WW1 mills practice

[tigbrand]

Hi, I have bought a few rusty relic mills bodies, believed ww1 and found on a training ground. They are all broken in some way and most have a fine cement/ plaster fill. They are I guess for throwing practice and some are unfinished with filler or base plug holes unthreaded. They are all pretty rusty but are cleaning up well in high strength phosphoric acid. Question is, some seem to be showing remains of a red oxide, red lead finish which is easily rubbed off as the rust is being removed. This wasn't obvious in there original state.
Is this how they would have been or is this a base layer? It's not just the dissolved rust as some don't have this. I will add pictures later.
Funny how cleaning them up is a lot more fun than looking at the mint items in my collection that have probably never left a store! TIG.

 

[Millsman]

A few years ago I was shown a WW1 Mills that was found in the old practice trenches not far from Shorncliffe barracks outside Folkestone. It was filled with softish cement, like a lime mix. So clearly there were some home made throwing practice grenades made on camp. It wasn't painted but that's not to say others were not.

 

[tigbrand]

Hi John thank you for replying. Here are a few pictures of some of them. I think your description for the fill matches these exactly. The paint shows well whilst they were wet. It shows on the inside so was applied before the filling was added. TIG.

 

[Millsman]

The one I saw was very similar to the grenades in your pictures. Same sort of filling.

 

[Millsman]

Here's a photo of the Shorncliffe Throwing Practice Mills. Found in 2014. Very similar to Tigbrand's examples.

 

[tigbrand]

Funny how that's broken too. The chap I got mine off thought they had been smashed up, I reckon the fill has swelled up and cracked the casting. Thanks for the picture. Cheers Tig

 

[Fubar447]

Yes it is a dry cement and Lime mix we used to see the on old ranges in Australia

 

[Millsman]

Yes it is a dry cement and Lime mix we used to see the on old ranges in Australia

Yes, when I saw it, it looked like an old bricklaying mix.