Article about: Hello folks. Apologies in advance if the photos are wonky. Am posting from my tablet just before going to work, so I can't get at my computer to correct them. If someone could forgive my has
Apologies in advance if the photos are wonky. Am posting from my tablet just before going to work, so I can't get at my computer to correct them. If someone could forgive my haste and inconvenience and fix them on my behalf, I would very much appreciate it.
This arrived in the post this morning. It was found as part of a dump of hundreds in a lake in France. Although the seller would not specify exactly where, it was being sold with dozens of others. It has the number 20 penned on the inside of the skirt, likely to keep track of the finds as they removed them.
Frankly, it's in a bad way. The paint still shows through in places, and there's definitely the ghost of a Heer decal on the left side. The liner is gone. The band is mostly there, but partially disintegrated. Amazingly, the chinstrap buckles have survived and still pivot freely.
I picked this one intentionally, as I intend to try a restoration technique recommended by Cumbrian in the coming days. If all goes well, I shall post before and after comparison photos on this thread.
The effect of the treatment was not as wondrous as I'd hoped. It's cleaned off the worst of the rust, though. And it's given the whole helmet a nice patina. I'm rather relieved that it didn't disintegrate!
As you can see, the tea treatment has darkened the patina of the metal and eliminated virtually all of the flaky surface rust. I've also gone around the inside of the dome with a toothpick and plastic scraper and removed the remainder of the rust. Seventy years of sitting on a lake bed has not been kind to the underlying metal. The pitting around the inner skirt is too severe to be able to make out any maker or size markings.
Still very much a rough battlefield relic, but it's retained its character. The visual change isn't all that impressive, with the decal remnants now slightly harder to see. But it displays well, and is now far less likely to fall apart in the coming years.
In future, I'll be using oxalic acid baths to treat relics, as the results from other members speak for themselves.
Relic M42 – An Experiment in Restoration
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