Lance corporal Rapi Va'ai-Wells and signalman Xanne van Rooyen clean plaques at the RSA section of Kelvin Grove Cemetery.

The headstones and plaques of 1500 former service men and women buried in the RSA section at Palmerston North's Kelvin Grove Cemetery are finally being restored to near-new condition.

Defence personnel from Linton joined RSA volunteers on Wednesday for a joint working bee to clean, repaint and protect the headstones and plaques.

RSA team leader Ian Bailey said it was wonderful to have overcome barriers to taking charge of the clean-up and to be making progress with the project.

The Remembrance Army was a national effort started in Plimmerton, spreading nationally, but tripped up by red tape.

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MURRAY WILSON/STUFF Staff Sergeant Shaun McLaughlan applies a recipe of salt and vinegar and flour to bring cemetery plaques back to glory.

Initial offers to restore the gravestones were hindered by requirements to gain consent from the family of each person whose body or ashes were buried in the RSA section.

In November last year the Palmerston North City Council stepped in to take responsibility, allowing the volunteers to get on with the job.

Bailey said the RSA was grateful for the agreement, which had still not been arranged in many other local authority areas.

He said many of the headstones had become dirty and the painted names had faded.

RSA volunteers had already made a good start cleaning and repainting those memorials.

With the Defence team arriving, attention was turning to the brass plaques that had become dull and illegible.

A simple recipe of vinegar, salt and flour was being pasted on to dry, then scrubbed off to restore the shine, which would be sealed in.

MURRAY WILSON/STUFF Lance corporal Michael Edgar rediscovers an inscription on an RSA plaque at Kelvin Grove Cemetery.

Bailey said one of the biggest delays in the project now happened when volunteers started looking up the names and histories of the soldiers they were honouring.

"There are some huge stories buried here."

Warrant officer Robert Clark from the command support regiment of the 1 New Zealand Brigade said it was an honour to be serving the community through the clean up.

"For the deceased veterans, it is our way to put some respect back into the graves, and make it something their families can take pride in."