Japanese 81MM mortar

[Slick]

Now that I'm on a resto jag, here's the second in the series (more to come).

I have a nickled mortar round that had been a trench art lamp at one point in its life. I will post a BEFORE picture, later(it's on the other computer). Suffice to say, it's appearance was such that I'm confident no collector value has been diminished. Eau contrare. It has been bead blasted and painted and am in the final, stenciling stages of the process. My first effort at making a stencil sucked. It's very difficult to free-hand cut with any accuracy. And I'm not all that confident it would have "laid down" enough to get a proper paint job applied.

So, I'm going this route. Commonly referred to as block printing, I believe. Have had the supplies for some time but just haven't gotten around to messing with it. Today's the day. The layout is pretty straight-forward. Block it in and start drawing. I was able to "size" it by enlarging a picture 'til it got to 81MM. Pretty simple, once I figured it out. The zeroes suck, and will require the majority of the touch-up work. It's tough cutting circles freehand.

Here are some "process" pics up to the cut the "100" part. Somewhat tricky, but I haven't screwed it up too badly. Yet.



For those unfamiliar with the process, this "stencil" is coated with paint and the item then rolled over it. A jig will have to be crafted to get a consistent "roll".


And I just noticed, I need to reverse the print. F@#!:withstupid::stupido:. Not a biggy, as I'm not that far into the cutting, but still. BLOCK PRINTING 101, Page 1 says: reverse the print, idiot!

For those of you learning from this, make note of that minor detail. I need to make better zeroes, anyway.

Here's the BEFORE:

 

[BOUGAINVILLE]

Fantastic Rick. It is good to see that you are making something worthwhile of it. I like your novel approach to the project with the making of a block stencil.

I restored my Japanese 81mm by going through the same stages as you have up until the point where I had a photo enlarged to the correct size. I then printed it out and with a Stanley knife I cut out a paper stencil. Using this with a very light smear of PVC glue and tape, I placed it in the correct position on the mortar body.

Then after cutting a hole in a sheet of newspaper, a wee bit smaller than the stencil, I masked the stencil surrounds. With a can of white spray paint I would start spraying onto the newspaper until I had adjusted my finger pressure to obtain a light whisk and then I would slowly swipe over the stenciled lettering.

For any slight adjustments where excess paint had to be romoved from the edge of any lettering I used a bit of terps on the edge of a rag. Any stencil gaps I painted in afterwards using a concentrated spray paint from a piece of newspaper.

I have noticed that stenciling on Japanese ordnance varies in type, some spray stenciled, some block stenciled or stamped. Have seen both variation on the same type of ordnance. In other words I have seen Japanese 81mm mortars with spray stenciling and others with what looks like block stenciling.

When I restored my Type 97 grenades I found that if I lightly rubbed the stenciled area with metho it didn't remove the stenciled area but gave it a more aged look and it didn't look so fresh.

Photos of both of my mentioned restorations can be found in my gallery section titled JAPANESE.

Good luck with the project Rick. I am looking forward to seeing the results of the block stenciling. I had though about getting Kanji stamps made professionally for stamping the side of cases and have found a place on the net that does Kanji stamps, but haven't got around to doing it yet.

Cheers,
Robert

 

[Slick]

Hey Robert

Thanks for those details. I was inspired by your post on the 81MM redo and tried the stencil cutting initially(see pic 8), which proved to be even more difficult than this block printing fiasco. Which will result in a third attempt, as the first was backwards and the second is an obvious clustermess. Not at all satisfied with the results of the "cut". I am not giving up.

Send me the kanji characters. I need some practice with this block print cutting thing. Luckily, I have a couple dozen of the "blocks", so screwin' up a few isn't a big deal. And, they're inexpensive.

The plan is to turn this example back into a lamp, what with it having been drilled through and all. Was pleasantly surprised by the paint results(which I'll show later) The bead blasting gave it a perfect painting surface. Was worried it might be too much, but it was ideal, in the end. It was a sand/glass mix at 60PSI. Just a bit coarser than flour. Enough to strip the nickle but barely scuffed the surface of the base metal. Have used it on some other pieces with success.

If anybody has a trashed fuze for this mortar round they want to get rid of, PM and I'm sure we can work out a trade or sale.


Rick