Archive: Building IJN Fuso

The IJN battleship Fuso (1:1800) was my second scratchbuild project, finished in November 2011 and just in time to enter the 2011 Forumini Golden Battleship competition; winning 1st prize.

The original War at Sea model:

It suffered from a bad superstructure (especially at the back), and silly turrets, so I rebuilt her as she was after her 1944 refit.

I was contemplating rebuilding this model completely from scratch, but after I took the measurements I noticed that the hull is exactly as it should be, so no point building a new hull when I can use the old.

Stage one is done now, cleared the 2 front barbettes, relocated both center turrets and moved the rear turrets slightly to match the original better.


Raised the hull for a bit so the model won't 'drown' in the water effects later and which gives the ship a little more 'umph'.

Pagoda mast!! I already noticed some small things (radar is a bit crooked, fixed that later) I'm also going to add the rangefinders, searchlights and other small stuff later when I'm a bit further down the line...


Guns and turrets; later on in the project I’ve replaced the styrene gun barrels with barrels made from brass tubing, giving a way better effect.

Turrets mounted and midcastle partly done now, I still need to put the searchlights on the platforms, but that will come later...

Still not quite finished on the details though, boat coverings incoming, just as some more deck clutter.

Only some minor adjustments to be done before she is ready to paint, of course a floatplane will be added, but I needed to search for some thinner plasticcard to make it.


Almost finished painting...

Here you can see all 4 types of armament on the Fuso, the 14", the 6" and the double and triple mount AA...

Thanks to Reacher from the Aamini forum for providing the base for the model!


Finished!