As a follow-on to the discussion in the Pz III thread about wood handled tools, I found out that there’s another sub-area of importance. Wire-cutter handles! I’m in error (and have been for some time it seems) in painting this as being wood handled. I did a search over on Missing Lynx that turned up an old thread that in turn had a link to a Japanese language site with a pair of German WW2 wire-cutters prominantly displayed:
Some have argued that the wire cutter handles should be entirely from Bakelite and not wood. This particular example though shows that only the end caps are Bakelite (the deep purple/brown color) while the rest is clearly not wood but also not Bakelite judging by the color.
So, I asked the question over on M-L in relation to this and the answer I received in this thread:
indicates that the material for the wire cutters was resin impregnated cardboard and so would be the darker brown associated with that vs. wood handles but still lighter/different from the Bakelite.
So, it would appear, if you want to paint your wirecutters accurately, there shouldn’t be any woodgrain effect (or wood color at all) on wirecutter handles but neither should they be the deep purple/wine color of Bakelite except on the end caps.
I’ve seen an example where the handles were black – definitely pointing to the fact that they were bakelite as well.
Given these two circumstances, one can say that the handles COULD be bakelite. Wooden handled wire cutters’ absence makes sense – however one can’t say categorically that there were none. Very interesting info you’ve shared here.
(I’m not one to do the wood pattern an any tools much either-- it’s much too rare in period photos for my tastes)
Good point, as with anything related to WW2 it seems, there aren’t any 100% absolutes, but I think the choice is between all Bakelite handles (including endcaps) or cardboard insulator covers over either metal or Bakelite handles (maybe that’s what’s showing through in the close-up scuffed area near the base?) but there wouldn’t be any wood handles used.
