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Hello and Happy New Year all,

I hope everyone has a lovely 2023 and modelling. 
 

When the 1/48 F-35 from Tamiya was announced I knew I had to make one, and this was further cemented by the preview pictures and videos here on ARC - very much appreciated. 
 

Boxing: Information widely available online.  Very organized and chocked full of paperwork. 
 

Kit: im probably the 100th person raving about the attention to detail and engineering. Enough said. Raised RAM are more subtle than pictures online may show. Again, like the advice of the modellers before me, handling the plastic is the best bet.  
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I started the build following the instructions with the cockpit and gluing on the sensor window bit in front of the windscreen area on the upper fuselage. The kit decals were nice, but a bit of work when most of the side panels can be hand painted. As you can see there isn’t too much going on in a F-35 tub. I did install 2 toggle switches with wire. 
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Next, I put together the nosegear (NG). The AMS got the better of me and I detailed the gear with wire, thin PS strips, and scratch built a cable guide thing. I tried my best to match what I can gleam from pictures online, understandably there are not too many. 
 

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Finally, I fiddled with the 5 part NG bay. Wire detail was added as per online photos. Tamiya did an interesting approach where if you followed the instructions, you install the NG “retracted”, then snip off a small block on top of the NG to deploy it close to the end of the build and final details added.  Some guys may opt to deploy the gear already at this stage, or follow Tamiya’s advice. I went in between and snipped off the block, so I can check fit with the wiring detail I added. 

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Stay tuned for more. 
 

Konbini

 

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17 hours ago, ExchefAndy said:

I'm watching... Having just purchased Tamiya's F-4 finally, the F-35 is on my next list. These new kits look amazing!

Andy

Indeed Andy, this kit clicks together at every stage. Fillers and wrestling at a minimum. Surprisingly (maybe not so surprising), the last few kits I have successfully completed are all Tamiya. 
 

 

3 hours ago, Mr.Happy said:

You’re off to a great start. I’m looking forward to your next posts.

 

Keep building,

 

Mr. Happy

 

Many thanks Mr. Happy,

With borders open without quarantine worldwide it is easier to get home and fiddle with kits. 
 

3 hours ago, markiii said:

I'm following, I have two I received a few weeks ago. 

You’ll love it markiii, Tamiya has really outdone itself lately. Ill do my best to highlight anything noteworthy in the meantime. 

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Hello, its Update time:

 

I put together the intakes and attached them to the forward lower fuselage. I sprayed Mr.Color Finisher white and the Tamiya grey mix on the separate parts before mating them together as masking the sections for painting post-mating (for me at least) would be close to impossible. I then layered/sanded the mated corners using Mr.Finisher for the white portions and sanding with sandpaper stuck on a toothpick. The grey areas were mostly fine as they were. 
 

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I also finished the main weapons bay as well. Wiring and piping were already moulded on and this section was completed OOB. I got to say I am impressed with the amount of detail. I am tempted to leave the bay even empty as weapons would obscure all that lovely detail. I will mull over this. 
 

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Nice work.

 

Hopefully filling in the intakes wasn’t too much of a battle.
 

The way they are designed looks like it could be a bit of a challenge to eliminate seems? 
 

Your work looks great. 
 

Mr. Happy

 

 

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On 1/7/2023 at 10:45 PM, okthree said:

Looks awesome. Just added this kit to the stash. Seeing your work makes me want to put it on the next to do list. 

This kit just begs to be fondled and built. Im happy to share my findings here. 

 

23 hours ago, Mr.Happy said:

Nice work.

 

Hopefully filling in the intakes wasn’t too much of a battle.
 

The way they are designed looks like it could be a bit of a challenge to eliminate seems? 
 

Your work looks great. 
 

Mr. Happy

 

 

Many thanks Mr. Happy,

The intakes did take a while. The problem is the intakes are bendy, and theres 2 colors to deal with. A toothpick/thin rod with sandpaper stuck onto it was doable, but visibility while sanding was poor. 
 

14 hours ago, crackerjazz said:

Beautiful work on those added details, konbini! : ) That weapons bay looks fantastic!

Thanks for your kind words! Hard to believe the weapons bay is OOB. Of course it just takes a bit of patience painting everything. 
 

 

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On 1/8/2023 at 4:35 AM, konbini said:

Hello, its Update time:

 

I put together the intakes and attached them to the forward lower fuselage. I sprayed Mr.Color Finisher white and the Tamiya grey mix on the separate parts before mating them together as masking the sections for painting post-mating (for me at least) would be close to impossible. I then layered/sanded the mated corners using Mr.Finisher for the white portions and sanding with sandpaper stuck on a toothpick. The grey areas were mostly fine as they were. 
 

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I also finished the main weapons bay as well. Wiring and piping were already moulded on and this section was completed OOB. I got to say I am impressed with the amount of detail. I am tempted to leave the bay even empty as weapons would obscure all that lovely detail. I will mull over this. 
 

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Truly impressive as OOB! Comes together as a nice kit, keep going!

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On 1/11/2023 at 2:55 AM, Thadeus said:

Amazing work on both the nose gear bay and weapons bay.

Many thanks! Tamiya’s engineering certainly makes things easier. 
 

 

On 1/13/2023 at 8:52 PM, BastianD said:

Truly impressive as OOB! Comes together as a nice kit, keep going!

