ammo can

[micmacman]

few weeks ago found a WW2 flaming bomb 50 cal can in a indoor flea market , fella had $30 on it but it had silver paint lathered all over it , i told him honestly i wasnt sure if the silver could even be removed without taking the original with it , he blurts out $20 , so i grabbed it

its been a trial and error effort so far , some in another forum said i should just take it all off and spray it new , i thought that was insane without trying , and yes it had occurred to me that may end up the case if it turned into a debacle

first tried my heat gun method that does awsome removing Poly from stocks , and it did work but it was too easy the take the high points too far before the flats , ,i did everything in moderation first to see what was happening , then someone suggested citrus acid but they said it would take it all off ,old and new

thought not if i only leave on for 5 minutes , so i did a test patch , it was working , but was a bit fast so made me nervous , wiped it on a larger test area and let sit for 2 minutes and wiped it off , it softened the silver somewhat and then i took a old sock and denatured and walah , it started pulling the silver , not fast ,but slow and controllable ,with a fair amount of elbow , not going to lie , not a fun resto

so 15-20 minutes here and there after a few weeks all the silver is gone , there were aready areas that had primer showing , and the high edges were already worn as you may expect but the original paint was saved , it had been re stenciled and a coat of green over the original paint , i was able to remove the overlap stencil saving the original , and i still have some patches of the second green here and there but its shaping up nicely

befores and afters