EK with repainted core

[streptile]

Hello.

I have an EK1 with what I believe is a repainted core. I'd like to see if I can strip the paint off, but I have a few questions for anyone who has any experience with this:

How can I best strip the paint without damaging the cross?
Is it possible to strip off the "new" paint, but leave the "original" paint intact?
If not, what am I likely to find underneath? What color? Finish?

I believe the core to be iron. I have no idea when the core was repainted.
I really appreciate any insights and advice.

~Trevor

[George Stimson]

I have a 1914 EK 1with a repainted core that looked horrible. I took the old paint off with acetone. Here's what it looked like before I worked on it.

[George Stimson]

I just carefully daubed the acetone on with a Q-tip. Since the cross looked so bad to begin with, I wasn't too worried about what I might do to it. Still, after a few cleaning applications it looked like this. (It didn't seem like more applications of the acetone would do much more to the core, so I stopped.) I was pretty happy with the result.

[derrydingle]

I can never under stand why some people paint medals in the 1st place for me the more wear and that I been there look about it the better for me

[Mark Holmes]

I can never under stand why some people paint medals in the 1st place for me the more wear and that I been there look about it the better for me

We had this discussion a couple of years agi and i was of the opinion that :
Say some old veteran is going to a parade , he digs out the uniform all ironed and stored from last time . Gets out the shoes , a bit of spit and polish , out with the medals , and guess what . The paints all messsed up and rubbing away, seems a shame it lets the whole kit down .
So , i would assume he would improvise with some PERIOD paint and do what seemed right at the time. Give it a frreshen up .
Just one of the many reasone we came up with but totally feasable .
On the other hand , some numpty tried to make it look nicer and failed miserably. And in the process destroys a piece of history .
Mark

[Steinar]

Look at that beading... its almost completely worn off.

[George Stimson]

"Look at that beading... its almost completely worn off. "

But not by me. It was like that when I got it. And I got it because the reverse looks like this:

[George Stimson]

Catch close-up.

[Steinar]

A very cool cross. I didnt mean it was worn down by you i mean, its a well worn cross. Never seen a beading almost completely gone like that.

[streptile]

Here's the cross in question. A "KO" marked pinback. Touched up at least once, in my opinion.









The back, just for reference sake:


Moderators: I realize I posted this in the wrong section, athough the information is just as useful to TR collectors, I'd imagine (<-- and I'm one, too). Also, I think I have a repainted TR EK which I will post here if I can find it. However, if the thread is best moved, please do so.