Ridire Firean
Sr Member
Episode I : A NEW GIFT
A long time ago in a field far,
far away....
It is a period of exceptional generostity.
Rebel collectors, sending from a hidden base,
have won their first victory against
the daunting challenge ahead.
During the first cleaning, a Rebel technician
managed to separate not one, but two windvanes,
from the ultimate prop, the Hales Grenade,
a corroded relic from WWI with enough rust
to destroy an entire thread ring.
Persuaded by forces unknown, Chris
Teecrooz boxed and sent the elusive
parts, custodian of good will throughout
the galaxy, to begin anew the mighty quest....
Some excerpts from my thank-you email to Chris....
I'm surprised by how light weight the grenade body is. And by how much nicer it is in person, it's going to clean up great I think! That thing sure doesn't photograph well does it!? The pictures made it look as though it was missing more of the cubes than it really is. Other than the threads, she's in pretty decent shape for having been through 100 years out in whereever it was found. Probably through two World Wars, that's amazing. Speaking of which, do you know anything about it's provenance?
I think I'll tackle the sulfur looking stuff on the firing pin of the one windvane first. In part to make sure I'm calm when addressing the grenade body and don't go too far too fast and make a mistake cleaning it. And also because it looks a wee bit dangerous.
I finally got word back from another shop in Britain with a Hales Grenade, too risky to ship to the USA he said, so, I'm ever more thankful that you've given so generously something that I think I'll have a dreadful time acquiring on my own.
I've got a lead on an ANM2 booster... for $950.00. I 'bout fell out of my chair when I read that quote in my email. I don't know how you guys have done it.
Found three sets of Armitage Shanks faucets two days ago... all really close, but not quite correct.
So, I'm a lookin'! It's tiring though. My eyes usually hurt after scrolling the internet for the better part of a day. It's no wonder everyone who has completed their Real-Parts-Obi Wan Kenobi-Lightsaber seems to have a euphoric jubilation about presenting their prop to the world on TheRPF and elsewhere.
I look forward to the day it is my opportunity to do so too. And to tomorrow when I have enough energy to begin my W.I.P. thread.
Thank you for the first step up the mountain! This is a wonderful start to a very special journey.
I received my special gift last night after an overly long day at work and after dinner spent most of the night 'till about 3:23AM this morning continuing my research on how to clean rust from steel and corrosion from brass. Thanks to Dustin's @newmagrathea video series which I watched several weeks ago, I had a pretty decent idea of how to procede and began to formulate my game plan for today as I began to nod off in front of the computer. I stumbled off to bed hoping for a good night's sleep. Of course when I woke up this morning at 8:30AM having to pee, I went to the bathroom and never seemed to have made it back to bed. So, there went the "make sure you're fully rested" part of the plan. Instead, I ended up in the basement with all of the Hales Grenade parts, my trusty ol' repurposed sharpened dental pick, a bottle of vinegar, a couple of glass jars, a bottle of Wright's All Purpose Brass Polish, a can of Copper Glo, a can of BON-AMI, and a can of NEVER-DUL. Ya know, after standing around in a cold basement for 4-5 hours in nothing but sock-feet, a long-sleeve t-shirt and boxers... I thanked the Force that the doorbell rang, and I finally had a chance to put some pants on when I came back upstairs. Maybe T.M.I., but hey, if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about, and I'm probably more beat right now than I was when I got home last night. I did get a lot done though!
The grenade body cleaned up lickadee split! Yep, started right in on it first, totally "scrubbing" the plans made last night. Maybe a half hour of picking at it to clean off the rust clumps that had accumulated in between the cubes, a quick steel bristle brush brushing, then over to the tub basin to scrub it with an old toothbrush and some vinegar. Stained the Sith out of the toothbrush! But cleaned the steel grenade body surprisingly well.
