MGZ 40 surprise

[dougieboy1]

I recently bought an MGZ 40 in its carry box from another WAF member - thanks Jaegermeister

The sight is in perfect condition and an unusual manufacturer, ddx coded which is Voigtlander u. Sohne AG. The sight is painted grey.

The box it came in was painted norwegian green.



Today, I decided to try and take off the green paint and see what lay beneath.

So, out came the paint stripper and off came the paint, to reveal...



I think it reads

M.G.Z. 40 (obviously)

And underneath, it reads '2 Z III Bed' followed by serial 95197 ?? Am going to have another go at removing more paint but wondered if anyone had any idea what '2 Z III Bed' might mean??

Regards

[michaelangelo]

Paint stripper

Hello,

Did you use a paint stripper with a sodium hydroxide base or did you use somethng like toluene? I 'd like to strip my MGZ34 can which also has Norwegian paint on it.

Michaelangelo

[dougieboy1]

will have a look but I think it was regular car paint stripper. Wiped it on, left the paint to bubble and then wiped it off asap......

I had read somewhere that the original paint tends to be baked on so is a little more resistant than the brush painted topcoat......

I also tried it on the bottom of the box before I did the top......

interested to see what you find.

[Hans Zeug]

MGZ40 tin.

Hello,I also bought a MGZ40 sight and tin from a similar source, hand delivered by a forum member from Norway! I decided to attempt to strip the green paint from the tin but in the end seeing as how there wasn't much of the original German paint left I decided to respray the tin. The actual sight is finished with the factory grey paint under the Norwegian green paint which I'm attempting to remove. Did your sight come with the collimator? Regards David.

[Cincylance]

will have a look but I think it was regular car paint stripper. Wiped it on, left the paint to bubble and then wiped it off asap......

I had read somewhere that the original paint tends to be baked on so is a little more resistant than the brush painted topcoat......

I also tried it on the bottom of the box before I did the top......

interested to see what you find.

I too will be very interested to see exactly what paint stripper you used. I too have a mgz40 with a norwegian post war overpaint job. I'd love to know what's hiding beneath!

Cincylance

[dougieboy1]

sorry for the delay, it is a commercial paint and varnish stripper, water soluble, called Bartoline. According to the label, it has methylene chloride and methanol in it.

As I said, I painted it on, waited for the paint to blister and then wiped it off.

Hope that helps. Had another go today to see if i can get more of the original stenciling to show but it seems the ramining green paint on the lid is a little more unwilling to come off. So need to go carefully to preserve the stencilling revealed so far.

My tin is obviously feldgrau originally, exactly the same colour as the sight itself. Will try getting the pain of the front of the box later.

Still got no idea what the 2 Z III Bed marking means although on ebay recently, there was a photo of 2 Zug III which seemed to be some sort of train? company?