I also added a bulkhead and visual blocks to the aft section of the lower-rear fuselage half and a couple of structural struts and wires to the top half basing it from photos of the F-35B in take-off. It is not an exact replica of the real thing, but it does close up the gaping hole in the back of the model.
To give a little more realism, I added some "accessories" to the engine; not much because the bulkhead will hide most of them, but just enough to make it look like the engine has actual plumbing and wiring.
Once the majority of the scratch building was complete, I painted the visible interior bays and intake ducting Gloss White. I have decided to deviate from the instruction's build sequence when it came to the intake ducting because I wanted to get the smoothest seams in the most visible places. This meant that before painting the parts white, I glued part C15 to the upper fuselage and sanded out the seam. The way the parts are engineered, part C16 should just fit into place when I assemble the rest of the intake structure later. Lots of test fitting left me very confident in that.
I then painted the engine, exhaust nozzle and cockpit tub and then started assembling the pieces. I put the nose gear well in the forward-bottom piece, cockpit in the upper- fuselage half (I removed the locating pins on the nose wheel well connecting it to the cockpit piece), and main gear wells in the lower-rear fuselage half. Then I glued the engine to the top fuselage half, and glued part C16 to the bottom of C15. Next I assembled the forward intake pieces and connected them to the aft intake duct. After inserting the drive shaft leading from the engine to the lift fan through the intake ducting I assembled the lift-fan and attached it to the upper-fuselage half as well. Note that the connection point of the lift fan and its drive shaft is too big to fit into the shaft end. Since it is not visible, I just removed the connection point.
I was now left with three main assemblies: the top fuselage half with the cockpit, engine and intake, and lift fan; the lower-forward fuselage with the nose gear well; and the lower-rear fuselage with the closed weapons bays and main gear wells. Putting these parts together was then quite simple. First I attached the lower-forward fuselage piece to the top fuselage piece by inserting the aft end into the slots in the inner intake parts and then gluing the pieces together. Then the rear-fuselage piece was glued into place being careful to get the guide pins of the engine in the proper place. The bottom piece did slip a little on the starboard side, despite my best efforts to clamp it in place, causing a gap with the upper wing seam. I filled the gap with with a strip of .015" styrene. I glued the wings and elevons into place and left the vertical stabs off (they still need some work hiding those hideous seams and I figure that they will be easier to paint being left off).
There you have it. It now looks like an F-35B. Next up, the flaps, putting the cockpit together and painting and finishing. Until next time, happy modeling!
