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M1 fixed bails, front seam, restoration questions


ninus17

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hi, i have recently acquired an intact m1 with the front seam and welded bails.  i say intact but its original paint is almost gone and has at some point been painted with a silver color,  so before i go and buy the cork and paint, i want to make sure i pick the right size of cork and paint color.  the smallest cork grounds i can get here are 2-3mm size and all sizes up from there.  what would be the most historicaly authentic to the original, and what paint color, is it just standard #9 olive drab or is it one of the other 50 shades of green.  next thing,  chin straps. the ones on the shell have seen better days, the right one is missing the half that conects to the left, but otherwise both are still on, my issue here is that i want to replace them but because they are looped around the bails and sewed to itself i dont know how to go about it, any advice here would be much appreciated,  and lastly  the liner and netting,  it came without a liner or netting,  again i want to make it as close to original as i can, is it just one of those liners that is made of the brown colored material that would have been installed originally, and the netting,  i know that they were field mods at first but at some point were introduced as standard issue,  would it suit this restoration to fit it with a net or should i instead install it on one of my newer helmets so that i dont have 3 helmets that look the same.  

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Hello Ninus, congrats on the helmet, any way you can post a few images? Ok, so restoration is not hard, just time consuming. Is there a heat lot number on the inside of the helmet? This would help to tell who made the helmet and when, usually located close to the brim on the inside of the helmet. The welded bails, do you mean fixed, they do not swivel correct? There are reproductions of these on the market, actually of both types of bails. The old ones can be easily removed and new ones installed. I would first decide on what impression you are going for, early war/late war, any branch of service in particular? Also later war helmets typically have darker paint than the early war types. Helmets came with a liner, but these changed over the course of the war, and helmets did not always have netting as well.

For my helmet I restored, I got unused corks for a wine bottle and ground them against a sanding block until I reached the consistency I wanted. There are also vendors that sell the cork ready to go as well. 

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