I have just acquired a good Cno7 chest that is very sound but the paint has almost gone, I want to refinish it but I need to know the correct colour, was it deep bronze green?
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I have just acquired a good Cno7 chest that is very sound but the paint has almost gone, I want to refinish it but I need to know the correct colour, was it deep bronze green?
I have used Very Dark Drab for a Bren chest and a repro Thompson chest that I'm making. There is a slight difference in shade between Very Dark Drab and Nato Green. I also have a Bren chest that is in Deep Bronze Green which I suspect could be ex Australian army but this is only a suspicion and has not been confirmed.
The Cno7 chests were originally a somewhat pale olive green. Thru the 50s and 60s, the bulk of them were repainted the Canadian semigloss olive green. I have a few minty samples of the original finish, and a larger number of them with the semi-gloss green. Most of the chests have the semigloss green, and also have the NSN and checklist number painted on them, indicating post 1963 service.
You can usually see the original colour inside the lid of the chest.
The inside and outside are both green but are so badly faded that it is impossible to tell what colour they started out as. I can now find the paint but does anyone know where I can get a set of the correct letter & number stencils???Quote:
Originally Posted by stencollector
Paul, is it for yourself or to punt on ? if your moving it on I'd leave the stencil to the new owner, gives them a blank canvas.........
as for colour I'd go by UK Military vehicles, khaki at the beginning of the war, service brown 42-44, olive drab 44 -till Deep Bronze green came into fashion...... as Peter often says all depends what the blanket stackers had on there shelves at the time.
On the other hand you could get a few samples from your box (or ask Sten collector for a few) on a piece of sellotape and ask one of the paint mixers to analyse the sample on their spectrometer and come up with the EXACT match and mix formula. Valentines Paint did it for my Mini Cooper engine colour. But like Duke says (thread 5) the blanket stackers just use the paint that they get from the fitters shop! But if you do it the blanket stackers method, don't forget to get it all in the hinges so they are jammed solid, running down inside, all over the floor and overalls, into the catches and then leave great big greasy hand marks on it where it's been put back in the shed. And don't forget to leave the brush in the open tin to go solid for a few days afterwards
To that end, I picked up almost 30 chests the other year, and some had been painted grey, most the semigloss green, one black, and a couple were still their original olive. I suppose it depends on what level of "overhaul" the paint job was done at...user, unit, station or depot.
As to the stencilling, I found a few varieties of the original stencilling, including one chest where they seem to have silkscreened the lettering as there are no gaps like you get on a traditional stencil. The Original did not have much more than the basic description.
Thru the 50s, they repainted the chests, and you would usually find the checklist "scale" number.
In the 60s, the paint job included the NSN for the rifle complete with EIS.
So depending on what time period you are covering, the stenciling will change.
I'll try and snap some photos of the different markings.
Yes Peter I know my L42 box is EXACTLY as you describe....:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...hjeky4of-1.jpg
Canadian C No.7 transit chests. No two the same.
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Anybody got a spare Canadian 4T chest for my Long Branch?
I had an accumulation of C No.7Mk.1 chests years ago that I finally got tired of tripping over. I sold them for $25 each and I think the shipping was more money!
If a weapons chest is painted green and it has a Nato number stencilled on it would the green paint normally be expected to be Nato green? I have had a couple of Canadian Bren chests and both were in a very poor state but if memory serves me correctly both had Nato numbers stencilled on them. One chest was only fit for parts and the other required a major rebuild which still needs finishing off. I couldn't tell the shade of green because it was very faded.
It would not be "NATO" green....I have been in the hobby of military vehicles for 40 years and am not even sure what that is.
The US have their paint colors listed under FS (Federal specification?) codes. Canada, where the chests were used, had CGSB (Canadian Government Specifications Board) codes for it's paint samples. No idea of the British specs aside from the few colours that I have dealt with like the Bronze green, and the yellow/green cam used in Suffield.
When talking the semi-gloss green, the common US specification of FS24087 and the earlier used FS23070 do not equate to the Canadian olive green colour, which does not have the brownish tint of the American color. The Canadian colour is much darker.
Canada dropped the CGSB specification as a reference sometime in the early 80s, and the paints we use now are normally the US camouflage colours. But since we are talking Canadian used chests, likely painted in the 50s, 60s and 70s, they would normally be re-painted with the dark semi gloss olive green.
We did get some vehicles directly from the US, and in the 50s we got Ferrets and Centurians from the British. The British stuff came in the British green, however come paint time they were repainted in the Cdn semi-gloss and later in the Canadian 3 colour camoflauge. I can't say about the Triumph TRWs we bought. I had one and the colour sure looked like the Canadian green as opposed to the British green that the spare parts came in. It is possible that Canada specified our colour of paint when they were produced, but I can't say for certain.
Anyway, this is a gun forum, so I don't want to go too long on a tangent about vehicle paint. Suffice it to say that the chests would get re-painted in the colour that was in the supply system at the time.
We often see the pale sandy-yellow used to overpaint the nomenclature area of the chests, particularly on the sniper chests, and sometimes on the Cno7 chests, and rarely on the Bren chests. Not sure why that colour was chosen, however it may have been a supply thing because it was easier to read from a distance.
I had assumed that "Nato Green" was used by all Nato countries, not just the British. Not necessarily to paint everything that required a green paint but a stock item that was available.