My very first gas mask

I thought people might be interested in seeing the first gas mask I ever owned and how it interested me in sort of having more gas masks. So I've always sort of been interested in militaria and I think when I was about 11 years old, it can't have been too old, it must have been somewhere about I think between about 11 and 14, somewhere around that age, so we're talking sort of 10, 10 or so years ago I owned that. My mum found this in an army surplus store and bought it for me. I think it was quite cheap and I sort of thought, wow, that's really cool. So it's a Finnish M61, for those of you who don't know what that is, V2 of the Finnish M61, and there's a mask called the American M9 gas mask that they used sort of in the 1950s which was a very good mask and lots of countries either did licensed copies or unlicensed copies of it. And a lot of people keep asking me to review the Yugoslavian M1 gas mask. That is another copy of the American M9 but I have actually found one cheap now so I've ordered it because it's not a very good mask, I didn't want to pay a lot for it, but I found one so I'll do a full review and everything like that when it arrives. But regardless, this is the Finnish M61. Funnily enough, it's made by Nokia, the company that now makes mobile phones. Back in the sort of 1960s to the 1980s, they made gas masks for the Finnish army. So it's a bit of a weird looking mask, mostly because of the giant nose. Now that is just to have the oral nasal cup it's resting place in and the tisso system. So it's nothing too sort of interesting really why it has such a big nose, it's just for that to sit in. But for a mask made, that was designed essentially in the 1950s when America had it, the mask's quite advanced. There's a bit of talc you'll see in there but you've got a tisso system for both the eyes, you've got the oral nasal cup to prevent you fogging up the eyepieces, you've got good triangular vision, you've got the outer seal to the mask that gives it a very comfortable fit. So all in all, the Finnish M61 is a really sort of comfortable, well put together mask. It's obviously obsolete in the fact it takes 60mm filters. If you really wanted to use an M9 type mask in a survival scenario, all you have to do is just buy a 60-40mm converter and you can put brand new NATO filters or ABEC industrial filters with 40mm of thread on the mask. But regardless, this sort of started my interest in gas masks because it was just really fun to wear and look at, even if it's not the prettiest mask with its giant ugly nose on it. But it did really start my interest in gas masks, but not until a bit later. And then I think it was when I sort of found out you could get GP5s fairly easily because, as I said, this was from an army surplus store. Most of my early masks came from army surplus stores because I didn't know that, you know, you could find them on eBay for much better prices. So my local army surplus store sold GP5s for £20 with the filter, very overpriced, but I bought one. They sold the bag separately. I obviously now know for about £10 you can get a GP5 with a bag and everything else. Then I thought, wow, that's really cool, GP5, obviously breathing through an asbestos filter, hopefully none leaks out. Then I think my next mask might have been the Czech M10M, which I bought in Lowestoft. But after that it gets a bit hazy with what order the mask came with because it was just looking online, looking in various surplus stores, just ordering anything that looked cool. So, yep, the Finnish M61 V2. This was my very first gas mask. There's a V3 version available as well, I'll assume a V1, but it might be quite hard to find, which I think is the Direct M9 clone. The M3, or V3, has a plastic voice diaphragm, the exhale valve's at the bottom, and there's a metal disc to act as a voice diaphragm. I do have one of those, but they're not as good in the sense that although they've got a voice diaphragm on them, I found the voice diaphragm isn't very good and it can cause the mask to leak in air. Because I had a problem where they put the tower, I think it's the Finnish army defence symbol, that tower. Well, that tower was on the front of the voice diaphragm, but whoever put it on in the factory, they screwed it on upside down. So I thought, I'll get my screwdriver, I'll just take the cover off and flip it the other way around and screw it back on. But when I did that, the disc fell out, and every time I put the disc back in and tightened the cover, it wouldn't sit tight, so I ended up having to get a load of glue, glue around the outside of the metal plate, stick it back in and stick the cover on, and then the glue dried so only the middle of the plate would vibrate. So it obviously muted the voice box a bit, but it works. But unfortunately, because they put it together in the factory wrong, I tried to fix it and then made it worse. But obviously, I've shown you the mask on, I've talked about this mask before, but I am a big fan of it, because obviously it was my first gas mask and it's fairly comfortable. So, six point head harness with elasticated straps. So using these, you just grab the end of the straps, start tightening them on each side. Then we have a really tight gas mask, makes an airtight seal, but it's actually fairly comfortable because of how bulky the mask is. You've got a big space in there if you had a gigantic nose. You can aim the exhale valve in whichever direction you want, if you really wanted to. Or you could take that off. Now you can see the actual sort of exhale valve from the mask there. That's just literally a bit of rubber that goes on there. I probably won't get it back on on the video after sort of just taking the mask off to put it back on, but that's just like an aiming thing. But yeah, this is what sparked my interest in gas masks. I think it's quite a cool thing. As I said, it's not an original mask because it is an American M9 clone. But at the same time, you know, to get this when you're about 12 or so as a gift is quite cool. And it was what sparked my interest in gas masks other than thinking they look cool in films and games before that. But if you ever wanted to know what my very first ever gas mask was, it was a Finnish M61.