Shore Party Helmet Preservation

[strawberry 9]

Lately I've gotten into picking up old rusty relic helmets and seeing what I can do to revive them.  I do a lot of German and Russian helmets, because it seems that every time they dig a hole in Russia/Eastern Europe they dig up a helmet.  To me that's pretty interesting, since these helmets are coming straight from battlefields.  Many of them have battle damage.  On occasion I do US helmets.  I saw this helmet pictured below and though maybe I saw a LT bar sticking out on the front so I gave it a try.  This is what I started with.

[strawberry 9]

Basically the process is to give the helmet a good cleaning and knock/scrape off any major rust that you can.  Next I soak it in oxalic acid for awhile depending on how rusty it is.  After that you want to soak it in water with baking soda to stop the acid reaction.  Otherwise it will turn yellowish.  I then coat the whole thing in paraffin wax to seal it and stop the rusting action.  The wax helps to bring out the depth and colors also.  So here is what I ended up with from the rusty shell that I started with.

 

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You can see a couple layers of different shades of navy grey over the original green.  Also, on the front is the N of USN and the number 2.  Now under the grey are to yellowish dots.  One on front and one on the back.  These dots were used to designate Shore Party units.  So, this rusty old fixed bail was used in an invasion at some point.  Worth saving in my opinion.  I know some people will insist that you should never "mess" with helmets or clean them.  In my opinion that's usually true, but sometimes an item is so far gone that anything you do to preserve it is a good thing.  This helmet would have most likely ended up in the garbage and it's history completely unknown.   

[strawberry 9]