I poked around my favorite antique shop and came away with these two items. 
The Reeves .30 cal ammo can has a very interesting paint job. I don’t see any evidence of any OD paint underneath the silverish and black paint scheme. Even the inside is painted flat black. I actually think it’s pretty cool looking. Have any of you seen anything painted like this? My guess is that it is a very rare US Marine Corps parachutist can that was used on submarines on D-Day. 
The other thing isn’t US but may be of interest here so I’ll squeak it in here. It’s an early war type first pattern British dispatch rider helmet. It needs a little gentle work but it is in nice shape. Unfortunately there are no markings. Now I just need a WWII British motorcycle to go with it. Gee, I’m sure glad I’m no longer actively collecting anymore 😁. 
mikie

2 hours ago, mikie said:

I poked around my favorite antique shop and came away with these two items. 
The Reeves .30 cal ammo can has a very interesting paint job. I don’t see any evidence of any OD paint underneath the silverish and black paint scheme. Even the inside is painted flat black. I actually think it’s pretty cool looking. Have any of you seen anything painted like this? My guess is that it is a very rare US Marine Corps parachutist can that was used on submarines on D-Day. 
The other thing isn’t US but may be of interest here so I’ll squeak it in here. It’s an early war type first pattern British dispatch rider helmet. It needs a little gentle work but it is in nice shape. Unfortunately there are no markings. Now I just need a WWII British motorcycle to go with it. Gee, I’m sure glad I’m no longer actively collecting anymore 😁. 
mikie

Mikie, you look great !!

 

Once an addict always an addict,

 

Thanks for sharing.

with apologies to the authors of Reefer Madness...

 

'First you get them on the patches, then they're screaming for the uniforms!!!'

.

No rest for the wicked . . . . . . . .

 

Well I thought that I was going to home today, but I got a call to go and see what might be another Jeep barn find,  If it is I will add photos later . . . . . .

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 20 July  2O26.

 

..

We worked on the jeep again, and most of last Saturday was spent working on the battery cover, which is almost finished now.

 

Original batteries have two lead bridges on top to connect the three 2V cells into a single 6V unit. Looking at photos, these lead bridges are basically a strip with rounded edges and a circular raised area at each end. I had some lead that had come out of the dead battery when I emptied it, and we decided to try and use that to make the bridges. So we constructed a mold from two pieces of thick steel sheet and a bottom piece.

 

 

 

We tried to melt some lead in an old soup ladle with a standard plumber's torch, which was actually pretty easy and after scooping off the contaminants that floated to the surface we poured the molten lead in the mold, which was also pre-heated with the torch. It turned out it was quite hard to pour the exact amount needed in the mold, so we took the cast piece out of the mold after it cooled a bit, melted it again and this time after pouring we used a scraper to get a straight surface. Again this was pretty easy by using the torch.

 

 

 

 

The result was even better than we had hoped for. After cooling the mold in water I used a vice and a socket to carefully press the bridge from the mold. This is the result; the top one has been cleaned but the bottom one is as it came out of the mold. As you can see it barely needs cleaning.

 

 

 

 

And here are the two bridges, made of actual lead, screwed through the underside to the fake top of the battery. I have painted the three screw caps orange, although I'm not sure if that is the correct colour as they might have been red. Anyway, they will require a few more coats of paint, but after that I think this side-quest is finished and attention can return to the jeep itself. 😊

 

 

 

 

 

I think it is good to do little side projects like these now and then to keep the work a bit varied, especially at times with less-visible progress.

 

 

Nice finds, and Nice work, Mikie & David! 

I've partially disassembled my 1939-1942 Mk.V bicycle to strip off the 15, or so, layers of ABL green paint. Will be sanding down the parts over the next few days.
Got 4 rattle cans of VW Bulli Green ready to go. It is slightly darker shade than what's on it now. But very close.




Also acquired a couple of modern and old stock parts. 



Need to replace both mudguards, and make/find the mudguard stays of the right length.

Still need to source the correct style handlebars and Mk.IV carrier rack to turn it into a passable Mk.V
Found a Lucas Silver King lantern and a lamp bracket for it. 
Hunting for a Brooks frame tool pouch (got a Soviet stand-in one for now). 


Still in limbo about another project I'm looking to do; 
I have a working Zenith 6G601 Trans-Oceanic "Sailboat"  AM-radio, running off a 110v adapter. Sure it works, but there's like 3 AM stations left and none play nice 1940s period music. The plan would be to put a blue-tooth (and FM) receiver in there, hooked up to the original speaker. Easily reversible, sure. 
In its current condition it's sort of useless.  
I would also like to dress it up like a "militarized" Zenith 7G605 Trans-Oceanic "Bomber" radio I saw photos off years ago. It was a private purchase radio dressed up in OD, a Signal Corps flag and the owner's rank and name. 
The dilemma; Sellers are asking $400+ for an unmolested, working Sailboat radio on a certain auction site. Way more than I ever paid for mine. 
Should I mess with it? 
 