Updates to come. The f-35 may seem like lacking in detail but Tamiya proves it is up to developer and builder. 
 

 

On 1/14/2023 at 4:54 PM, Alternative 4 said:

Weapons bay looks great, a perfect balance of shading, busyness and white.

thank you thank you,   Much appreciated. The base was mr.color’s white surfacer, and shading/wash mostly with tamiya’s panel line washes. Many ribs and plumbing made it easier. 🙂

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Update time:

Back at home enough for an update. 

 

I tidied up the main gear bay here. Plumbing was moulded on already just like the weapons bay. Made my life easy. 

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The rest of this large pieces forms the wing spare which supports the model weight when the gear is attached, and the upper fuselage. Well thought out by Tamiya. 

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Next is a very satisfying click and glue together of the main gear bay, lower fuselage, and wing spar section. The fitting notches and nibs form a gapless fit that has no wiggle. Dry fitting with the upper fuselage had no surprises, it was perfect. 

 

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While I waited for the parts to set and solidify, I worked on the exhaust section. The one issue I had was it is two parts with ribbing detail.  It was very easy to lose detail while sanding. Painting was done first with a dark shade, masked off with thin strips of kabuki tape, then painted with the proper shade on the desired areas. 

 

Post detailing was done with Tamiya panel liner enamel. 

 

stay tuned for more. Happy modelling everyone. 

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Update time again:

 

I glued the nose+ intake top and bottom halves together. Despite my best effort there was still some sandwork to be done on the seam as the edges are sharp and any imperfection will be obvious. I used some mr surfacer to help. 

 

Next, the moment everyones been waiting for: top and bottom half coming together. This was done slowly and deliberately, using a heck of a lot of clothes pins and Tamiya extra thin for the internal structures if possible and the quick setting extra thin cement for anything external to minimize scarring. I did mess up one part due cement seeping out and getting on a clothes pin but was fixed afterwards via sanding. 

 

After this was done I glued on two external door panels that lie between the gear and the weapons bay. It is a good feeling to successfully complete a major modelling task. Work is far from over before it sees paintwork. Until next time, happy modelling. 

 

Happy Lunar New Year 🐰

 

Konbini

 

edit: server error meant pictures will be in next post. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/23/2023 at 2:15 PM, ExchefAndy said:

It's looking great so far, and your painting skills are on display! 

Really nice work :thumbsup:

And Happy Lunar New Year to you as well!

Andy

Many thanks Andy! The engineering of this kit makes it easier 🙂

 

On 2/2/2023 at 10:34 PM, RichB63 said:

Konbini…great looking model, anxious to see this one come together.

Many thanks! Very tempted to chuck everything in a box and start shaking. Will probably come out very nicely. 

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Hello All,

Another update. This one took a while from research, prep, and execution. 
 

The main landing gear. Tamiya did a great job with representation, of course not all of the detail could make it on. I debated leaving as is, but after browsing reference photos I needed to do the gear some justice. Theres a lot going on and multiple busy lines of hydraulic lines. 
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First step for me is to scratch build the foundations for the 3 main lines that cross over the landing gear scissor link. This includes where the lines get anchored on the top and bottom, as well as the middle. After fudging up the middle 3 hole anchor a number of times as I wanted to be precise on a tiny strip of styrene, I went with drilling 3 holes on a bigger piece of styrene and simply cutting what I wanted out with a hobby knife. Penny for scale.  
 

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Afterwards I built up the detail around the gear. The “handle” looking bends in the piping I initially thought was going to be near impossible to do as one single line, but I found a workaround which is to separate the sections of the wiring into separate pieces and joined together. Certainly better than a mess of CAed wire, gear, and fingers. The wiring has elasticity and a certain amount of bounce-back which makes manipulating tricky. 
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I used a range of wire sizes: 0.15 for the thinnest, to 0.4mm for the wider ones. After everything is glued together, I sprayed on primer to check for quality. I used my hobby knife quite a few times to scrape off excess CA but in the end the results were satisfactory.   Need an eye break now.   Till next time happy modelling! 
 

Konbini

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On 2/7/2023 at 11:21 AM, markiii said:

Nice clean work!

Many thanks markiii!

 

Update time:

 

Things are starting to get more exciting. I mustered the energy to rebuild the mirrors of the EOTS unit under the nose. The kit calls for plain silver paint but reference photos call for mirrors. I experimented with molotov paint, and athough they were very fabulous, I wanted a clean untarnished mirror (kind of like the real thing). So i stuck on scratch made ovals made from Hasegawa’s mirror film.   
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next, I slapped on the weapons bay doors (for the closed version), ladder door, and masked the other bays. I glued on the Eots cover, masked it, then I sprayed on some Mr. Color surfacer 1500 onto all the sub assemblies for some quality checking. Theres always one or two errant dog hairs that make it on.   After the A-Ok, I sprayed on the mixes called for by the instructions for the lighter greys onto the main fuselage, and flight surfaces.  This is subsequently masked off in preparation for the main color spray. I used Tamiya’s recommendation and mixture ratio of their LP laquer paints. 
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Despite being advertised as able to be directly sprayed, I find it a tad course/rough with my 0.4 Sparmax and I started mixing it with about a 5:1 ratio of lp paint to thinner. I used Mr. Color’s levelling thinner which performed fine with Tamiya’s lacquer. 
 

Till next time! 
 

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