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RCN MKII Helmet - restoration

Article about: Hello everyone. I finally decided to do something about this world war two helmet that had been lying around for a while in our house. It used to belong to a great uncle who was part of the

  1. #1

    Default RCN MKII Helmet - restoration

    Hello everyone.

    I finally decided to do something about this world war two helmet that had been lying around for a while in our house. It used to belong to a great uncle who was part of the Royal Canadian Navy in world war 2, in the atlantic. Someone had painted it over in the 70s with a thick garish green paint, just for fun.

    So I set about stripping the paint from it, but even with nail polish I didnt manage to retain only the blue coat from its navy times, so stripped it down to the factory green. Apparently, the navy painted the helmets with whatever colour it could lay its hands on : mine was painted a kind of generic dark blue over the factory dark-green.

    I will try restoring it : I have found a blue paint that matches closely the original blue, and will maybe stencil the guy's rank on the helmet. I dunno if I will add ground cork or sand for texture : I didn't find any on the helmet in the first place.

    Here are some pics from the stripping process, in order. I will post more as the project advances !

    It's a canadian motor company helmet from 1942, size 96.








    Last edited by griffner; 08-16-2011 at 05:58 PM.

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  3. #2

    Default Re: RCN MKII Helmet - restoration

    I then sanded the helmet down as best as I could, with steel wool and fine sandpaper.



    Next step was putting an enamel primer on, I used a grey Tamiya modeling paint, which gave a nice matte grey texture.





    Next I sprayed the helmet blue (Tamiya Mica blue), after letting the primer dry for a couple of hours. It turned out it was a bit too shiny (damn!), so I did some more furrowing in paint shops till I found another paint that would look pretty much like the navy blue that had been used on this helmet (krylon navy blue). Turns out it's spot on!



    Now the painting's done, and since the helmet looks too shiny and polished, I've started sanding the helmet a bit in some places, according to some old helmet pics I've seen. Turns out the shiny blue coat and the grey primer are useful for weathering, since by sanding the helmet I get them to show up in some places, giving the impression of a normal wear and tear, on a battleship (banging helmet on thresholds, equipment, dropping it, etc)

  4. #3

    Default Re: RCN MKII Helmet - restoration

    Hi, looks great so far.
    Lots of dedication and hard work.
    Cheers.
    Nuno

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