Haze Grey - Any suggestions

[BlackSheep214]

Mission Model carries Have Glass Grey and I do have it in my paint stash. The trouble with Mission Model paint line is they scratch easily once handled. My observation is once you have a coat of Mission Models paint applied and dried, spray a coat of enamel clearcoat to prevent it from scratching easily. I found out the hard way.

[Stikpusher]

This is a great link for reference photos of the F-35

https://www.f-16.net/g3/f-35-photos

[Stuart]

That's a cool site, thanks Carlos.

Mission Model carries Have Glass Grey and I do have it in my paint stash. The trouble with Mission Model paint line is they scratch easily once handled. My observation is once you have a coat of Mission Models paint applied and dried, spray a coat of enamel clearcoat to prevent it from scratching easily. I found out the hard way.

Yeah I have that issue with a lot of water based acrylics - I do the same thing.

[Stuart]

Here's a nice image of x2 F-35Cs .

From that angle you could almost think it's a nice looking aircraft. They grey is a lot lighter than I thought on this photo.

[Stikpusher]

The appearance of the gray is very dependent upon lighting conditions. In bright sunlight it looks lighter, while in cloudy conditions it looks darker. Many times as they fly by here it is very hard to pick them out visually until they are fairly close since the color matches so well with clear skies.

[BlackSheep214]

It’s like it’s almost a translucent/pearl metallic grey of sort in appearance.

[Stikpusher]

Pretty much. It’s some voodoo magic radar absorbing, low visibility day & night coating. It’s more than a paint.

[Stuart]

Yeah it is a weird paint all right - in fact Carlos is right, it's probably more of a coating than a paint.

There's a small weasel part of me that want's to built these three kits as what-if's rather than accurate models of the aircraft. Yeah they look cool, but Grey jets can be pretty dull sometimes...

[Stikpusher]

Well you can have some variety with them in appearance. Build the A in “beast mode” with all the external pylons and stores, the B with the lift fan doors open and the exhaust nozzle pivoted downwards for STOVL flight, and the C with the wings folded…

[Stuart]

That's 100% my plan Carlos.