Help please identifying a 25 pdr shell

hutchster said:
I think it will make an excellent paperweight on my desk, would it be considered sacrilege to buff it all to bare metal except for the blue tip and red band ?

I was also thinking I would get the white stenciled parts redone in vinyl after I polish it.
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I tend to be a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to such things...

If I owned that shell I would leave it as you show in your pictures, but look at some type of overall matte clear coat of an oil film that will prevent any more corrosion. This way all of the letters, marks and the like are original! If you "re-do" anything then you are removing the true nature of the item, destroying the history of it forever: please don't do that. Please?!? If they are at all rare or not, it doesn't matter, any 'refurbish' is destruction... but that is only my opinion.

Again, my opinion is to preserve its current state for generations to come, do not refurbish or alter it.
 
Now that I've been informed of its original marking scheme I will mask over the existing stencils and repaint the sanded portions back to black and try to clean as much of the black spray paint off the red ring and blue tip as possible without damaging them further.

One more question though, would it have traditionally been painted with gloss or matte black ?

Thanks for all the great info, I've tried about 10 or 15 google searches regarding 25 pounder shells & projectiles and haven't come across anything even remotely close to the info presented here :cheers:
 
I'd like to claim credit on my hobby but Armycat and I have at least 50 years experience between the 2 of us regarding military ordnance,
 
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Alright, hopefully I didn't offend any collectors with this, but I masked over the blue tip and red band, the driving band as well as both sets of inert labels and put 2 coats of flat black tremclad to cover the exposed and rusty spots.

Hopefully it's somewhat close to original, let me know what you guy's think :confused:

My next step will be a matte clear coat, I was thinking an automotive clear coat would work.

I've got a nice looking piece of african rosewood that I think would make a nice base for this too, soon enough my loose papers won't be going anywhere near the unreachable back of my desk LOL :)

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