Japanese Type 1 (Type 98/MG-15 clone) reactivated

[IMBLITZVT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eKc18qVLno

Damn, here is video with a Jap Type 98 with a bakelite cover!

[Bil]

And yet another!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFDVYv9p ... re=related These are showing up all over the place!
Actually,there is a way to find out if the bakelite is German made or not.Take a small sample (from inside the cover) and have it analysed.What the filler material is composed of would tell you . Of course,that wouldn't tell you if it had been shipped fron Germany.... ---bil

[sbl11]

hahahaha...you guys are cute. Are you a couple?

[TactAdv]

hahahaha...you guys are cute. Are you a couple?

Seth.....chill. That particular gun in those two YT videos is a Post-Sample re-weld, built from a gun that has been pictured here and was "saved". Bil knows all about it, and we'll leave it at that.

Yes, Richard i's shooting it there with all German external & internal parts except for the actual receiver, for shooting purposes, we've been over that. That is exactly what I do with my C&R Type 1 and you would be wise to, too. In the videos I have posted on YT also, my gun is sporting German parts.....just makes no sense to do it otherwise.

-TomH

[sbl11]

Tom,
You are a great person, and i respect you more than either of these clowns. They can make thier speculations, i honestly don't care what thier opinions are because what they say isn't final and is only based on their observations, not from any other means. Tom, i am done making an ass of myself on this forum, and am stepping back. Thanks for all the help.
-seth

[TactAdv]

Tom,
You are a great person, and i respect you more than either of these clowns. They can make thier speculations, i honestly don't care what thier opinions are because what they say isn't final and is only based on their observations, not from any other means. Tom, i am done making an ass of myself on this forum, and am stepping back. Thanks for all the help.
-seth

Seth, listen, you haven't made "an ass of yourself", trust me. You are very passionate about this topic, THAT IS GOOD. Might I suggest you take this passion and fire you have, this whole curiosity about the Japanese-German interaction during the War as a journey, rather than a destination. This is how guys like Easterly write their books...it starts with a fire and becomes a journey of discovery, and it's not often known where that will lead. You've already shown more direct information on Jap synthetics industry than I have seen elsewhere........

You have, in the short time this discussion has been running on these boards, turned up things about the Japanese synthetics/plastics industry during the War that I don't think anyone else has, I certainly have learned a lot from just those little tidbits you found.....so far. It certainly has caused me to "alter the history in my head", which is GOOD. It's causing me to think, to re-evaluate possibilities. That doesn't say it is, and Bob is right about this, doesn't say it is PROVEN FACT yet, but it's opening the door to more discovery. Incontrovertible PROOF takes time and research, and a lot of effort. And you're gonna hit roadblocks, people who don't agree.....so what. Keep going. Make others believe by finding that proof, the records, the historical, factual proof. Much of it is probably lost to posterity and time, some maybe not. So far as I know though...YOU are the first person in the machine-gun-collecting world to REALLY care enough, have that fire in your belly, the passion needed to make this a real journey of discovery. That's a gift, and.......a burden at times as you will see.....as you've got a bunch of that "history in people's heads" to turn aside. You do THAT with proof, and THAT is all Bob was trying to tell you. He wasn't discouraging you, just telling you in a friendly manner the burden of proof hasn't yet been met and also encouraging you to be the guy who DOES prove it. All of us have different interests, different motivations......run with it.

I really, honestly, do mean this......why not write a book on it?? Or, at least, a good article. Many of my friends and acquaintances have done just that, and there is plenty of ready help available to you if you want it, from places you never would have imagined. No one is here to piss in your Wheaties, they're just trying to point you in the better direction, where you need to take that fire and run with it.

Take Bob up on his offer for help in researching your particular gun, he **IS** the authority on that, again trust me, and see where that leads. Then, go from there......he's offered some special connections to you......that's really valuable. You just might find a whole new world of connection developing.... ;-)

This is a good neighborhood......hang around, stick to your convictions and find the proof, make it stick and CHANGE that history in everyone's heads, but hang around as you're one of the few with a gun like that and it's always good to have your input......we're just gonna make you play full-contact sports here.

You know how to get me if you need anything.......

-TomH

[IMBLITZVT]

Well, I think I was at least correct that its become an emotional issue. One thing about history is that it must be taken without emotion. I to would encourage you do keep doing more research but let the research take you where it does rather than trying to prove something. You want to "see" if they used them rather then "prove" it. Like I have said in my posts there are things I want to believe and a fair amount of the time I have to see that they are not correct. To rearch something is to find the facts, not just the facts that support your theory. We have all said you "could" be correct. We just disagree on the likelyhood of it. Thats something we should be able to do without getting upset about it. After all if I change my opinion just to keep from upsetting you, what good does it do to bother responding. If you did not willing to hear it you should not post about it.

