Origins of that L42A1 Plastic Lens Brush Bottle

[Peter Laidler]

I've never seen one like that orange one in my life if you want the real truth CZ and never, ever, never seen a label as clean and clear and with that printing on it either. But like I say, I could be wrong! Now you're thinking what I'm thinking. They used to 'yellow' ands go brittlke but never saw one 'orange' and to be fair, I've seen a few. The top, clear on is definately the real McCoy and is identical and marked identically to those I had in my drawer at work except that they were also in sealed packages of 10

[Cold_Zero]

Attachment 46845Attachment 46846Attachment 46847Attachment 46848Attachment 46849Attachment 46850Attachment 46851

10 per bag oh heart palpations!!! My sample consist of 5, figured there were printing technology advances during the L42 program.

included some pictures of a brush prior to trimming. The brush with the white bristles is a do it yourself job until gear can be located.

[Peter Laidler]

Initially reading about your brush trimming escapade got me going all of a dither there to start with.........

Seeing that odd yellow one among some perfect ones leads me to think that someones had the labels reproduced to add some 'authenticity' to them. I say that because when I look through the poly bag here, at least three don't have labels on them. However, one of the label-less bottles does have a tie-on AFG-8061 label (that's the Ordnance Stores VAOS label). The norm, label/script wise was as shown in your previous photos and the dot-matrix printing (photo 7 above)

The trouble with these bottles is like the IWS brackets (and to a lesser extent, No42/53 telescopes). At some point it becomes viable to have them made. As soon as they are available and pretty-well perfected, the real ones sort of loose their value. Like No42/53 scopes. A bit of a shortage, albeit just spare parts to me, but I have a feeling in my bones that a lot will soon swamp the market. If I was a betting man I wouldn't be paying daylight robbery prices for them now......

[Cold_Zero]

With all due respect, I am not sure what “escapade” you are referring to. There is a picture of brush as found uncut(and will remain so) the other is from an L42A1 or IWS kit IIRC, as is.

I was clear had I made one to use that is nothing close in appearance(with "white bristles") to use in the care and maintenance of the L42s I have

As for the containers I will attempt to see if there is a common denominator in their history.

Thank you for your feedback.

[Peter Laidler]

Explanation sent by PM. Maybe you'll see/understand the funny side then........

[303 Collector]

Got the Charlie G just need the bottle.Attachment 46862

[Peter Laidler]

Jeeeees, even got the sub-cal adaptor too! Got the re-cocking tool for it? Are you aware that as originally designed there was a 'blank' that fitted inbto the rear of the sub-calibre 'breech block' facing rearwards. So that when you fired the little sub-cal round down the range, a blast came out of the venturi to simulate the real thing.

We didn't take this idea on but I did used to see breech blocks with the 'blank' cartridge seating still in place but the secondary striker was always cut short. Bye......, they didn't half make a monster loud bang/crack when they went off. The real thing I mean......., especially the first time, after you were used to the sedate and almost gentlemanly 3.5 M20 Rocket Launcher

Is that a .303 Browning just below the venturi?

[chosenman]

Initially reading about your brush trimming escapade got me going all of a dither there to start with.........

Seeing that odd yellow one among some perfect ones leads me to think that someones had the labels reproduced to add some 'authenticity' to them. I say that because when I look through the poly bag here, at least three don't have labels on them. However, one of the label-less bottles does have a tie-on AFG-8061 label (that's the Ordnance Stores VAOS label). The norm, label/script wise was as shown in your previous photos and the dot-matrix printing (photo 7 above)

The trouble with these bottles is like the IWS brackets (and to a lesser extent, No42/53 telescopes). At some point it becomes viable to have them made. As soon as they are available and pretty-well perfected, the real ones sort of loose their value. Like No42/53 scopes. A bit of a shortage, albeit just spare parts to me, but I have a feeling in my bones that a lot will soon swamp the market. If I was a betting man I wouldn't be paying daylight robbery prices for them now......

The trouble with these bottles is like the IWS brackets (and to a lesser extent, No42/53 telescopes). At some point it becomes viable to have them made. As soon as they are available and pretty-well perfected, the real ones sort of loose their value. Like No42/53 scopes. A bit of a shortage, albeit just spare parts to me, but I have a feeling in my bones that a lot will soon swamp the market. If I was a betting man I wouldn't be paying daylight robbery prices for them now......

Mmmmmm. Not sure about that Peter. I'm in the plastics game and it would still be an expensive gamble to produce the tooling in order to reproduce a good example of the bottle in question. I think the main prohibitive factor is the total quantity. There's only around 1200 L42's in total, then how many of those already have bottles?? the cost of set up is already rising against the likely return. I think a repro bottle would be more expensive than an original.

The repro IWS bracket has not had any impact on the price of an original. Top quality repro from Canada (as currently on that auction site) is around £300 with import duty. An original will fetch £500-£750.

As with anything, not just items related to our game original items will always rule the day!!

[Peter Laidler]

I understand exactly what you're saying about the plastic container and the tooling now that the Brighton manufacture has gone. Re the IWS brackets, I tested one of the repops on an L42 with IIW on the range at Warminster and it was absolutely perfect. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I couldn't tell the difference once it'd gone to workshops and been phosphated and painted with a load of other stuff. Mind you, being reproduced using the original ITDU drawings helped I suppose.

[chosenman]

Roger that regard the IWS bracket Peter. I have one of the forum members repops and when held in the hand next to my original bracket they are identical with comparable weight also. Very small details gives it away when sitting next to an original such as the contact points are painted, the machine finish is visible and one of the internal corners has a slight radius. All in all its a superb quality reproduction which apart from looking pretty in the chest also does its job.