needing to reinstate the whole tire!

I also need to extend the undercarriage so that this is uncompressed, having already primed the main gear :anguished::tongue-out3::tired::smiling5::smiling5:

[scottie3158]

Lovely work so far mate. For a non wingy person and its probably a stupid question, I understand I think that the panels on the fuselage are zig zagged to minimise straight lines to reduce radar signature?? but why are they always painted a different colour around the edges not just the main body colour?

[Guest]

Lovely work so far mate. For a non wingy person and its probably a stupid question, I understand I think that the panels on the fuselage are zig zagged to minimise straight lines to reduce radar signature?? but why are they always painted a different colour around the edges not just the main body colour?

Great question! From what I've read, the angular shapes are a measure to reduce the planes radar cross section. The main body is coated in a special stealth coating to reduce it's radar signature and I would guess that the lighter coloured areas are a protective measure, positioned in high wear areas to reduce the potential for damage to the main coating.

[Guest]

Cracking on with the undercarriage mods.

Starting with the front leg I removed the torque links, the axle end and cleaned off the remaining oleo strut. I then drilled a 1.2mm hole through the head of the axle mount and the outer oleo leg, glueing in a 1.2mm styrene rod. I then fixed one half of the torque link to the outer leg at a guessed angle, pushed the axle down over the rod and set the other half of the torque link. Once I adjusted them so they met I glued the axle in place.




I repeated this for both the main struts, with the exception of one of the torque links, which pinged off never to be seen again. I had to scratch these from some plasticard.




I recalled once posting that I'd never injured myself with a blade, and today is the day this is no longer correct and to mark the milestone I took a picture. I stabbed myself with the tip of the scalpel whilst working on the exhaust manifold. Evidence here.




Talking of the manifold, the solution I came up with was to drill 28 0.4mm holes and fill with stretched sprue, which will be filed down to approximately the right length and hopefully not look too bad.




Finally for this mornings early start I decided that flattening and glueing sprue to the wheels would provide the solution I need. I'll fill all the gaps and then file down once set.

[Guest]

why are they always painted a different colour around the edges not just the main body colour?

This is speculation, but it could be something as simple as to allow ground crew to see where they are more easily, and therefore can avoid stepping on them?

[Guest]

What I do know is that I’m not looking forward to painting them!