My modelling experience is similar to that of the OP, and he and I seem to share the same (dysfunctional?) perfectionism!
When I restarted my modelling career, after a 60-year hiatus, I decided that my first model would be the U.S.S. Repose hospital ship. In March, 1966, after I was seriously wounded in South Vietnam, I was a surgical patient on Repose. My wound probably wasn’t life threatening, but I didn’t know that when I was evacuated. A couple of days later, missing a lot of my right thigh, cocooned in plaster from my feet to my armpits, and filled with morphine and antibiotics, I left Repose for a four-day evacuation to the U.S. Navy hospital in San Diego. I would be a patient for the next ten months.
When I decided that I wanted to built a model of Repose, I soon learned that I would not be easy. Revell had produced a model of Repose’s sister ship, U.S.S. Haven, in the 1950s, and subsequently packaged the same model as U.S.S. Repose. But those early Repose models are scarce as hen’s teeth. In the 1970s, IIRC, the same model was boxed as a civilian ship, S.S. Hope. Eventually, I bought one model of Haven and two of Hope. I am now in the final stages of building. I want to add an antenna, more DIY Red Cross decals (along with U.S.S. Repose decals), a radome that was apparently added during the Vietnam War, and rigging.
The only reason I built this particular ship model was because it was the only one available. As far as I know, no one else has ever produced a different model of Repose, or Haven, or Hope. I won’t recommend it to anyone! Indeed, a model shop employee warned me away from building any models dating back to the 1950s or 1960s. He wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t know how much I wanted a model Repose.
The kit’s problems are numerous. For starters, it’s small, about 1/500 scale, which doesn’t match the scale given on the box. Some parts from one box were badly warped. It has many dimples and a lot of flash from the molding process. The lifeboats and some of the deck furniture looks to have been designed by Walt Disney rather than a marine architect. Some parts are impossibly out of any scale I’ve ever heard of: the kits all come with a tiny Sikorsky UH-34 Seahorse helicopter that’s only about ⅔ the size it should be. I’m trying to scratch build a replacement helicopter, but I don’t have much hope that it will look even slightly realistic. Many other parts are out of scale as well. The lifeboat davits look big enough and strong enough to raise and lower the Titanic!
My biggest complaint, which my limited skills certainly can’t overcome, concerns the railings and the netting around the helicopter landing pad: they are solid plastic, not open like railings and netting should be. I thought about adding photo-etched railings and netting, but I couldn’t find anything close to the right scale, and I’m probably not skilled enough to install them anyway!
Now, having said all this, I’m pleased with the way the model is turning out. It will never win an award, but my wife has said, on several occasions, “Wow! That looks great!” Here it is in its near-glory and current state of completeness (I’ve got the hull covered to protect it from scratches and dings while I complete final deck details):
I would like to try a bigger ship model, but as far as I know, models of the two troop ships I sailed on — U.S.S. Magoffin and U.S.S. Paul Revere — have never been produced. And a bigger ship model would be too big for the available display space in my small apartment.
My bottom line(s) about ship models:
• If realism is important, choose larger rather than smaller scale models.
• Choose models made after 1970, or even later if possible.
• Buy a couple of kits, if possible. I’ve used parts from all three of my hospital ship kits (usually because of mistakes or having parts launched into oblivion by my tweezers.)
• Practice painting with a range of brushes — airbrushing just doesn’t cut it when it comes to painting the molded details on model ships.
• Assemble the largest, robust parts of the model first. If you add the smaller, delicate parts too early, you risk breaking them. That happened to me with two masts and a lifeboat. Thank god for crazy glue!
• Be aware that any given ship model is unlikely to be more than grossly accurate, and probably inaccurate in many details. In researching Repose, I found some 20 different photographs of the ship taken at different times from the 1950s, when it was in service during the Korean War, through its time in Vietnam in the 1960s, but not including the interim when it was mothballed. Few of those photographs show identical Reposes. Masts are all white, or all black, or black and white. Cranes are in place in some photos, but missing in others. They probably weren't very necessary in the Vietnam War.* Deck furniture that’s present in some photos is missing in others. Radio and radar antennas seemingly move on their own accord from one position to another, or disappear completely. The position of Red Cross logos changes from photo to photo. There seem to be about six different designs for the touchdown and liftoff area of the helicopter platform, some with white crosses, others without. Even the bridge changes shape and position. Lifeboats have longitudinal red stripes in some photos, none in other photos. In some photos, the ship’s name is centred on he stern, in others its located on each side of the stern. One thing I learned from the photographs is that about 20 drainpipes extend down the side of the ship to the waterline, but the hull of the model is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. My skills were severely tested in kit bashing those drains, but they look good!
I’ve actually thought about building another Repose model, but I don’t think I could stand it! Too much fiddling about for a model that can never look realistic.
Bob
* Early in the Korean War, wounded U.N. soldiers couldn’t be taken directly to hospital ships. First, boats or helicopters ferried the soldiers to barges tied next to the ships. Then the soldiers had to be hoisted by crane to the ship. A doctor, realizing that soldiers were dying because they couldn’t be treated before the “Golden Hour” for successful treatment had passed, suggested the addition of a helicopter landing platform to the stern of the ships.