Hi all
Been a while since I posted and I`m sorry to revive such an old thread, but it seemed the most logical place to post it.
When I`m not in France, I spend my weekends up to my waist in smelly mud, seeking cannonballs, stud shells etc from Britains naval past. I go all over the country Portsmouth, Plymouth, Thames estuary etc etc. Why is it that all the places where coastal emplacements or naval bases are or were seem to be smelly mud flats!?
Any way..long story short, on a recent trip to Plymouth, I spotted what appeared to be a wooden cork in a hole left by bait diggers. On investigation it turned out to be a Baker time fuse, and very well preserved. After a little more digging around, I ended up with over 150 fuses of 5 different sizes. Many still have the original paint, which appears to be grey and on some red timing marks are still visible. Some still have the tinned cap in place. They range from heavy mortar fuses down to 9 sec (I think) timed shrapnel.
They are currently soaking in PEG, having been thoroughly flushed and cleaned for 2 weeks in fresh water.
Some of the larger ones are stamped with HM (heavy mortar) and what seems to be a date 7/87 (july 1887?) still outlined in red.
I have quite a few shells and hollow shot that would have been fused with these things, so Im hoping some one on here can post a few pics of this type of fuse in the grey paint. All the examples I have seen on here seem to be red and white, but all sizes of the ones I have found appear to be grey body, bare wood around the timing holes, with red filled timing marks. I have so many that I will restore the ones that I display in the shells. Even a scan of the round label that was pasted to the top of the caps will help.
As soon as they come out of the PEG I will get some detailed pics up. Along with the 2 Hales rockets found on the same day, currently sitting in electrolysis (no pun intended)
Andy