Altering Decals

I've seen b&w photos of the red center painted out on a/c -- a barely-discernible circular area a teensy shade darker -- but, being b&w, it's tough to tell what hue that painted-over circle is.

My guess -- and it is purely that -- is that on an operational carrier in a war zone no one would have bothered with sanding, particularly when, as you said, the whole insignia was soon to change. If anything other than white overpaint was applied, a quick slap of gray (as a sort of barrier) would have been as effective as sanding and much quicker, when you consider they were 'correcting' several squadrons' worth of planes.

For the effect on the model, I would personally be tempted to use a) a circle of white decal stock, which would give a slightly translucent effect, or b) a miniscule drop of gray or pink-gray in white; purely in a 'scale effect' sense, I think pink alone might look strange to a viewer.

As an alternative, you might use a circle of brighter, purer white to represent the freshly-overpainted spot.

In any case, it's a neat project! Good luck -- and be sure to share picures. 

Thanks for the suggestions, Greg. I'd share pictures but my photobucket account has long since gone out of mind and memory.

David

White paint is notorious for poor "hide," the ability to cover a darker color. Some are better than others. This is because titanium dioxide is a heavy pigment, so it was hard to get enough pigment in the paint to produce good hide. This is also true of model hobby paints, which is why many undercoat white with silver. So you may get the effect you want by a single overcoat of white paint.

Paint technology has improved considerably since the 1940s, so whatever brand of hobby paint you use may have better hide than what the Navy was using back then. So try this on either a spare decal with the same red as the dot in the center of the star. If the paint's hide is too good, just thin it slightly until you get the desired appearance. If the red shows through too much, just apply a second, possibly thinned coat.

There is a plethera of aftermarket decal sets of the national insignia out there.

From what I have seen in the cockpits of even modern military aircraft (range markings on the engine gauges in A-10s for example...done hastily, with a brush and white, green, and red paint), an on-the-fly modification of the insignia probably would have just been done with a brush and a bucket of white paint.