It seems to me that the most important point is that you still have a great gun... correct receiver cover, repro, replacement... hell no cover at all. Its a great gun you should have a lot of fun with. I would be happy to have the gun in my collection no matter the cover! Best of luck with it and have fun!

[sbl11]

Quick question for whoever said they could read the Bakelite markings and determine what company they came from. Were any of these covers marked by Dynamit AG?

-seth

[sbl11]

http://cdm15040.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4 ... 881&REC=17 Neat find. the really good stuff starts on pg. 130

[Bil]

Sorry about the video-no,not a couple,just two guys here on the board. I also thank you for the info,and the above link.

Dynamit-Actien-Gesellschaft vormals Alfred Nobel &co. Abteilung Celluloid-und-Kunstoff-FabrikWerk Troisdorf (Bez.Koln) Marked DAG also 't','trf',and 'TP'.
Also used the mark 'Venditor' . two digit manufacturer number is '43'. 't' and 'trf' are the military letter codes.There is also 'tpc',a late-war code change,found on Kunstoff firearms components,that is possibly by DAG,but not comfirmed. The piece I have on my desk is marked 'ehj',and was made by Gebruder Spindler Betr.-K.G.,Koppendorf. I don't know how to add the umlauts on my computer,sprinkle them where needed.
One would have to examine the receiver covers to know if their were any made by them,or examine their product line of the time.My books only cover the manufacturers and their codes,not what they actually produced. ---bil PS-was I one of the clowns? Just wondering.Again,thanks for the info. ---bil

[sbl11]

Thanks Bil,

Yes, I was referring to you as one of the clowns because your part taking in the joke.Sorry if i have offended you, but when you no longer provided pertinent information to this topic, you lost you validity. Now that you have once again shown some expertise in this topic, i regret having said that. To me this is serious, and it is not only for my own personal gratification but also for a paper I am writing as a student at the Naval Academy. While this institution is merely one of undergraduates, i tend not to focus on the the steryotypes placed on college students, but on achieving a higher order of learning in the areas interesting to me(chemistry1-2, Calc 1-3, thermodynamics, electrical engineering 1-2, and many other classes forced on us here do not apply..haha). If you were wondering about my age, I am only 21 years old, but have had some experience in weapons and militia collecting for some time now. Obviously, without the years experience, i must pull from outside sources to rationalize my arguements and help learn for myself the history in my head. I believe that my personal gun probably will never be proved authentic, but there must be a few key s that would leave one to believe it was more likely to have been, than not. So far i have obtained no documentation from the german or japanese side, just what was determined by the american war department. But, what i have found is a basis for questioning, as it does provide interesting clues to production and deals between germany and japan. It specifically states that in 1942 57 mg-15s were delievered to the japanese in germany, and that there were great dealings with the japanese in many fields. Shipments continued and in suprisingly high order until the war became so desperate and large losses in the latter 2 years of war slowed delievery. While this is my first machine gun, i would say it is an unhealthy start to an unhealthy and addicting hobby, habit, and obsession.


If you review thelink i have most recently posted and view part 4, page 247 describes interactions between dynamit AG and japan in reference to MOLtopren and Dynal. While i am not sure what Low density plastic is, the allusion to the production of bakelite is in the following line of dynal "Phenol treated wood fiber in conjuction with Moltropren". I find that it is very likely the same forms of bakelite found on germany mg15 covers were also made from these materials. and with the 57 mg-15s sent in 1942, as well as who knows how many sent in the initial production of the type 98 in 1938 and 1940, as described in "ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT NUMBER 19" there were tests showing the capcity of the newly made type 98's to imported mg-15's in order to test how closely copied and well manufactured the type 98s were to the originals from germany. While these numbers are small making up just over 1% of the total production of type98(assumeig roughly 5,000 were made) then what really matters is the production of bakelite reciever covers. I highly doubt that my cover is one of the 57(mix and matched by a japanese kid armorer at an airfield like a kid clamping two different easter egg halfs together or changing the colored tops on his color markers) that could have benn laced on my gun in japan. But, i do however find it interesting that bakelite production was in place in japan, and german technical aid was suffiecent enough both to the germans working in Japan and those luck few Japanese working in Germany(i believe roughly 200 or so but i need to reread this entire document to find once again) that more probably than not japs produced nazi bakelite. Just have to find the molds. For that i am sending a lett3er to fuji bakelite co. should be a long times wait and a disappointing conclusion, but thats all i have now, until i can dig up the documentation(burned by the japanese in report number 19) that suggests the bakelite made covers. If my cover does have the codes needed for Dynamit AG, i will while not be fully convinced, be more conviced of its originality. If only i can get that darn cover off when i go home for thanksgiving.


