Am I right in thinking that the handles of the above were a red/orange colour due to impregnated Resin? Or am I completely wrong?

Here's one :



According to the caption, the handles are made of bakelite.

HTH

Frenchy

I'll ditto Frenchy on the "bakelite" - although there may actually have been somewhat different products used for those handles ("Bakelite" being a specific patented phenolic material) by the various German "OEM" supplying these things to the Wehrmacht. The main point here is that those handles were specifically covered with non-conducting insulator-type materials to protect crew from electrocution.

@Frenchy: THANKS! for posting the awesome pic of the "real thing"!

I think it really shows about 4 different important points about these tools for us modelers: 1) the "plastic/bakelite/resin/whatever" handles really were some reddish-orange-brown color (we've all probably read of this with stated colors being across a range from deep brown to orange - but not painted... the actual material color). 2) The knobby ends of the handle were actually the same material (makes lots of functional sense- having an insulated plastic grip with big metal end bits seems, well, laden with poor utility...) and color as the central tubular grip area (which should resolve for us modelers that question in terms of painting them on our panzers - no more "Gelb" or "Grau" or black or "steel" end-caps to match the tank as if they were tank parts like holders, at least for me...!). 3) Note that the cutting end was actually painted, in this case/example, "Dunkelgelb" - so one could reasonably consider painting these tools to match the tank base coat instead of painting them black, "iron", "steel" and or rusted - and there is some neat opportunity for some artful chipping and wear to be done on these... probably IMO the most noteworthy of things shown in this pic! And 4), clearly there were different styles and models of these clippers in use - the common designs portrayed in most kits are the straight - rounded-end (look like big bolt-cutters) and the slimmer prong-end (maybe a design thought more effective for dealing with stuff like barbed-wire - that style looks a lot like those used in WWI...) - This angled-head cutter would be a neat alternative - although I must say I've not recognized this type on any tank pics (but I've not actually been looking for these, so.... ).

Really COOL!

Bob

You're welcome Bob. It seems this one was the "small" variant, like the two below :


The one you can find on German AFVs is larger :



from this informative thread on ML (Looks like the caption of the first picture was wrong...)

HTH

Frenchy

Darren,
The examples that Frenchy provided are perfect. Although Bakelite would probably be to brittle but the germanns did alot of odd things in desparation.
The majority of examples that I have actually handled were made of a material that the Germans refered to as "Tuffnell" . Tuffnell was actually rolled up paper that was then impregnated with resin, and you are right in that the resin is what gives the handle the orange red color. If you look closely at photos of burned out panzers you may notice that Cutters with the handles burned away still had a metal shaft that extended from the metal jaws of the cutter that the "Tuffnell" handels slipped over. The reason for the use of Tuffnell was that it was cheap, easy, and an excellent insulator.

The pointy ends were designed for pushing apart and pulling together track links when repairing track runs on light and medium panzers.

Not to be a "high-jacker" of this thread, but do we have references of the rest of the tools carried by a larger panzer?
Rick

Using Tuffnell (a type of papier mache by the way) also meant more scarce resources were then available for other uses.

The DeHavilland "Mosquito" bomber was mainly of wood for a similar reason.
The volume of metal components needed was low relative to a conventionally built aircraft.

Peter.

Thanx guys. You've been a great help