I set that aside after a rinse and dry and began to try and separate all the windvane parts from themselves. I hit them with a mixture of vinegar, Wright's, and Copper Glo, starting slowly with it on a toothbrush to see what effect it might have on loosening the corrosion holding the cotter pin sleeve in place. That has to come off first, so that the windvane blades can spin off of their threaded section, exposing the two steel pins that hold the firing pin in place. I slowly tried twisting the sleeves left and right and up and down, more like wiggling them, to loosen up whatever it was that was preventing them from turning and sliding off out of their slots in the windvanes' necks. The first one, the one with the wrench marks on the windvane neck, and the ring around the blades still intact, wasn't having any part of letting go of its cotter pin. Once I was able to tap it free with the toothbrush it came apart fairly easily with a bit of tug after I felt the hidden tab find its slot to freedom. The ochre colored, sulfur looking one, it's cotter pin came right out no problem but the sleeve wouldn't budge! I studied the sleeve from the other windvane and determined it only needed to turn an eigth of an inch and it would be aligned with the slot to pull it off, but it was only moving 1/32" at best. I continued to clean it and drizzle it with solution with the toothbrush, and gave up on it for a bit before becoming frustrated and took the grenade body up to the garage to WD-40 it. HA! I guess I did make it upstairs before the door rang, it was even colder in the garage though, I don't know how I could have forgotten that!!! Anywho, I wrapped it up in the paper towel I was guarding against overspray with and left it out there to soak in the oil. I had brought up the ochre windvane parts and WD-40'd them too to see what effect it would have on loosening whatever it was within its sleeve that was preventing the sleeve from coming off. Don't ask me how, I don't think it ever did turn that last 1/8", but when I pulled on it and it came off! I shook the windvane as I had the other one, basically attacking the steel pins from within using the firing pin as a tally-whacker and knocked both pins loose. Brought the windvane parts back downstairs and continued to clean them with the Wright's Brass Polish and Copper Glo.
Boy howdy! Do those old firing pins shine up nice and bright! I wish the entire grenade had been made out of brass!!! This part of the project would be complete if it was. Well, no, I take that back. The "protected" parts of brass have cleaned up like they're brand new, the exposed parts are being a pain in the "brass"! Something tells me they weren't very careful with the metallurgy when forging (yes I know it's a wartime grenade - but still) the metals used in the windvane neck and blade ring. They're brass, best I can tell, but there's some copper in there too. Or at least there was some copper ore in the ground that they were buried in because there's green corrosion on both parts that's a doozy to get off.
Speaking of which, I need to go check on the broken one, (OH yeah, I forgot, before I got the sleeve off of the ohcre colored windvane, I noticed while cleaning it that the threaded section that goes into the grenade body isn't perpendicular to the windvane trunk. The more I cleaned it I discovered a crack where the trunk meets the "plate". So, that sucks a bit, I had planned to use that one in my build. Maybe I can heat it and knock it back to square?) as it's still downstairs in the solution jar.
O.K. off to do that and finally get a shower, I kinda smell like vinegar, ammonia and Copper Glo.
Thank you again Chris @teecrooz for starting me off with the first piece of my REAL PARTS OBI-WAN KENOBI LIGHTSABER BUILD!!!! It feels so cool to say that.
A long time ago in a field far,
far away....
It is a period of exceptional generostity.
Rebel collectors, sending from a hidden base,
have won their first victory against
the daunting challenge ahead.
During the first cleaning, a Rebel technician
managed to separate not one, but two windvanes,
from the ultimate prop, the Hales Grenade,
a corroded relic from WWI with enough rust
to destroy an entire thread ring.
Persuaded by forces unknown, Chris
Teecrooz boxed and sent the elusive
parts, custodian of good will throughout
the galaxy, to begin anew the mighty quest....
Some excerpts from my thank-you email to Chris....
I'm surprised by how light weight the grenade body is. And by how much nicer it is in person, it's going to clean up great I think! That thing sure doesn't photograph well does it!? The pictures made it look as though it was missing more of the cubes than it really is. Other than the threads, she's in pretty decent shape for having been through 100 years out in whereever it was found. Probably through two World Wars, that's amazing. Speaking of which, do you know anything about it's provenance?
I think I'll tackle the sulfur looking stuff on the firing pin of the one windvane first. In part to make sure I'm calm when addressing the grenade body and don't go too far too fast and make a mistake cleaning it. And also because it looks a wee bit dangerous.
I finally got word back from another shop in Britain with a Hales Grenade, too risky to ship to the USA he said, so, I'm ever more thankful that you've given so generously something that I think I'll have a dreadful time acquiring on my own.
I've got a lead on an ANM2 booster... for $950.00. I 'bout fell out of my chair when I read that quote in my email. I don't know how you guys have done it.
Found three sets of Armitage Shanks faucets two days ago... all really close, but not quite correct.
So, I'm a lookin'! It's tiring though. My eyes usually hurt after scrolling the internet for the better part of a day. It's no wonder everyone who has completed their Real-Parts-Obi Wan Kenobi-Lightsaber seems to have a euphoric jubilation about presenting their prop to the world on TheRPF and elsewhere.
I look forward to the day it is my opportunity to do so too. And to tomorrow when I have enough energy to begin my W.I.P. thread.
Thank you for the first step up the mountain! This is a wonderful start to a very special journey.
