Interesting paint/primer under the factory finish

[Sneaky]

Hello! Just got a beautiful navy WW2 M1 in and was examining the blemishes, to notice a neat, glossy layer seemingly under the factory OD and navy repaint.

 

Attached are images under 30x and 60x magnification respectively. Any idea what this may be? Doesn’t seem to be patina of any kind, and it appears in no other areas of the helmet. There seems to be some sort of microcracking or just significant scratches that expose the shiny metal of the helmet.

 

Any idea what this? My best guess is simply paint from something before it was repainted in navy service, it’s just odd it’s in a corner of a helmet and in a very small area.

[USMC_COLLECTOR]

Damage control on the same ship? Just spitballing here…

[Sneaky]

9 hours ago, USMC_COLLECTOR said:

Damage control on the same ship? Just spitballing here…

Could very well be. Could also maybe a paint spill covered up?

 

Who knows

[Sneaky]

On 10/18/2022 at 11:11 PM, USMC_COLLECTOR said:

Damage control on the same ship? Just spitballing here…

Figured you might find this neat.

 

Few hours of examination under high magnification. The paint is indeed over both the OD3 and repaint, with the outermost exposed paint on the corking having worn away.

 

Theres a bit of paint splatter heading northeast of the front of the helmet, seems to me the helmet had some damage control red spilled onto it after being painted and was drying or just sitting in the paint room. 
 

I took a year of forensics, hopefully I can dig out some old notes on splatter analysis to see exactly what may have happened.

[USMC_COLLECTOR]

57 minutes ago, Sneaky said:

I took a year of forensics, hopefully I can dig out some old notes on splatter analysis to see exactly what may have happened.

I can tell! Great job!