Revell Lionfish.

Take a look at Nautilusmodels.com/orderpage.  He shows resin and brass stuff for the 1/178 boats.  Pricing is not bad, and is a real nice guy to deal with I've found.

The Trumpeter 1/144 Gato's in '41 and '44 trim are decent kits, and there are PE available for them from White Ensign and Nautilus also has resin gun sets for those as well.  Those will be right at 24 inches long when done.

patrick206

Hi all -

I'm building my first ship kit, the details on the submarine Lionfish sail are rather crude I think. Could anyone refer me to an after market source, for fine detailed plastic or photo etched rails, etc?

Or is there another kit out there in approximately the same scale, that is just overall superior and a better choice for a first timer? Thanks for any replies.

By the way I'm a long time modeler, not afraid to tackle a ship, (yet.) 

Patrick 

Great news Patrick! I too am about to start the same kit! Please post photos and details of what and how your doing!

Look at the 1/144 Trumpeter Gato. I just picked up the 1941 version. It's not wonderful but it's pretty good. And the is a PE set plus some Atlantis Models resin upgrade stuff.

The '41 will be the "as designed" tower and full plated shears, the '44 has open shears, cut down plating on the cigarette deck and the nav bridge cut down for a gun deck in front of the bridge.  The WE pe set has instructions to cut down the bridge for even later war versions on some boats.

If you are going for a later Balao, then the scopes will be different, and IIRC some fairwater changes.

goldhammer

The '41 will be the "as designed" tower and full plated shears, the '44 has open shears, cut down plating on the cigarette deck and the nav bridge cut down for a gun deck in front of the bridge.  The WE pe set has instructions to cut down the bridge for even later war versions on some boats.

The Mare Island, Manitowac and Portsmouth boats were slightly different, but the research is fun.

Iron Bottom Sound offers an assortment of aftermarket conning towers & other sub accessories including 1:178 scale for the Lionfish  

http://ibs.eastcoastarmory.com/Csets.htm

They also have sets for 1:72 & 1:144 scales