Colour of Irish Model 1927 Helmet (German M16 Copy)

[peregrinvs]

(Slightly off topic I know, but there is a clear Great War connection and here seems a good place to ask. Hopefully the mods will forgive me)

 

I'm currently in the process of restoring a Vickers made Model 1927 Irish Free State Army helmet and am trying to work out what original colour it was painted. My best guess from studying pictures on the web was that it was quite a dark shade of green. Does anyone have any further information? I'm hoping it was a circa 1920's standard colour of some sort. I know the leather liners were made and fitted in Ireland, but were the shells painted there or in Britain by Vickers?

 

Thanks,

Mark

[KGB]

My Father was in the Irish army, 1950's, helmets were green.

[depaor01]

Your existing colour looks good to me. I have one that is matt black and I think looking at the maker marks it was always black. No evidence of any underlying colour.

Your helmet is missing two bolts of slightly different design to the M16.

Dave 

 

[Jools mckenna]

I always thought they were painted white.

Edited 19 May , 2018 by Jools mckenna

[depaor01]

They were, but only for a later re-use as Civil Defence attire.

They are much rarer (and more flimsy) than the M16 on which they were based. 

Dave 

[Jools mckenna]

24 minutes ago, depaor01 said:

They were, but only for a later re-use as Civil Defence attire.

They are much rarer (and more flimsy) than the M16 on which they were based. 

Dave 

Ok, thanks for the info.

[depaor01]

M16 left, Vickers right

 

M16 bolts and lug

 

 

Vickers bolts and ventilation lug (lug wasn't functional)

 

Edited 19 May , 2018 by depaor01

[peregrinvs]

2 hours ago, depaor01 said:

Your existing colour looks good to me. I have one that is matt black and I think looking at the maker marks it was always black. No evidence of any underlying colour.

Your helmet is missing two bolts of slightly different design to the M16.

Dave 

 

The colour in my picture is merely the result of a recent coat of Kurust and can be ignored. I’m currently thinking of just finding a shade of very dark green that ‘feels’ right and going with that.

 

My helmet had the copper rivets intact, but I have removed them with a view to putting a new liner in at some point. The original was gone.

[peregrinvs]

In the end I decided to cook up some homebrew green-black paint and here is the end result. (PM me if you want the recipe) I've included a German M16 for reference, although I'll insert the caveat that it has been restored and the paint is modern.

 

Now comes fitting a new liner and chinstrap. There are two problems liner-wise: Firstly the Irish sizing doesn't follow the German sizing, so I'll probably have to buy a slightly large one and then reduce it slightly to fit. Secondly, the liner was held in with three 1/4" / 6mm copper saddlers rivets, but this seems to be an obsolete size and I can't find any that big. The largest available seems to be just under 5mm, so I'll just have to hope they can be made to work.

 

The chinstrap is slightly more straightforward as the helmet still had all the metalwork attached when I bought it. Therefore it can be reconstructed with new leather. I'd be very grateful if someone with an original helmet + chinstrap could let me know the approx total length of the leather?

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

[depaor01]

I can do closeup if you need more detail.

 

Dave

[Steven Broomfield]

I feel I should say that, as a non-collector and non-restorer, I am finding this fascinating.

[museumtom]

As I recall the paint was 99 parts matt black one part green.

[peregrinvs]

17 hours ago, depaor01 said:

I can do closeup if you need more detail.

 

Dave

Thanks for the picture. What I meant was what is the overall length of the piece of leather used to make the strap? i.e. if it wasn't stitched up, etc.

 

Cheers,

Mark

[peregrinvs]

6 hours ago, museumtom said:

As I recall the paint was 99 parts matt black one part green.

I used a dark-ish bottle green type colour as the base, to which I added about 20% black. I tried an experimental 50/50 mix and you couldn't see the green anymore. Presumably the lighter the green, the more black would be required.

[depaor01]

50 minutes ago, peregrinvs said:

Thanks for the picture. What I meant was what is the overall length of the piece of leather used to make the strap? i.e. if it wasn't stitched up, etc.

 

Cheers,

Mark

Ok. 20 inches exactly from end to end unstitched and half an inch wide with raw edge. Here is a close up of the stitching arrangement which will obviously make the finished strap shorter.

[peregrinvs]

Excellent. That’s really helpful and much appreciated. 👍 Coincidentally, I think I may have found a source of 1/4” copper rivets as well.

 

Cheers,

Mark

[peregrinvs]

14 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

I feel I should say that, as a non-collector and non-restorer, I am finding this fascinating.

