Bren Tripod Paint Color

Hello All,

New to the forums here.

I recently picked up a Bren Tripod.

I am looking for any info regarding the tripod; whether it be history, operation tricks or fun facts.

One notable issue is that someone sanded down the rear portion of the Tripod. It is mostly down to bare metal and the angle markings are mostly intact. I am wondering what color to paint/treat this part of the tripod to make it look original.

Most pictures I have seen show that the tripod legs are a OD while the rear section is a dark brown color. Perhaps it is not painted, rather it is browned?

I was also wondering if I should attempt to paint the numeric and hash marking white?

Thanks!

Do you know who the manufacturer is? Best paint to use would be middle bronze green but deep bronze green is more readily available. The traverse bar appears to be browned/blued on BSA and CCM tripods but phosphates on AGE tripods. AGE tripods also appear to come in a multitude of differing shades of OD.

The official colour in the refinishing instructions for the Army was Deep Bronze Green either hard bake enamel or gloss standard vehicle paint. The azimuth scale was left a phosphated grey.

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Originally Posted by Brit plumber

Do you know who the manufacturer is?

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I do not. I picked it up in an antique store for $60 and they were going to refinish it but only got as far as to remove the rust/paint from the traverse bar.

Looking at the sections they did not get to (hard to access or screw heads in the way), it appears to be a dark brown color. This color seems to be similar to older blued muskets or browned muskets so I thought it may have been browned or poorly maintained bluing.

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

The official colour in the refinishing instructions for the Army was Deep Bronze Green either hard bake enamel or gloss standard vehicle paint. The azimuth scale was left a phosphated grey.

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Deep Bronze green for the legs and grey for the traverse bar/azimuth scale? Not green on the bar/scale correct?

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Originally Posted by Josafoot

I picked it up in an antique store for $60

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Lucky duck...you don't see those around here.

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Lucky duck...you don't see those around here.

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To be honest, I felt kind of bad but also relieved. I just happened to be there when they were unloading the truck and saw what they unloaded. I asked the woman if she was ready to sell it and how much she would sell it for and she offered the price of $60 thinking that they would never be able to sell it.

I am glad to have given it a good home rather than the store throwing it out or having it there labeled as a surveyor's tripod (that is what they thought it was).

I have several where the scale plate (rear curved section) is blued... one has highlighted scale and numerals. The T&E is also blued along with some small parts. All tubular steel was panted on my examples.

Makers marks, serial numbers and mfg yr are stamped into the steel adjacent to the front mounting point.