1/700 IJN Fushimi Gunboat - first try Scratchbuilt

[AC Studio]

Hi Guys,

First try on Scratch-building a ship model. Gunboat Fushimi caught my attention, because it is not available as a model kit, and it is a rare ship in IJN. Only two were built. They are 350 tons, Dimensions is 48.5 m. length x 1.2 m draught. Fushimi Damaged on Yangtze (near Nanking?) 11/29/44 by Chinese aircraft. Towed to Shanghai. Presented to China in 1945 and renamed Kiang Si. The fate is unknown... I could not able to find anything.

I used cardboard, A4 paper to build the hull and superstructure of this ship. Before I did that I am able to obtain drawings of the ship from a 1970s Maru Special book, lucky enough a plan is available only for this gunboat in the book. I used AutoCad to scale the ship to the correct dimension in 1/700.. and printed the plan...... then... *crap*.. it was very small... only about 6 cm in length. Everything is sssooo small...especially cutting the windows about 0.3mmx0.3mm. But anyway I went ahead and worked on it, and I really enjoy it!!!..

The following pics give u a general idea how the model is built.

Only this photo of the Fushimi can be found.

Cutting the hull and superstructure from plan

Cutting extremely small square windows

Thanks for visiting, cheers!
Alan Chung

[AC Studio]

More photos of the building process:

Build-up layers of cardboards for superstructure, then place the elevations around it.

Middle part of the superstrucuture is inclined/sloped.

Build-up the bridge with A4 paper and placed on superstructure.

[AC Studio]

More photos of the construction progress, u can see I have put in photo-etch railings, and added additional details according to the photo and drawings. Yesterday night I began to build the masts. So far so good, have not encounter any problems. Click the photos to enlarge and u will see all the details I that I have added if u like. Cheers!

[Timmy C]

Such an odd-looking vessel!

How did you make your hull? Just a few layers of thick plastic card and then shaped?

[MichelB]

Impressive scratchbuilding!

[Gone Asiatic]

Most impressive and quite impressively methodical as oppsed to me own scratch builds!

[Quincy]

That is one impressive little scratchbuild you've got there Alan.




Bob Pink.

[moomoon]

Not a beautiful ship really, but very nice built

[AC Studio]

Such an odd-looking vessel!

How did you make your hull? Just a few layers of thick plastic card and then shaped?

No, actually just one layer of 2mm thick cardboard, the one that you can get in artshop or newsagency.

[AC Studio]

haha.. many thinks it is an ugly ship!!..

Anyway, just finished the masts yesterday night, I used 0.5mm, 0.3mm & 0.2mm brass & copper wire to build the mast. Using superglue to attach parts together. Very easy to build. Photos below show the model with masts.

[ajkochev]

Not ugly it is just odd shaped. It reminds me of the old time steamships on the Mississippi river for some reason.

Great build still.

[russclark]

it is sort of like the boat in the" sand pebbles", a movie about a sailor (steve McQeen) rescueing chinese people on during a war ,i can't remember which one.

[J. Soca]

Not ugly it is just odd shaped. It reminds me of the old time steamships on the Mississippi river for some reason.

Great build still.

yep the term paddle wheel comes to my mind. keep it up AC

[Pieter]

Looks very nice.

[AC Studio]

The photos below show how I scratch-built the gun turrents. Bascially I cut a runner, then used knife to the cut and trim into the turret's form, then I used drill to drill out the hole and hollow backside of the turrets (as seen in the photo of Fushimi, turrets are not fully enclosed) and used knife again to scribe the backside. These turrents is about 4mm in width and 2-3mm in depth. I used 0.25mm copper wire to make the guns of the turrents.

Cut a small strip of runner, cut and trim it to turret's shape.

Cutting the hole in the turret for the gun

The hollow backside of the turret.

[AC Studio]

The following photos shows 90% completed Fushimi. You can see the finished turrets. The observation post at the front mast is actually cut from the body of 1/700 plane, because it is a curved round shape, with smaller diameter at the bottom (like a basket...). Then I drilled a hole in it and done!

[Sparrow]

She�s a beauty!

A bizarre one, ok, but a true beauty.

Keep up the good work.

[AC Studio]

I totally forgot this post until today when I reviewed all my previous posts...! My last post was nearly one year ago!

The Fushimi Gunboat has long been finished, this came 1st place in scratch-built category in Australian Model Expo last year:

Anyway, this is the end of my first scratch-building project and now I am looking into scratch-building a Japanese wartime mechant vessel. This is the very end of this post ... thanks for viewing!

Cheers,
Alan

[Quincy]

Great job!!!







Bob Pink.

[DanCinSD]

Beautiful!!