75mm M72 AP Shot Restoration

[peregrinvs]

Hi,

First shown in the 'Projectiles' section, but I thought I'd turn it into a 'proper' thread here. After a week of soaking in dilute citric acid and a wire brush clean every 24 hours, I've now got it more or less back to bare metal. I also had to grind down various protuberances. I've now started filling in the pitting.

Question: I'm intending to pair this with a Canadian made M18 case. Would US and Canadian made M72 projectiles have been marked differently?

Cheers,
Mark

 

[5th Armored]

Looking forward to seeing the finished product

 

[peregrinvs]

Thanks. Still a work in progress as the metal needs a bit more grinding to get it reasonably even prior to smoothing it off with filler and paint.

 

[peregrinvs]

Update. Now filled and smoothed with a mixture of filler and primer paint and I've masked off the drive band with electrical tape. Now onto the final painting.

 

[flak18]

Could you tell me the total length of this please ? I'm working on one myself but it looks a bit longer than yours. Thanks in advance.

 

[peregrinvs]

Now painted and added to my M18 case. The surface isn't perfect, but it's better than my previous efforts so I shall count it as an overall success. Now onto the stencilling and I'm very tempted to 'cheat' and use the Letraset method as discussed on here before with another M72 shot.

 

[peregrinvs]

Could you tell me the total length of this please ? I'm working on one myself but it looks a bit longer than yours. Thanks in advance.

About 222mm overall length of which about 155mm is above the drive band.

 

[flak18]

Thanks for that. Mine is only about 8mm longer, so pretty much the same, maybe just a different mark. Enjoy the restoration !!!

 

[5th Armored]

Nice job! I'm interested to see how the stencils turn out. I've been playing around with laser printed transparency film for stencils recently - just cut out the letters with an x-acto but it still leaves a small dilemma in dealing with the centre of letters like P and O.