Louis, just caught up (again...) with your conclusions and fine “private eye” research of the film.

If I may, would like to give my two cents of thought regarding one point of your conclusion, the dark rudders.

Personally I don’t believe the RLM 04 rudders were overpainted in any dark colour.

Looking at the first color image that caught your attention about this, I see it as the simple shading of the colour due to the fact that the rudders are banked, and this is a phenomena seen in numerous WW2 photos, including B&W. They do look far darker than the real shade would be if the sun light was directed as the rest of the plane surfaces.

Then come two other stills in that clearly show that there is something not 04 on those areas, but looking closely at the pic where the locals stand in front of the 190, I came to the conclusion that the ground crews simply put some canvas over the bright yellow area of the rudder to aid concealment of the plane.

I guess those camouflaged canvas issued to all personnel to be used as camouflage or tents may have been such used in those stills. Basic but perhaps effective means of camouflage in primitive landing strips in the middle of nowhere. In fact several images you posted show the plane having such camouflage cloths.

As for the rest of your fantastic findings, i believe you are spot on my friend. Just my point of view on this 😉

Hey, Louis. I find that more and more I get real joy from the research element of modeling, not in a rivetty countery way, but just connecting with a subject. it sounds and looks like this has pushed the same buttons for you.

Lovely background and a great thread; as you've said before, the ability to add photos to comments/replies has contributed hugely to the enjoyment of reading though projects. Great job here, Louis. On all counts.

Here's the thing, Bernard; in many years of working at two of Britain's top universities I've never met a happy perfectionist. Ever.

Now, where's my violin and deerstalker?

Wow! Therapy, theology, theory, tips and history all combined into one interesting thread! There's a lot of "bang for your buck" here. I know of no better place to spend time that could be used for sleeping than right here. Louis, you are truly inspiring. With David and David's thoughts and explanations plus all the others who have contributed to this build review, Bernie, Pedro, Paul & Paul, Tom and others add to the whole experience.

This is the most interesting website I know!

Amen, brothers and sisters!

You know what guys ?
It just doesn't get any better than this !

I've seen that, mostly photos taken early in the Pacific war, on the carriers During the tail stripe and star-in-a-circle with red dot in the center period. Wildcats and Dauntlesses. On forward airfields, cut brush or camouflage nets, again covering the insignia.

Tonight I made some progress...

For starters, I made another fin mounted antennae mast and glued it to one of the A3 planes. Presto, I now have an early A4 variant.

Next I finished up all of the sanding on the seams where I had previously glued the parts together. I'm happy to report that no filler was needed so far.

I used 400 grit wet / dry paper to start out with, then I switched over to 2000 grit wet or dry sand paper. This very fine sand paper removed all of the fine scratches left from the initial 400 grit sanding work. After the 2000 grit paper, I simply used a plain old household paper towel to polish the surfaces... A soft cloth like a T-shirt would also work just fine.

Then it was time to spray some RLM 76. The Wurger Werks is in business...

As usual, comments are encouraged.