-seth

[Bil]

Re: the German plastics industry-"...their fabrication and molding operations,while they involve ingenious devices,are essentially small scale compared to American standards."

The Kunstoffe industry produced approx.30,000 tons of phenolic molding powders per year.
"...the quality of German phenol and cresol moulding materials fell off about the middle of 1942.About the same time cotton fillers were replaced with paper.The resin content of these powders was reduced,sometimes to about 30%.'
From the European Technical Intelligence Reports

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ba-1954-0010.ch048

---bil

[sbl11]

it wasn't always cotton prior to paper was it? I have a g-43 with a (durafol?) marked handguard and i thought it was made of some synthetic and wood fragments or dust.

-seth

[Bil]

What was used as filler depended on the product and availlability,also what type of resin used,and manufacturer. There were 11 types of classifications,depending on what was used as filler with the phenolic resin.Rock dust,asbestos fibers,asbestos cord,two types with sawdust,short textile fibers,shredded textile fibers,textile fabric strips,short-fibered cellulose flakes,cellulose (paper) shreds,and layered (paper) cellulose.Small scale use was also made of non-phenolic polymers,cellulose acetate and urea resin with organic filler (cellulose)
Durafol is a brand name (as is Bakelite) and was used as you say,for handguards for the G43.Not all G43s used this.It was made by impregnating beech veneer with a water-soluble resin.This was heated and pressed in forms.They were used on the G/K 43 rifles produced by Berlin-Lubecker Machinenfabrik.
From-'German Plastics Practice' 1946 Laminates section see above link. ---bil OOPS-the link is in the PM to you!
This is the good part about being a moderator-I can edit posts! http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ba-1954-0010.ch048
I don't know how to make the link active,though!

[Bil]

Back to the rear cover removal.Here are some pics of what I found.You can see that at least on the German guns,the pins would not hold anything. ---bil

[Bil]

One more.Notice my hand is dirtier than the parts! ---bil

[sbl11]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

another view from right side. If you look carefully behind the bolt you can see the remains of the tack weld, yellow in color. Also the scarring to the bakelite during the dewatt welding. Hairline cracks and the removal of the shiny outward appearance on the bakelite.

[IMBLITZVT]

Trust me, this is not "serious". There are many things in gun collecting that are serious. Serious in our collecting field is accidental discharges, people shooting themselves or others, Gun control laws...etc. things on this level.

Researching and arguing on the correctness of a part is something we should enjoy and have fun with and be open minded too. I have argued that I don't think this part is correct but I would be more happy to find out that it is correct than find out I was correct. I am only 28 which may seem a lot older to you but in the terms of the MG world we are the exact same age. My advice is to learn from this. IMHO, your biggest mistake here is making a big deal out of almost nothing. Bob has been a great help to me over the years and has taught me a lot. We have disagreed on things in the past too. The key not to take it to a point where the knowledge people will no longer respond to your posts. If they know that any disagreement with you will turn into this, well maybe they will just refrain from posting...

Now if you no longer think the part is German part put on by the Japs during the war, that only leaves a post war replacement or a Jap manufactured part. Like I said before, bakelite is odd and kind of like wood. Get your hands on a known German cover and compare. If its close, its probably German... if not... then maybe it is Jap made or at least it might be worth more time looking into that...

To me this is serious, and it is not only for my own personal gratification but also for a paper I am writing as a student at the Naval Academy. While this institution is merely one of undergraduates, i tend not to focus on the the steryotypes placed on college students, but on achieving a higher order of learning in the areas interesting to me(chemistry1-2, Calc 1-3, thermodynamics, electrical engineering 1-2, and many other classes forced on us here do not apply..haha). If you were wondering about my age, I am only 21 years old, but have had some experience in weapons and militia collecting for some time now. Obviously, without the years experience, i must pull from outside sources to rationalize my arguements and help learn for myself the history in my head.

[Bil]

I think a lot more will be known once the cover gets removed! Good luck! ---bil PS-sometimes I seem older too-because I am! But never too old to learn.

[IMBLITZVT]

But never too old to learn.