M38 Fallschirmjäger relic - cleaning using... oxalic acid?

**Wayne J** · 02-22-2012, 07:24 PM

ken you've totally ruined the liner man...i know i said i'm not into Fj items but if i would of know this would of happened to it i would of kept it.....
regards
wayne

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 02-22-2012 07:24 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Wayne J** · 02-22-2012, 07:33 PM

this is how the liner and the rest looked last week

**Wayne J** · 02-22-2012, 07:37 PM

oopppssss

**stuka f** · 02-22-2012, 09:05 PM

Major difference!
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**kenbent** · 02-22-2012, 10:00 PM

Wayne, The liner is sitting in my closet. ;-) Lol.

No worries, it was sitting loose, I took it out to take care of the leather wiith leather care product. The markings show even better now, no prob.

What you see in my pics is just the rubber padding under the leather liner, but the leather liner is not in the pictures... It was sitting loose, so I took it out for now.

No prob. Taking good care of it ;-). Helmet is free from dirt, stones, sand and rust now.

The result, with liner, will be considerable.

I'm not that dumb to destroy an original Fallschirmjäger liner you know. Wasn't my fault that it was sitting loose either, that's mother nature's work.

Cheers

**kenbent** · 02-22-2012, 10:13 PM

Markings show a little bit better than before:

Cheers

**kenbent** · 02-23-2012, 01:16 PM

Okay you guys, results so far. Mild treatment.

Tell me what you think. Should I keep going or stop right here?

IMO there's a decal under all that rust. If you look closely there seems to be a piece of wing appearing, its left wing. However I'm not sure, could just be paint.

Original paint is magnificent. At first I thought it was more of a light green to blue tone, now you can see that it is the actual Luftwaffe tone. More of a dark blue/grey.

I treated it with a mild oxalic acid solution (couple of spoons mixed with 5 liters of water), I'm quite satisfied with the result so far. There's more to it though, I could keep going if I'd want to.

Still a lot of rust though :-(.

Cheers,
Ken

**kenbent** · 02-23-2012, 01:57 PM

At first I thought the camo beige/yellow tone was acid residue, this appears to turn out as actual war time camouflage paint

**Wayne J** · 02-23-2012, 02:21 PM

Hi Ken there is defo a wing there but i think thats about all's your going to get mate...If you look at the rear skirt you'll see a few numbers if i remember rightly

....i'd leave as is imo
wayne

**kenbent** · 02-25-2012, 09:59 AM

Well at least it's clean now... I'm glad I used the acid. It didn't perform a miracle but at least it's free fromt dirt now, and a lot of rust has gone! The rests of camouflage paint are a real treat!

Final interior result:

That's about as good as I could get the old gal. I'm not gonna bother cleaning her all week :-p. I'm satisfied with the result though. It was well worth cleaning it.

Cheers...