War & Peace show Haul

[millsbomber]

Here is the bits i got, really pleased with the S.O.E knife, on the whole an average show for me, weather, my stall position and lack of small collectors did not help.......... Dave

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[peregrinvs]

The Mills No.36 casing cleaned, coated in shellac and painted. It’s almost finished pending sourcing the missing components. Not the neatest of paint jobs, but this is entirely authentic. E.g.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30022870

[peregrinvs]

The 57mm M70 shot after removing the rust. There are some patches of pitting to fill in, but it won’t require major surgery to look presentable. Another bonus is that Milcorem does an off the shelf stencil for this exact projectile.

[peregrinvs]

The Mills No.36 completed after sourcing an original base plug from the Fjordhouse stall and a repro pin, lever, striker and filler plug from the Dugup stall at Military Odyssey yesterday.

It is of course more of a display piece than a collector grade example, but I do these things for the fun of the restoration and I’m quite pleased with it.

[peregrinvs]

The nicer of the two KwK 40 cases finished. This was the result of a combination of a slow clean in molasses and a faster clean in citric acid. However, I think my new favoured method for cleaning rusty steel cases is electrolysis followed by citric acid - as I did with the PaK 40 case.

I’m seriously pleased with this as most of the rust is cosmetic. It’s a shame I don’t have a way of re-plating it in brass. Also a shame that the headstamps have almost completely gone.

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[kahu1]

Good job on scaring the rust away.
As for replating the brass or copper, a way to get the same effect is coloured wax rubs, like 'Rub'n buff'. Unfortunately not very durable with handling but for display they can have a very realistic finish, better than paint.

[peregrinvs]

Post-cleaning pictures of the less nice KwK 40 case. It not as solid as the other one, but it’s an upgrade to the one it’s replacing.