UN M1 Resurrected

[MySonsDad]

We picked up this fixed bail shell a while back, saw the light blue peeking out from underneath the OD paint. I spent a couple hours today resurrecting this old UN lid. Nothing special, just felt like sharing. One of the bails is missing so I doubt I will bother looking for a liner to finish it off, it will probably just stay as is.










Russ & Son

[Sir Payne]

That looks like it may have taken awhile to clean up. I don't know much about US helmets, around what year do you think this one is from?

[MySonsDad]

That looks like it may have taken awhile to clean up. I don't know much about US helmets, around what year do you think this one is from?

cgp, the shell has a heat stamp dating it late 1942. It didn't take long at all to reserect. Seems many of these re-paints are a pretty thin coat of OD and it seems this particulre shell had almost no texture on it when the blue was applied so the paint removal process went very fast, only a couple of hours. There is a lot more "tough up" removal to do, that will be a bit time consuming but I ran out of Goof Off so I had to call it quits for the day. Russ

[Mountaineer]

That color could also mean it's a navy lid.

[MySonsDad]

That color could also mean it's a navy lid.

It's certainly possible but I'm putting my money on UN. I've not seen a navy lid this shade of blue and it pretty much matches every UN blue helmet I have found example of. The helmet does not show any signs of navy servies either, it's pretty clean.

Looking at the photos I posted here again, I just realized that they do not depict the actual color of the shell, the actual color really does stand out to resemble the standard light shade of blue used on UN helmets, past and present.

Russ

[nkumburis]

I love restoring shells to original condition it actually gets addicting after your first one. - Nick K

[reneblacky]

Here's what the liner looks like (this is a WW2 one painted up for Korea)

[MySonsDad]

René I'm going to have to get my hands on one of those! Thanks for sharing. Russ

[reneblacky]

René I'm going to have to get my hands on one of those! Thanks for sharing. Russ

No Worries Russ, I thought you'd like to see it

[MySonsDad]

Absolutly René, It's ashame that this reserected lid is missing one of it's bails as because of this I'm a little hesitent to go in search of a liner to try and complete it...it's always going to be missing 1/2 a chin strap