Thanks George-
I plagiarized the paint colors off of a friend's C-195 that I thought was very nice. He gave me the paint codes and I had them duplicated. I think the red is very "rich". I was lucky to be able to see what the colors looked like together on an airplane, not just a color chip sheet. Darrel Mos of AMOS Aircraft Painting in Mesa did the work with Del Lehman managing the project and it turned out very nice.
The interior fabric was the last-of-the-last available Scottish wool herring-bone from Douglas Interiors in Seattle. They quit importing it and Rose A/C Interiors in Mena had just enough for one more interior. I lucked-out and Rose did a beautiful job.
I also had my C-180 painted at Mena years ago and I wanted it dark blue but was having a hard time visualizing how it would look. I narrowed colors down to a few shades and I asked Charlie Goodner, the paint shop owner to pick the color he thought best. When I came back to pick it up I asked Charlie how it looked. He said, "It sure is blue". Then I asked him what he called the color how he decided on the shade. He said it's "dumpster blue"
, I was coming to work and one morning and passed the dumpster manufacturing facility and looked over and thought that is the perfect shade so that's what he chose. That was in 1991 and it still looks good except for the normal Alaska wear and tear. They still paint dumpsters there the same color too.
Thanks again, I appreciate the compliment but Darrel and Del deserve the credit, not me.