15 hours ago, earlymb said:

We worked on the jeep again, and most of last Saturday was spent working on the battery cover, which is almost finished now.

 

Original batteries have two lead bridges on top to connect the three 2V cells into a single 6V unit. Looking at photos, these lead bridges are basically a strip with rounded edges and a circular raised area at each end. I had some lead that had come out of the dead battery when I emptied it, and we decided to try and use that to make the bridges. So we constructed a mold from two pieces of thick steel sheet and a bottom piece.

 

 

 

We tried to melt some lead in an old soup ladle with a standard plumber's torch, which was actually pretty easy and after scooping off the contaminants that floated to the surface we poured the molten lead in the mold, which was also pre-heated with the torch. It turned out it was quite hard to pour the exact amount needed in the mold, so we took the cast piece out of the mold after it cooled a bit, melted it again and this time after pouring we used a scraper to get a straight surface. Again this was pretty easy by using the torch.

 

 

 

 

The result was even better than we had hoped for. After cooling the mold in water I used a vice and a socket to carefully press the bridge from the mold. This is the result; the top one has been cleaned but the bottom one is as it came out of the mold. As you can see it barely needs cleaning.

 

 

 

And here are the two bridges, made of actual lead, screwed through the underside to the fake top of the battery. I have painted the three screw caps orange, although I'm not sure if that is the correct colour as they might have been red. Anyway, they will require a few more coats of paint, but after that I think this side-quest is finished and attention can return to the jeep itself. 😊

 

 

 

 

I think it is good to do little side projects like these now and then to keep the work a bit varied, especially at times with less-visible progress.

 

 

👍

Now that is being creative! Well done!

Mikie

Thanks guys! 🥰

I've never been able to date my Mk.V bicycle, it has frame number T58600 and has no post-war ABL stampings.

Fenders are not original but with some tweaks can be used till I get some originals, and I have some usable (non-original) wheels. This project is put on hold for working on the jeep though.

.

Yippee-Ki-Yay. we are back on line. !!!!

So yesterday afternoon I had typed out a post to add and went to ' my photos ' to find the shots I was going to add, BANG, BLACK SCREEN forum down !!!

So back to the beginning again. A few evenings ago I was watching a documentary about Normandy WWII, I was please to see a bunch of Dodge Carryall's in front of a building I recognised in Cherbourg, I was pleased to see the Carryall's as I owned one some years ago before moving to France. It's almost an hour or so each way there and back to Cherbourg so I pulled a photograph of the said buildings which I had used previously when it was a bunch of engineering GMC's in front of these same buildings.

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 21 July  2O26.

 

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On 7/20/2026 at 12:01 PM, earlymb said:

We worked on the jeep again, and most of last Saturday was spent working on the battery cover, which is almost finished now.

 

Original batteries have two lead bridges on top to connect the three 2V cells into a single 6V unit. Looking at photos, these lead bridges are basically a strip with rounded edges and a circular raised area at each end. I had some lead that had come out of the dead battery when I emptied it, and we decided to try and use that to make the bridges. So we constructed a mold from two pieces of thick steel sheet and a bottom piece.

 

 

 

 

I think it is good to do little side projects like these now and then to keep the work a bit varied, especially at times with less-visible progress.

 

 

.

Hi earlymb,

I have to say that that looks great, sometimes these self-made items don't turn out well but that looks almost original and factory quality, I don't think most people looking under your hood will give that a second look, as it look like what should be sat there.

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 21 July  2O26.

 

..

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More Jeep pieces re-found today.

Today I thought I would take a look in a storage shed that I don't regularly use and decided some of the pieces I found should be taken out and relocated elsewhere and better looked after. So I donned an NBC suit to go in there as I was unsure if there would be either wasps or hornets nests seeing as my garden was swamped by Asian hornets flying around last year. Thankfully no nests so I had a good look around and through storage boxes. I pulled a number of pieces out for further investigation, these unopened new old stock headlamp units were nice to find again. These are earlier sealed beam units with an actual bulb sealed inside them, whereas the later and post-war headlamps just had filaments sealed inside, not bulbs.

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 21 July  2O26.

 

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On 7/17/2026 at 9:20 AM, manayunkman said:

I got these from a house clean out.

 

Someone told me that they could be useful to military vehicle collectors?

 

What do you think?

I guess these have nothing to do with military vehicles?

1 hour ago, manayunkman said:

I guess these have nothing to do with military vehicles?

.

Hi Peter,

looking at the boxes they could certainly be old enough to have been around in the 1940's or so BUT identifying from the photographs is difficult , a possible suggestion is make a list of the parts numbers and add the list in the military vehicle section. how about dropping into a vintage vehicle or hot rod restorer and asking if they are of use.

Someone somewhere could be screaming to find a particular bearing but getting connected to that person is the problem. What is easier is recognisable parts from vehicles, bearings are always hidden away in gearboxes, transfers, axles, engines and as such it's only the specific part number that identifies them.

Sorry I can't be of any better help, I would love to connect the bearings to the right person who needs the.

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 21 July  2O26.

 

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