Civilian Respirator for Asthmatics

[BrodieBartfast]

Hello folks.

The other day, I added a very special piece to my collection of Home Front gas masks. Compared to the standard Civilian General Respirator, these are exceedingly rare, and can be very expensive. I lucked out on this one, scavenging it from eBay of all places. It's in rather rough shape, and the box is falling apart, but it's intact and shows no signs of perishing.

On the standard mask, air was expelled around the edge of the facepiece. When the wearer exhaled, the air would force itself out of the sides of the mask. This allowed for a very simple design which could be mass produced and supplied to the masses with ease. However for those with breathing difficulties, most notably asthmatics, this mechanism made exhaling laborious and very difficult.

This mask was a remedy to that problem.



In reality, it is a simple hybrid of the Civilian General and Civilian Duty respirator, utilising the flutter valve from the latter. This simple modification, which could be undertaken with relative ease, made exhaling much easier.

It is a large sized mask, as most of these variants tend to be, and was manufactured by Avon in 1940. The owner's name - Mr Rudd - is written on the lid of the box, along with various handwritten messages including 'Special L', indicating that this is a special variant of the mask and large sized. The box itself is in very poor shape, heavily used and dogeared, held together at the corners by sticky tape. It remains sturdy enough, and has the bonus of retaining the cutout piece for keeping the mask in place.



The buckles on the mask are unfortunately heavily rusted. I spent an hour or so removing the original safety pins and replacing them with modern ones. There is also an anti-dimming tin in the box, equally rusted, which I have placed in a plastic bag along with the remnants of the pins. At some point, I'll go over the buckles with metal polish to neutralise the rust.
I've also taken the liberty of sealing the filter. Although it looks unattractive, it is common sense given that these masks contain various types of asbestos.

A nice addition to my Home Front collection, even if it is a little rough around the edges!

Regards, B.B.