Here's what I started with - purchased from an Irish dealer at the War & Peace Show last year. The badge is just an ordinary modern Irish Defence Force cap badge with the prongs bent to fit, but it looks the part. Fortunately none of the chinstrap hardware was missing.

[Steven Broomfield]

Impressive

[depaor01]

1 hour ago, peregrinvs said:

Excellent. That’s really helpful and much appreciated. 👍 Coincidentally, I think I may have found a source of 1/4” copper rivets as well.

 

Cheers,

Mark

Happy days. A nice restoration.

 

You probably know this Mark, but to those not in the know and to emphasise the WWI connection, it was originally planned that the Irish government would order 10,000 M16s from Germany but the Treaty of Versailles prohibited their manufacture in Germany hence they were made by Vickers.

 

There are accounts of the last remaining stocks of the Vickers helmet being bulldozed into a pit in the 1970s to provide foundations for an Irish army building. 

 

A rare relic.

 

Dave 

 

 

 

[peregrinvs]

15 hours ago, depaor01 said:

Happy days. A nice restoration.

 

You probably know this Mark, but to those not in the know and to emphasise the WWI connection, it was originally planned that the Irish government would order 10,000 M16s from Germany but the Treaty of Versailles prohibited their manufacture in Germany hence they were made by Vickers.

 

There are accounts of the last remaining stocks of the Vickers helmet being bulldozed into a pit in the 1970s to provide foundations for an Irish army building. 

Thank you. Cleaning off the rust and repainting it was probably the easy bit, but the rest hopefully won't be too difficult.

 

I had read that. Is it known whether Vickers recycled any German machinery or parts to make them, or were they purely new build? The shell shape appears to be slightly different to the German original.

 

Arguably from a user perspective, being recycled as building foundations wasn't a bad end. I can vouch how flimsy they are as I had a go at smoothing out some of the dents in the top before I painted it and nothing more forceful than a rubber mallet was required. Were they actually intended for combat use? Were they built to a cheap specification? Did Vickers pull a fast one? etc.

[depaor01]

Hmmm. You pose some very pertinent questions. What follows is a combination of stuff I have read over the years and personal opinion:

 

I have read that original machinery was used in the Vickers factory to produce them. It might have suited the Versailles Treaty to have the means of manufacturing War Materiel removed from German control.

 

My personal opinion is that the Free State was determined that the new state's defence force should avoid looking 'British' at all costs due to the fairly recent presence in Ireland of British Army in the War of Independence. They experimented with an Adrian model and that was found unsuitable. 

My further opinion is that funds were scarce. There were 10,000 men who required helmets at the time. Just over 10,000 Vickers were ordered - cutting it fine to say the least.

Did Vickers pull a fast one? I believe not. They were asked by the new State to produce a non-brodie for not much money and that's exactly what they provided. 

 

Were they intended for combat use? Definitely. Would I wear one in combat? Not even for paintball. 

 

Dave 

Edited 6 June , 2018 by depaor01

[peregrinvs]

Update: I had rather a stroke of luck and managed to get an original 1927 dated Irish made liner for little more than what a repro German one would cost. (Which is what I'd originally assumed I'd use) This had two advantages: I didn't need to resize the liner to fit the shell and I was able to re-use the original copper rivets and washers.

 

The rivets aren't as neat and tight as they were originally, but I was rather hamstrung by the lack of a dedicated anvil.* However, they seem to be secure so I'll count that as a win. I gave the washers a clean before refitting, hence they're a bit bright - but they'll dull down over time.

 

This just leaves the chinstrap and I've ordered some suitable leather.

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

 

 

*In the end I improvised with a WWII German 7.5cm SprGr.34 HE shell of all things.

[David Filsell]

I ask only because I do not know - not to be provocative. Is the term "war of Independence, now/then In common currency regarding matters then?

[peregrinvs]

Update: I have finally got round to reconstructing the chinstrap with the original metalwork + new leather. Slightly crude stitching, but I have never done this before and it seems to be solid. 

 

I've also included a couple of before pictures.

[depaor01]

On 20/06/2018 at 16:54, David Filsell said:

I ask only because I do not know - not to be provocative. Is the term "war of Independence, now/then In common currency regarding matters then?

Just saw this now. The War of Independence was a different and distinct period which lasted from 1919 to 1921 after which the Civil War ensued primarily due to partition. It ended in 1923. The Vickers helmet (1927) was part of the fledgling Free State's later efforts to provide distinctive headwear for the new state's army. 

 

 

Edited 29 July , 2018 by depaor01