USS Lionfish SS-298
by Rodney Williams

1/178 USS Lionfish SS-298 (Revell)

"THE LIONFISH"

Almost three decades ago when I got back into modeling, I built a plastic sailing ship!  It got all messed up when I moved to my present location in 1979.  I have no idea what happened to it.  I must have given it away, or tossed it into the trash can.

From then on I stuck with airplanes until the mid 1990's, then built a tank, and a couple of cars.  I somehow got this submarine kit along with two more different "subs" at our club meeting in 2000.  What the heck am I going to do with them was the question?  In December, 2000, I said to myself......HEY our annual contest is coming up in February of 2001,  I just have to enter something, even if it's "out-of-the-box!"

After inspecting the Lionfish kit, it looked real easy to build, so I got at it, and glued the hull together.  The deck went on real easy, but there were a couple of areas that need to be filled.  I had to re scribe a few panel lines, then I apply some flat black Tamiya wash, which fills the panel lines.  Once sanded, the black shows me if the panel lines are ok, or if they need redone, and/or if I missed any.

I put the coning tower together, and dressed up the deck guns etc.  I fit the tower to the deck, and it looked good.  It was left off the sub for painting.

The instructions said grey for the top, and hull red for the bottom.  I looked at the photo of the finished sub on the box cover, and grabbed some red and grey Tamiya paint.  Bert McDowell is our ship guy here in San Jose, CA.  During our contest, Bert ask what paint brand I used, as the grey and hull red  colors were right on from his viewpoint.  Back then I knew what XF flat Tamiya colors I used, so I told him.  Right now, I can't remember, but I think I used  XF-53 for the top and XF-9 for the bottom.  Who cares, it looked like the sub on the cover!

I applied the kit decals, then attached the guns, coning tower, etc.  I used some black and red/brown oils to weather the model.  I use my old standard "nylon" panty hose thread for the cable that attaches from the bow to the coning tower, and to the stern.  I cut out and wet the little flags, then applied them to my nylon cable.  Presto! it was done.  I may have spent around 75 hours on the model, not this 1,500 to 2,000 hour syndrome I got myself into on these super scratch built model airplanes.

Since this model was a snap to build, I got on with my other two subs, which I'll write a bit about them in my next short story.