1930's aircraft colors

[mister me]

hello,

I am now in need of some disambiguation concerning aircraft colors :

what rule applies to a lets say late 1936 saratoga airwing ?

my understanding is that at that crucial moment, some aircraft were no more grey metal+silver fabric but began converting to overall silver (of course, not speaking about yellow upperwings !!)

so what kind of color assortment do I need for :

F3F1 (perhaps already full silver ?)
BFC2 (dunno ?)
SBU1(dunno ?)
TG2 (probably still grey/silver ?)

and in the case of grey metal parts, what grey exactly ?
I heard about ANA512 fs*6473; ANA602 fs*6440; and even sometimes fs*6495, according to various contradictory sources/forums/modelpaint makers...

thank you !

[Tracy White]

It's something I've wanted to study more in depth at NARA but haven't got to yet. My gut tells me that the newer aircraft were the first to go to the silver paint and those already in-service did so during major overhauls or not at all (paint can change center of gravity so I suspect the regular maintenance crews didn't repaint aircraft for the most part).