Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Bradshaw
To Bruce and the rest of you with interest in the history of this hull.
I was told this story by Mike, the guy who I bought this old hull from. As with all oral histories, take it for half truth and supposition.
The vehicle was a prototype and was being shown around by the company making it, trying to find buyers. This particular hull was shipped to Canada for presentation to the Canadian army. Presumably this was done in the Ottawa or Borden area around 1950-52. The vehicle was not impressive to the reviewing officers and was not accepted for further trials.
Presumably the vehicle was at the end of its life already since it was not going well finding a buyer. It was cheaper to leave it here in Canada as scrap then to ship it home to England. It went to a scrap yard. It was bought by an unknown party and chopped of all armor, then used as a bush machine. At some point they blew the transmission and it was a dead machine.
It was taken to a scrap yard outside Perth ON and dropped there for destruction. The owner of the yard didn't destroy it he just kept it out back.
Around 1983 it was rescued from the scrap yard by Mike Calnan, (of the Swords and Ploughshares museum) a fellow collector of old iron. He brought it to his yard where it sat beside many other old rusty pieces of treasure. There is a picture back in the previous posts of what it looked like when I found it.
I bought it in Oct of 2017. Brought it home and parked it for future consideration. I finished my Vickers reproduction and then a CMP water truck. Now I have gotten around to making this old machine work again.
That's how it came to be mine. There are no hull numbers that I can find, only part numbers. It is interesting since this was a prototype you can see how they welded different parts on for different trials. Stuff isn't square and isn't event the same thickness. Instead of nice drilled holes for the horn wire they torch cut it through the armor. In one spot they doubled up the armor with just some shitty stick welding. The fire wall isn't even square with the hull!
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Thanks Jon, that's interesting. With regard to the poor welds and such: so a Canadian Tire wire welder and a small order from the Metal Supermarket and it will be as good as new?