Look What's Under the OD Paint!

**MySonsDad** · 01-16-2012, 10:11 PM

Picked up this beat up old M-1 a few months back, saw the blue and red under the OD so I thought it might make a good “First” attempt at removing the top layer of paint from a shell. The paint removal isn’t going so bad and I’ve got enough off that maybe can figure out what we have here.

The shell is a front seam Schlueter with original OD paint on the inside. The red and blue look to be brush painted, as I have found a couple of brush hairs stuck under the paint. The red was applied first and only to the crown. It looks as though it was masked off to give somewhat of a straight edge to where the red and blue come together, but it certainly is not a smooth round line by any means.

First photo is before I started removing paint, the following 3 are after a couple hours of removal. The cork texture is going to be a real pain in the butt, as well as working around the paint chips.....but it's good practice .....

Looks to be a typical Shipboard paint locker paint job. Any ideas what the purpose might be?

Russ

**MySonsDad** · 01-17-2012, 11:29 PM

Here's how the shell looked after about 3-4 hrs of work yesterday......

Nobody has any ideas what this paint scheme might have been for?

**plumbob** · 01-20-2012, 11:16 PM

Haven’t a clue! but you have done a good job . I would have thought it would have taken longer than that to get the top layer of paint of, well done!
There are so many different paint jobs on these helmets . This one might be another tough one for anyone to guess at.
All the best with it.
Rod

**kingtigertank** · 01-20-2012, 11:20 PM

the UN used blue painted m1s early on that or its a navy one

**MySonsDad** · 01-20-2012, 11:47 PM

Thanks Rod, yea it went pretty fast at first but the remaining work is going to go SLOOOOOOOOW! I hope to get several hours this weekend to work on it, if any good progress is made I'll snap a few more photos.

KingTigerTank, yes, US was one of my thoughts although I have never seen the blue/red combination on anything and I know the Navy is so typical for "custom" paint schemes so that was my first assumption. I'll keep snooping around until I figure it out...or it will just sit up on the shelf un-identified with a couple others we have.

Russ

**denfly** · 02-01-2012, 03:12 AM

Could be some sort of Navy helmet with some sort of marking pattern for flight deck or possibly a loading crew member. Perhaps dock workers may have used it also. It could also come from cadre of a particular training site.

**MySonsDad** · 02-01-2012, 03:53 AM

Any one of those is a possibility Denfly. I've been doing some digging and have come up with nothing, might be specific to one particular command (ship) and we'll never really know. I looked for UN examples but have yet to find one. I've done quite a bit more work on stripping off the OD paint. It's not done yet but it's starting to come around. I will snap a few photos tomorrow maybe and post.

Russ

**MySonsDad** · 02-01-2012, 06:05 PM

Here is where I am at with the OD paint removal. It's getting tough to remove the OD from the valleys of the old texture, I end up doing more harm than good at times. Also, there is so much paint chipping and it is very hard to remove the paint near the edges w/o liberating more paint from the shell. It's been a good exercise though, I've learnd some does and don't that may come in handy on another helmet someday.