How To: Restoration of Ford M8 armoured car US Ordnance number 7373

[Big D]

Hi all,

Just a few more progress photos along with a funny story.

The gloss white has been applied to the interior of the hull. The hull is being masked off now in preparation for the OD to go on. Unfortunately there is a problem with the OD paint and the finish is not matt! We are talking to the paint supplier now to see what has happened there. Hopefully we will have a resolution soon.

Back to the funny story. There was a major scrub fire last night in the suburb of Burnside (how ironic!) in Dunedin. It raged for about 6 hours and took out a few industrial buildings, pine trees, and damaged some homes leading to the evacuation of a number of residents.

The sandblasters where the M8 is being painted, are based right in the area where the fire was! The fire got to about 100 metres from their premises, but fortunately did not get any closer to the building. If it had reached the nearby LPG gas bottle plant, things might have been different.

The guys had to clean all the ash and soot off the hull this morning before starting the masking.

As you can expect, I was sweating on things for a while but it appears that on this occasion, the gods were smiling on me….