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Mills refurb job.

timmymac

timmymac

Well-Known Member
Ive had this Frost & Woods grenade for some time now. As you may can see from pic, looks like it was made into a practice grenade before it was crushed up. I didn't know people glued them back together & sold them till it fell off counter one day. Anyway, Its a pretty good looking piece, and I was thinking about re-finishing the thing. What would y'all do if it was in your parts drawer for a couple years. Seems a shame to let it sit. 011.jpg
 
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Reassemble it and keep it as it is - that way it has its own history as you have already described. "Refurbish" and you lose that.
 
Looks Like a Nice Grenade. It's Frost & Woods though from Canada. Here's a photo from their archives of production work.

John

FrostWoodsBrad3.jpg
 
batonroundcollector said:
what's wrong with it anyway?
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I think timmymac is drawing attention to the fact that this has been 'messed with' at some point and that it has cracks in it. On the face of it it looks a nice grenade, but when you know there is something amiss, do you leave it as is or do something about it????
I have copied the photo and highlighted the points I think he is drawing attention to........of course I dont know what the rest of it is like to make comment.

regards Kev

011.jpg
 
ah right I see now :) drill holes filled too. I wouldn't be happy with it even if I had it refurbished, but then I'm too fussy!
 
Hey guys, yea this was crushed & glued back together, painted & sold from a web millitaria dealer in Canada. It fell off the shelf one day and was then in 4 pieces. You get what you pay for. I know now ya can't ( or at least seldom) buy a "excellent 100% original WWII .... for $65 USD. Anyway, I cleaned the old glue residue off along with most of the black paint that it came with and cemented the pieces back, replugged the drilled holes that were now evident ( assume from making a "practice" version) and there it sat for the last few years. I ran across it the other day and got to thinking what to do with it and here I am. Butterfly is right as to my thoughts on it being messed with. I wouldn't be considering doing anything to it if things were different.
 
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I wasn't real thrilled with it myself when I saw the grenades true condition, I think I paid like 65-70USD. 'Ya get what ya pay for' might possibly apply here. No matter what I do to it, it will still live the rest of its life ( or mine at least ) in my shop.
 
009.JPG017.jpgI thought this (photo on r) a fitting end to my restoring career. Before it was demilled (crushed).
I believe this Mills looked something like the photo on the left (still have stencil white lettering: 36M-DUMMY-2507) The pic here shows the orange band on the top segmented row but all the other photos I was able to find showed the band just below fill plug! I hope the group would approve of this one last restore, giving the shape it was in at the top of this thread.
 
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In the UK most Mills 36 training grenades were just flat white paint. No stencils or bands. Maybe Tom (Snufkin) could comment about the stencils & colours but I've no record of them.

John
 
John I got this a Mills from a dealer in Alberta, Canada. All major components are made by or for F & W, and it had holes drilled in it prior to bring crushed. I considered it reasonable to assume this Mills was a practice/drill grenade in the Canadian service. I then looked for Canadian practice Grenade grenades god this era . The info I found led to this ridicules finish :)
 
A NATO era Mills Drill could be all blue. I've not seen one with the band but nothing surprises me now!

John
 
Looks pretty good actually. The orange band was for the Navy, who were using these as anti swimmer grenades. The orange band made them easier to find underwater. Also used by the army, strangely enough it made them easier to find in the weeds too:tinysmile_twink_t2:
 
Esoteric!

Pretty bizarre that you use the most elaborately painted grenade to throw into (presumably) deep water, then spend a lot of expensive diver time trying to find them! The Canadian Navy obviously has a lot of money to waste.

John
 
I think the operative word would have been "had" a lot of money:tinysmile_cry_t2:. I suppose it would have given divers experience in finding small things underwater as well....... OK oK so I am grasping at straws...........
 
sgtlynn said:
I think the operative word would have been "had" a lot of money:tinysmile_cry_t2:. I suppose it would have given divers experience in finding small things underwater as well....... OK oK so I am grasping at straws...........
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It is a bit weird. If they needed practice throwing things in the water, why not use stones?

I'm sure there is some military logic in there somewhere.

John
 
In Oz, we went through a stage in the 90's where drill colour was gold. Some M30 grenades (normally Blue) were modified to become drill grenades (re-cockable empty fuze mechanism). They weren't that successful.. given as most of the grass in Oz is similar shade to gold..I have one somewhere and will pots when I get back to Oz sometime in Feb
 
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