I received my special gift last night after an overly long day at work and after dinner spent most of the night 'till about 3:23AM this morning continuing my research on how to clean rust from steel and corrosion from brass. Thanks to Dustin's @newmagrathea video series which I watched several weeks ago, I had a pretty decent idea of how to procede and began to formulate my game plan for today as I began to nod off in front of the computer. I stumbled off to bed hoping for a good night's sleep. Of course when I woke up this morning at 8:30AM having to pee, I went to the bathroom and never seemed to have made it back to bed. So, there went the "make sure you're fully rested" part of the plan. Instead, I ended up in the basement with all of the Hales Grenade parts, my trusty ol' repurposed sharpened dental pick, a bottle of vinegar, a couple of glass jars, a bottle of Wright's All Purpose Brass Polish, a can of Copper Glo, a can of BON-AMI, and a can of NEVER-DUL. Ya know, after standing around in a cold basement for 4-5 hours in nothing but sock-feet, a long-sleeve t-shirt and boxers... I thanked the Force that the doorbell rang, and I finally had a chance to put some pants on when I came back upstairs. Maybe T.M.I., but hey, if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about, and I'm probably more beat right now than I was when I got home last night. I did get a lot done though!
The grenade body cleaned up lickadee split! Yep, started right in on it first, totally "scrubbing" the plans made last night. Maybe a half hour of picking at it to clean off the rust clumps that had accumulated in between the cubes, a quick steel bristle brush brushing, then over to the tub basin to scrub it with an old toothbrush and some vinegar. Stained the Sith out of the toothbrush! But cleaned the steel grenade body surprisingly well.
I set that aside after a rinse and dry and began to try and separate all the windvane parts from themselves. I hit them with a mixture of vinegar, Wright's, and Copper Glo, starting slowly with it on a toothbrush to see what effect it might have on loosening the corrosion holding the cotter pin sleeve in place. That has to come off first, so that the windvane blades can spin off of their threaded section, exposing the two steel pins that hold the firing pin in place. I slowly tried twisting the sleeves left and right and up and down, more like wiggling them, to loosen up whatever it was that was preventing them from turning and sliding off out of their slots in the windvanes' necks. The first one, the one with the wrench marks on the windvane neck, and the ring around the blades still intact, wasn't having any part of letting go of its cotter pin. Once I was able to tap it free with the toothbrush it came apart fairly easily with a bit of tug after I felt the hidden tab find its slot to freedom. The ochre colored, sulfur looking one, it's cotter pin came right out no problem but the sleeve wouldn't budge! I studied the sleeve from the other windvane and determined it only needed to turn an eigth of an inch and it would be aligned with the slot to pull it off, but it was only moving 1/32" at best. I continued to clean it and drizzle it with solution with the toothbrush, and gave up on it for a bit before becoming frustrated and took the grenade body up to the garage to WD-40 it. HA! I guess I did make it upstairs before the door rang, it was even colder in the garage though, I don't know how I could have forgotten that!!! Anywho, I wrapped it up in the paper towel I was guarding against overspray with and left it out there to soak in the oil. I had brought up the ochre windvane parts and WD-40'd them too to see what effect it would have on loosening whatever it was within its sleeve that was preventing the sleeve from coming off. Don't ask me how, I don't think it ever did turn that last 1/8", but when I pulled on it and it came off! I shook the windvane as I had the other one, basically attacking the steel pins from within using the firing pin as a tally-whacker and knocked both pins loose. Brought the windvane parts back downstairs and continued to clean them with the Wright's Brass Polish and Copper Glo.
Boy howdy! Do those old firing pins shine up nice and bright! I wish the entire grenade had been made out of brass!!! This part of the project would be complete if it was. Well, no, I take that back. The "protected" parts of brass have cleaned up like they're brand new, the exposed parts are being a pain in the "brass"! Something tells me they weren't very careful with the metallurgy when forging (yes I know it's a wartime grenade - but still) the metals used in the windvane neck and blade ring. They're brass, best I can tell, but there's some copper in there too. Or at least there was some copper ore in the ground that they were buried in because there's green corrosion on both parts that's a doozy to get off.
Speaking of which, I need to go check on the broken one, (OH yeah, I forgot, before I got the sleeve off of the ohcre colored windvane, I noticed while cleaning it that the threaded section that goes into the grenade body isn't perpendicular to the windvane trunk. The more I cleaned it I discovered a crack where the trunk meets the "plate". So, that sucks a bit, I had planned to use that one in my build. Maybe I can heat it and knock it back to square?) as it's still downstairs in the solution jar.
O.K. off to do that and finally get a shower, I kinda smell like vinegar, ammonia and Copper Glo.
Thank you again Chris @teecrooz for starting me off with the first piece of my REAL PARTS OBI-WAN KENOBI LIGHTSABER BUILD!!!! It feels so cool to say that.
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