secondshooter

Barrel in today , the barrel is wrapped in cling film to stop flash rusting , it will be given a clear coat on Sunday. (was too big to drag into the painters spray booth)

It will go in the Talisman Sea Cadets Building in Nelson NZ , I told the boss of the sea cadets I would happily do the restoration for free as long as it was never put outside. in fact I wanted to have a sign painted on it saying :Don't let the idiots from the City Council put this outside : but he said it may offend the Mayor who is a great supporter of the Sea cadets. I think it great to display things but if it was out side within days someone would help themselves to the bronze that could easily be un bolted. then there is the weather damage that quickly starts eating away at it.

High prices are just the way things go ! a mate bought a 741 Army Indian some years ago for 5 grand and everybody in the know laughed because the going rate was much less , now a few years later similar bikes are selling for 15 grand or more. there is only a limited supply left now and prices will only go up.

Its not in the Great Guns Book but it may be included in the next one he is doing now ? I sent him some photos before the rebuild started. The history on the gun is not very clear , all I know is that it came to Nelson in the 1960s and the rumor is that it was used for costal defense in Littleton during WW2 but that was just one guys opinion , earlier history gets complicated as its a mixture of 4 different guns made from 1913 to 1918 , I assume this was done during WW2 when someone panicked and obsolete guns were dragged into the workshop and the serviceable parts cobbled together. got it back from the paint shop this morning , the chemical cleaning with deoxidene had dulled the steel a bit but the bronze still looks pretty good.

I value everybody's opinion on the coating and would be interested to hear more comments , but the decision was made by the Cadets ,if I had its original or even its WW2 paint intact I would have insisted it be kept and worked around it but what I had was rust eating away under a multitude of well meaning but poorly applied house paints. what I like about the clear coat option is the huge amount of hidden detail and the guns journey through history that would be lost with a coat of paint. Many of the bolts are stamped VSM and dated , there is inspectors stamps , casting reference numbers , pin punch component alignment marks. just about every part is dated and has various codes that I still haven't found the meaning of. then there is the battle damage and their repairs , the effects of being left outside for many years between the wars , the evidence of a hasty refurbishment done during WW2 , hammer marks from the crew trying to un jam the stuck loading tray. all that gets lost with paint . . These are things that restorers have the privilege to see during the rebuilds but the Joe public gets the green/grey paint , kind of like getting to look at the book cover but not able to read the pages underneath.

The big bit on its way to clear coat and baking for 2 days in the spray booth, I don't know how it will look when done but will find out on Monday morning when I go to collect it ?

The Gun belongs to the Talisman Sea Cadets in Nelson New Zealand , after much discussion about the paint job , the Cadets decided painting it as it came from the factory was going to hide all the bronze again , just painting the steel was not historically correct. no paint on anything would be how it was from the factory , just before the paint was applied.so it will be clear coated ? don't know if I would be brave enough to do that to my own gun but it certainly gets around the problem of being historically correct and the concept is growing on me...

Got everything UHP water blasted as sand blasting would have destroyed the bronze , it takes off the paint but leaves the metal parts as is. expensive but worth it for this old girls 100th birthday. the original paint was brutally chipped off during WW2 (chisel damage all over gun) and it seems from then on regular paint jobs were given to the gun with anything that came out of a can and smelled like paint, it was very thick in some places but the rust was fizzing away underneath .

There will be a turret somewhere ? the best way to find one is promote your rebuild project on Russian websites similar to this. Nobody in England or the US is going to have a turret down in the back paddock rusting away but chances are good that there is very solid chicken coop in Russia somewhere.

I have tried to follow this but there has been a lot of hype and speculation and its hard to tell where the facts stop and the BS starts, was there a railway line there at some stage ? if so why was it filled in ? it may not be filled with a train but what was considered junk at the end of WW2 may well be worth digging up, Tanks , trucks , motorbikes , aircraft parts , guns, all good , but not dead bodies of unfortunate people or live ammunition, very interested to see how this pans out !

Try BRP Guns in the US , he had quite a few used stocks a while ago.

Lots of bad things can happen here ! what if actually have a 'special' that was filled with something else to try and surprise the bomb disposal guy ? I don't know too much about it but there is a reason your mum told you not to play with unexploded bombs....

Welcome ! and what have you come across , sounds interesting ?

Another option is see if there are any WW2 collector/restorer groups In India , there may be someone over there who would love to save it if they just knew it was there ?

Andrew , it looks fantastic ! where did you source the DBG ,can you get it off the shelf in NZ ? am doing the final coat on my bike soon and that's the color I will be using.

another pic.

On Trademe in New Zealand Is it military ? start price of $200 .small traces of what look like green paint on block...

I use a brass empty cartridge case to remove rust (any soft brass will do though), hammer the mouth flat and dress it with a file to make it a bit tidy , oil the rusty areas and scrape at the rust, then oil and repeat scraping until the rust has gone. the brass is softer that the blue so wont remove it, the rust is softer so it takes it away. be aware that steel wool will remove bluing if you are not careful.

And don't forget that it still works as a sword as well as the day it left the factory so its not worthless , in fact a burglar may ask the Doctor for a tetanus shot as well as stitches after you send him on his way.

Can you tell us about all of them ! how you came by them , any history ? Cheers !

Welcome and pictures please !

Identify the parts if you can , plenty of helpful people here! , Sites like ebay mean you have prospective buyers from all over the world instead of the few who walk past your table. the internet has opened up a huge base of sellers and buyers.

Metal fatigue is just one option. the breach end of the gun has failed but was it exposed to more pressure that it was designed for? a closer examination of damaged parts is required , any remaining ammunition needs to be broken down and assessed, fired cases examined for excessive pressure , any video footage analyzed for changes in the recoil stroke and muzzle flash from the first to the last round fired . associated equipment like the recoil mechanism may also show signs of being overstressed if it was an ammunition fault. could still be anything ? Metal fatigue Failure of repaired de milled parts Incorrect assembly of parts Faulty ammunition Incorrect ammunition Other stuff I haven't thought of....