Thanks for the compliments everyone.
Brandon, thanks for posting that. I'm also planning a Hungarian F-8, and possibly a Turkish 190 as well.
A little more on the French 190s. There was an assembly plant at Cravant, and post war they had 127 fuselages and 165 wings, and were able to source BMW engines also. They planned to build 125 of them. However, due to problems with quality, sabotage or just poor quality, maybe reject parts, they concluded the production run at 65, and they only stayed in service for a year or two.
I read somewhere a while ago that they went for the 190s, as it worked out much cheaper as an interim fighter than buying Spitfires. It's easy to imagine that decision in the cash strapped immediate post war period after 4 years of occupation.
I went for Vert Kaki as the camo color on this build as it was the only green I could find reference to for French aircraft of that period, other than left over supplies of the RLM colors. Given a lack of definitive reference on the type of green, at least it had some logic behind it. I did google up so images of these aircraft, and one did have a blotchy, perhaps weathered finish as the art work suggests. Several were relatively clean, and given the short post war service life, it seemed an ok choice to go with that.
The Berna decal sheet that I used, 72-45, also has markings for a French He 162 and Do 335, which I'm keen to do. It's the 2nd 190 I've done off the sheet, as some were painted grey also, and I had previously done one of those. Unfortunately I found that the decal sheet has rudder flashes for more aircraft tha nthe sheet has roundels for, so I had to dig very deep into the stash to find replacements. These roundels have a thin yellow outer band, which makes them harder to find. Correct sized wing roundels came from an Azur Dassault Ouragan which will have to get IAF markings unless I can get replacements. The fuselage roundels are from a Decals Carpena sheet for MS 406s, with the blue centre 'dot' from the Berna sheet to correctly match the other decals.
I can't provide any scientific data on Lifecolours, only the empirical data from my use of it.
I gave it a day of drying time, then sprayed Gunze Aqueous gloss clear, thinned with Tamiya acrylic thinner, over it as a base for the decals. They were given maybe 12 hours drying time then the whole thing was sprayed with Testors Dullcote, thinned with hardware store lacquer thinner. Another overnight wait to dry. The weather here is hot and dry at the moment, so I only spray late night or early morning when it's a hot day.
Most of the smaller parts and painting was accomplished without handling the airframe, however the final stages did involve some handling, both with and without cotton gloves. I guess I was curious to test the fragility of the finish a little. I didn't notice this finish to be any more fragile than most of the other acrylic paints that I mainly use, Tamiya and Gunze aqueous. I did touch up a couple of spots around the wheel wells, and the brush painted Lifecolor blended in perfectly and was unnoticeable. Very pleasing.
I also brushed painted the wheel wells with Lifecolor RLM 02 and washed them with Flory's wash later the same day. No issues, and they brush painted quite nicely.
I usually try to build 'projects' of up to five aircraft with a similar theme. In this case, it's German types in French colors. This is aircraft three of the 'project'. I've included some photos of all three.
Cheers
Tony
