That guard thing wasn't one of our moidifications. I think it was an Australianicon thing.

There was a high degree of uniformity during the manufacture of the chest because the internal walls of the front and rear are painted a dull/matt orange colour preservative paint while the lid and base are painted with a mid-grey paint. The screw-in fittings are not painted and this indicates to the layman that the chests were sub-assembled as sides, ends, lids and bases then finally fully assembled probably/possible elsewhere. This is certainly the view of Des Newport, a former wartime Elliots of Newbury (Ends marked EoN) worker who informed the author that the chests were sent elsewhere in ‘knocked down’ form for final assembly. He remarked ‘… …There was no skimping on them. The wood was good quality pine or birch with mitred edges, cut to an exact pattern on a multiple band saw contraption. … … we actually made thousands of them in ‘knocked-down’ form but being a young lad, I didn’t really know what they were until I saw them fully assembled during my National Service. Then I wished that we’d made them a bit lighter! Not all the chests are identical. Some later Canadianicon chests have several minor differences and those brought to the authors attention are the absence of the squared off section used to accommodate the grease tin, the insertion of a hinged spacer at the butt end that may be raised or lowered to suit a shorter or normal sized gun. Quite what the ‘shorter’ gun was is a mystery because both the Canadian Mk1 and 2 guns were the same length while the Mk2 with an overhung butt plate was 1” LONGER.