No5 Mills made by Barbour Mills Foundry

[siegfreid]

Norman. Yes , I've had a couple of original Pitchers with the white drill finish but ,strangely , never found one with the original HE colours [whatever they might be] . The one in the IWM is green with a red band but I'm not sure it's original ? . No5's , as you say , turn up from time to time with what would appear to be an original white band but without knowing who made them or if the plugs are original it's hard to say if they are period drill grenades . Needs more research I think . Mike.

 

[paul the grenade]

hi all, heres a couple of pics of some original practice grenades in a local museum and one of the number 5's has a white band round the body. also heres a good pic of a No23 Mk3 with its original petman cement around the filler hole,
cheers, paul.

 

[Snufkin]

Fascinating how these threads can meander...

Pettman cement, or one recipe thereof, consists of:

Gum shellac..............7 parts
Methylated spirit.......8 parts
Stockholm Tar..........5 parts
Venetian Red...........21 parts

I've made it using Jeweller's Rouge instead of Venetian Red, but then both are actually high purity Iron (III) oxide... or rust to most people. It has a blood red colour and has a similar consistency to the paints used to denote the grenade filling bands. Making it is the easy bit. I'd be very interested if anyone has a method of "unmaking" 90 year old Pettman cement; it has defeated every solvent that I've tried.

I suspect some WWI Mills grenades were daubed around the top with Pettman cement, rather than red paint, to denote having been filled. Many WWII No.36s, and 36's from the 1960's and 1970's, had the whole outside of the filler screw covered with Pettman cement. The photo of the 1965 No.36 shows such. The surround of the filler is original cement, while the badly scratched face of the screw I covered with new cement - it did have the remains of an original covering but it was in poor shape.

And on the subject of Pitchers (Mike), here's a service No.13 in original paint, albeit the worse for wear.



Tom.

 

[millsbomber]

Some very nice pictures turning up in this post, here are some of the No5's i have with what looks like the white band.



Tom, i have found in the past this oil has a very good creep effect and softening of the pettman cement if you just warm the area all the better.


Paul do you have to torment me with that beautiful No23 Mk3,,,,,,,, Dave

 

[Snufkin]

Dave,

Thanks very much, I'll get some gun oil and have a play, but most penetrating oils (WD40 etc) I've tried have made no impression on Pettman cemented filler plugs.

The right hand image of your four Mills does have definite red fill markings of a service grenade. That would suggest its white band is a rather discoloured or faded pink. I don't understand how vermillion (the specified ferric oxide red pigment) could react over time to a colourless or white compound, so perhaps whomever mixed the paint up used a completely different red pigment.



Tom.

 

[siegfreid]

Tom . Possibly the ferric oxide degrades over time when in contact with sunlight & oxygen to form ferrous oxide which is a different colour . I have no experimental proof of this but it's a possibility as it's known to happen on ancient oil paintings using vermillion & some of the other earth pigments. I can't imagine they ever used anything but ferric oxide based vermillion as it was by far the cheapest & most widely used pigment used for red colours over hundreds of years .

 

[Snufkin]

Mike, good thinking but I'm not convinced Iron (III) would reduce to Iron (II) in the presence of not a lot else. Sulphides might produce Iron (II) sulphide but that's black, and is a problem in old oil paintings - either sulphides from other pigments or hydrogen sulphide as an air pollutant.

Perhaps the most realistic cause is the use of red lead (Pb3O4, or trilead tetroxide) as the initial red pigment. It was a very commonly used red pigment in those days, and some filling stations might well have substituted it for vermilion in mixing the pink. The following link (which Norman pointed me to recently) describes a problem with Minium (red lead) - "In acid surroundings, minium discolours into white..."

http://www.sanders-studios.com/inst...toryanddefinitions/pigmentspast.html#anchorFR

This is a break down of the tetroxide into simple oxides, hyroxides and carbonates.

Considering the huge variations in the tones and hues of surviving pink paint denoting ammonal filling on grenades, then I'd be more tempted to attribute white bands down to colour changes caused by the use of various non-iron pigments.


***Edit: confusing my reds. Venetian red is iron (III) oxide. Vermilion is mercury (II) sulphide. However, the same argument applies, mercury sulphide is a very stable compound that doesn't change over time, so stays red.***


Tom.

 

[siegfreid]

Tom. That's a much better explanation ! I hadn't thought of red lead as being used by manufacturers for the colouring bands as , I think , the WO specs were for vermillion . You are quite right , lead based compounds would degrade to almost any colour in the right conditions over time & would explain the massive variations . Case solved ! Mike

 

[Snufkin]

Mike, certainly a strong contender, though without some definitive tests on flakes of paint I'd hesitate to say it's an absolute. There is a simple chemical test that would almost certainly prove if it was lead - dissolve some paint flakes in nitric acid (all nitrates are soluble), add a few drops of say copper sulphate solution, and if a white precipitate forms, then it's almost certainly lead. Failing that chuck a sample in a mass spectrometer and job done.




Tom.

 

[siegfreid]

Damn . My mass spec. is out of juice at the moment......................

 

[Millsman]

Paul, Norman

The Mills in the first photo looks very like mine. Maybe it was white after all ?!?!?!

BUT Having read Tom's post Pink to White/ tan / mustard is quite possibe.

John

 

[gothica7]

Here is one of my Drill WW1 No 36s. The body was made by Gibbons and dated 1918. The paintwork looks to be original but it has the 5 holes drilled so was used as a post WW1 training gren.

Andy