Reading today thread about stash size and stuff got me thinking also about old projects I have that languish gathering dust in the shelf. One of these is Hasegawa Fw190 A-5 which is a good kit that got stuck due to my poor skills around decals. Originally started to depict Herman Graf A-5 using Lifelike decals, those darn petals and an unforseen gap around the lower engine stalled this project early last year.

Some of might have seen my homemade review of the recent Exito decals, about their Fock Wulf sheet. Now of the 3 planes in it is for a A-5 armed only with the cowl MGs and the wing root 20mm Mauser... Just like Graf plane. So instead of having it for another year(s), I decided to use the model, getting a completely different camouflage camouflage, while retaining the most of the lower 76 paint and also keeping the upper wing crosses, that like the genuine plane, kept the 74/75 factory applied colours. Let's see how it goes, I've never refurbished a kit at this level. My idea is just remove the old decals (minus the aforementioned upper wing and lower wing insignias) and repaint the upper surfaces in thin paint layers.

Appreciate any thoughts or feedback!

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Ufff, thank you very much! Had a wifi speed issue that mislead me thinking the problem was in my phone since every time I pressed the upload button nothing happened. My apologies for the inconvenience

I'd try using tape to lift the old decals off. The ones you don't want to use over again. It seems to work great for me.

I have a solid RLM 79 upper color desert Bf-109 tropical that I want to repaint in a few places. I want to make it look like a JG 3 machine from Barbarossa and add some RLM 02 and some shade of darker green paint on top of the Sand Gelb. The sand color would still remain visible in some places.

My thoughts were to simply spray right over the original fuselage numbers in a slightly different color and change the number of the plane by applying a new decal over the freshly sprayed color. If you really wanted to, you could do this in a series of very light coats of paint. This would allow the original number to show up ever so slightly... just a thought.

It would really be a duplicate of how the original planes were often done. My Bf-109 would end up looking something like this:

Just my thoughts. You could do the same thing to your 190. The background areas behind the National Insignia crosses were often times completely masked off during the repainting. The original colors would show then up behind the crosses.

Looking forward to seeing your next installment.

Sounds like a great project! I've never tackled a "re-do" before either. Good luck - I look forward to seeing how you handle it, and how it comes out.

That’s a good idea Louis, been some time since I use post-it brand stuff. I have several post-it that are not the genuine stuff and their glue is of less quality,albeit satisfactory for white collar work 😉 gonna try it as let you know. Anyway the fun challenge this remaking of an almost completed build is what drives me to go forward.

About the overspray, yes that happend especially in winter field applied camo, though far less in my opinion when it came to western front planes, where topical German efficiency was the rule. The center of Herr Burath FW190 Cross was never intended to be painted black I reckon. Sometime during the mid-war Germany began simplifying the paint time used during construction, as to increase the output of numbers produced. So using the 74 or 75 Camo was a lot quicker. Thanks for the input my friend!