Here is the 2nd example that I have which I had a go at removing the yellow paint on the top cover but partially removed some of the markings. This one only got the outer faces of the 2 outside ammo cans sprayed over.
Sorry I didn't see this earlier. Acetone is what I used on a German helmet that was covered in silver paint. Worked well and didn't remove any underlying paint or the decal which I was scrubbing away at for five minutes before I realized what it was.
A little late to the party but,
Nice can OP. I'm not a paint specialist but have had a couple finds
Covered in paint and had good luck with gasoline removing the paint you want to remove
And not the OD green and/or yellow stamped letters. Just don't hover over the letters for any length of time.
Flipside of that coin is had some that gasoline won't touch.
In any case job well done and nice can recovered.
Edit : Nice find on the 30 Cal can never seen that mechanism before.
Last edited by RAM1ALASKA; 04-02-2024 at 12:15 PM.
A late addition, but if anyone does need to go as far as repainting A WWII era American ammo can of any variety I would recommend the TM9 Ordnance Products line of paints, now sold by Midwest Military Inc. in the USA.
Not everything American in the war was the same Shade of Olive Drab (or the modern attempt at trying to get close to reproducing original wartime paint, now dubbed #33070 in modern paint codes), and their product line has many of the variations of colors to more closely match the various originals rather than over-restoring things and painting everything under the sun lusterless matte-light-olive-drab, as is done too often.
I have not found many companies that get the font for the stencils or stamps quite right though.
Too many of them clearly look computer generated compared to some unquantifiable aspect of the originals even though the good reproduction companies try really hard though.
Oh, and this is an interesting article on the "M1" marked M1A1 ammunition can you mentioned in the second part by reenactors:
I shipped home about a dozen battle field pick-up Israeli ammo cans of varying vintage, most modern era I found scattered around the Golan Heights. Most were charred around the top half due to IDF members using them as diesel heaters while on maneuvers as it gets quite cold up on the plateau in the Winter. Due to circumstances and my need to distill my life down to one pick-up truck load for the "Great Move of 2001" I ended up with none but I uploaded a file picture from the interweb so all y'all can see what they look like.
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Originally Posted by Flying10uk
