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So a little over a year ago I got the Lindberg kit I-53 for free from a club member who said he would not have time to build it. After taking a long time to research the boat, which there is hardly any info at all. With everything I could find and see, I decided to go ahead and do it anyhow, seeing that the I-58 started out as a boat that looked very much like the I-19 ( B-1 ) I took my drawings from the I-19 and had them resized, from 1/48 to 1/72 . Yes there may be a lot of things not correct with the Lindberg kit, but it is a unique boat and there are only two fellows that I found that redesigned this boat and RC them, another fellow redesigned it as a static model in a Museum, we all know that as these boats came back from a war patrol, and there was improvements made to them, so they never looked the same at the end as they did at the beginning. So this past winter I gave it a start, and what is to follow is my documentation if the work I have done so far, call it my impression of this boat. 
So as you can see I decided to start with the conning Tower, the floor had a checker plate design so I drilled it out, with a #62 drill on the top, then turned it over and used a #33 drill to clean the back side of the hole. Hopefully your all sitting down on the floor itself there are 2370 holes drilled both sides. Yes I did count. Yes I could have cut the floor out and put in a mesh, didn't want to.
The roof of the conning tower only has 5 windows which is not correct, so I had to cut some pieces out, and added more partitions, to make 12 which is a lot closer to the I-19.
Next I needed to cut out the nose of the tower, to put in a platform to hold the sonar array that they used back in the day.
From there I glued the piece in place with 2 part epoxy, then refinished the front.
Next I made a master of the venting system that is on the port side of the tower, made from a piece of cedar, put it in the clay and made a mold, refinished the piece and spray it in primer.
At the same time I made the sonar pieces for the front of the tower, on the kit it wants you to put the snorkels or venting system in the middle of the conning tower but they should be on the port side, so that where I put them.
You can see that I drilled holes into the side of the tower so that the 2part epoxy will seep through and I can tool it over on the back side, also I installed the hand rails and binoculars and stands, on the port side I cut the hand rails to fit against the vent system and put a new platform for the binoculars.
The last couple of pics you see that I drilled holes for the port and starboard lights as well as put the search light on the top of the roof, done with 3mm LEDs, on the unit that holds the periscopes, I put holes there as well, all in the attempt to get all of the air out, also for the wires for the search light. That's pretty much it for the tower.
So as you can see I decided to start with the conning Tower, the floor had a checker plate design so I drilled it out, with a #62 drill on the top, then turned it over and used a #33 drill to clean the back side of the hole. Hopefully your all sitting down on the floor itself there are 2370 holes drilled both sides. Yes I did count. Yes I could have cut the floor out and put in a mesh, didn't want to.
The roof of the conning tower only has 5 windows which is not correct, so I had to cut some pieces out, and added more partitions, to make 12 which is a lot closer to the I-19.
Next I needed to cut out the nose of the tower, to put in a platform to hold the sonar array that they used back in the day.
From there I glued the piece in place with 2 part epoxy, then refinished the front.
Next I made a master of the venting system that is on the port side of the tower, made from a piece of cedar, put it in the clay and made a mold, refinished the piece and spray it in primer.
At the same time I made the sonar pieces for the front of the tower, on the kit it wants you to put the snorkels or venting system in the middle of the conning tower but they should be on the port side, so that where I put them.
You can see that I drilled holes into the side of the tower so that the 2part epoxy will seep through and I can tool it over on the back side, also I installed the hand rails and binoculars and stands, on the port side I cut the hand rails to fit against the vent system and put a new platform for the binoculars.
The last couple of pics you see that I drilled holes for the port and starboard lights as well as put the search light on the top of the roof, done with 3mm LEDs, on the unit that holds the periscopes, I put holes there as well, all in the attempt to get all of the air out, also for the wires for the search light. That's pretty much it for the tower.
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