This is an odd ad!

[rob love]

It was a rather nice day today, so after I put away the Christmas CMP 3 ton I used the tractor to pull one of the firing platforms out of the snowbank. I'll get it into the shop in the next day or two and after it thaws get a start on it. One spoke shows damage but I am pretty sure I can fix it without having to remove the spoke. My original plan was to remove the spoke, but there are a lot of rivets involved. I am going to plan B: heat, straighten and weld. I'll also get the crab legs off it, and mix them with the partial set I bought from the auction. Those are small enough I can get the individual pieces into the cabinet sandblaster. The platform will have to wait for spring.

If one goes back to the first page of all this, you will read that the platforms were a complete surprise. All the photos I saw were of guns without platform. When I got there the owner told me there were the big circles under the flower garden's earth. A nice surprise...those are not common here.

[rob love]

Some photos of the firing platform. I repaired the bent spoke, and replaced the metal underneath rather than try to straighten it. The crab legs gave some resistance, and to save oxyacetelyne I dropped the upper legs into the woodstove for 10 minutes. They came out slightly glowing red which softened up the pins and had them apart in reasonable time. Both of the "axles" for the arms were bent or broken, but it turns out they are fabricated, so it will be easy to make new ones. I have pushed the ring underneath the gun for now until spring, but will make the leg axles soon once I buy some metal from town.

[rob love]

I thought the firing platform would take a while to sandblast, but it was done in a morning. I also have totally disassembled the attaching legs and cleaned all those up as well. One pin decided to shed it's threads, but I am glad it is a fairly simple pin. I'll try to salvage one off my spare set of legs, but if that doesn't work out it will be easy enough to make.

Tolerances on the pins and legs seem pretty tight and don't leave a lot of room for lubricant. I'll polish up the shafts on the pins which should give a few thou of tolerance. Otherwise they are close to a press fit.

[rob love]

I tried to salvaged another stripped pin and the next one I removed did the same thing. So I had one left to try, and by heating the bracket to a nice red colour, the pin came out with it's threads.



I re-sandblasted everything lightly to remove any oils, and followed up with a coat of POR15 and then the Gillespie OD. I had to re-polish any overspray off the pins, and clean some of the bores, but everything went together without issue. The platform is now on the gun, although I am going to have to make up some new pads on the trails, as the platform is loose and the one chain that adjusts will not go far enough to tighten the ring. I was able to put a twist in the two chains to get it all tight for now.



I note lots of small jobs to do on the gun, like riveting some straps in place, and I have to make the wood seat yet, and also the case for the instrument lights. But today I towed it out of the shop to let the sun and heat help the fresh paint to cure. It will also let me "cut the grass" in the area of the shop that has housed this gun for the past two or three years.

[rob love]

So now it is time to move to the next portion of this restoration: the limber. I pulled the tarp off and brought it to the shop. I am hoping this will be a quick restoration. I removed the right tire which was missing it's snap-ring, and replaced it with a cmp rim and tire for now. The first order of business will be to remove the fenders, and straighten a few parts. With any luck I'll have it in the sandblast shed for August.


This was a Saskatchewan/Alberta piece, so is relatively rust free which is nice. I expect the fenders to give me the biggest problem. In the background you can just see the artillery tractor shell. The tractor will be made up from 3 different CMPs, and use a 15cwt frame which I believe to be pretty identical to the FAT frame.

[David Dunlop]

Rob.

Back when Mike Calnan was at Shilo, here was a guy in town out there driving around in a homebuilt mud truck based on a Gun Tractor Chassis. Used to hang out at the restaurant just outside the base. Maybe that truck is still out there somewhere.

David

[rob love]

The restaurant is still there, but there seem to be very very few CMPs left in this area. There are a couple of scrapyards in the area, and I suspect they may have consumed most of the CMPs. That said, there are still a few surprises out there. The tractor shell was found (not by me) about 25 miles North, resting in the bush line for about 60 years. It suffered a few bullet holes, and the owners used some sheetmetal off the rear slope, but the potential is there. In fact, it still has an original padlock or two still on some of the bins.



I have said it before, the biggest killer of artillery tractors was that rear winch. The owners would shed the shell, and weld a tow truck boom directly onto the frame. Then there would be a cycle of frame cracking and fish-plating that would make an unrecoverable mess of the original frames. I'll show some photos of a frame like that when I get to the restoration of the tractor.

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by rob love

I re-sandblasted everything lightly to remove any oils, and followed up with a coat of POR15 and then the Gillespie OD.

Rob, I think this has popped up in other threads at other times, but just to get the info here in this thread; what colour code of Gillespie paint did you use?

Someone else in years to come might be the custodian of this gun and they might appreciate knowing the correct touch up.

[Mike Cecil]

Hi Rob,

I've consulted three parts ID lists: the Sept 1943 Canadian ID list (CARXXVPRCA) published in North Africa, the British War Office ID list (CATOFIVPRA) published March 1941, and the British War Office parts list of February 1945.

The first two mentioned lists (1941 & 1943) show one side as a chain only, the other side as the chain/turnbuckle combination. The curious thing is, each shows the opposite location, viz the British list shows the chain on the left side of the trail, and the chain/turnbuckle on the right side (the same configuration as you have on your gun), while the Canadian list has the chain/turnbuckle on the left, and the chain only on the right (left & right based upon standing at the trail eye, facing toward the ordnance).

The 1945 British list shows chain/turnbuckle on both sides, for both the No.1 and the No.2 trails.

Hope that helps.

Mike

[rob love]

I checked the other Canadian gun and it is the same as this one: fixed chain on the left side and turnbuckle on the right. There are 6 Canadian guns on the base I can check and see if this was the norm on Cdn guns. I know when I was doing the work on the crab legs for the platform, the 1950 British parts manual showed me the wrong way to have the two pieces attaching to the frame. I got the one on, but the other one was off by about an inch and a half. I had to reverse both the pieces to get it to go on easily. The line drawings are not always correct.



I think the siege lamp stowage was posted on thegunner.net website, which is British. It was on their technical page but the link now appears to be broken.

Your 25 pounder book is on my list of things to order. Now that you allude to a Canadian connection, I guess I had better get to ordering.

Tony: The colour is Gillespie 33070. It is more of a ballpark match rather than an exact match. It kind of falls in between green and brown, depending on which way you look at it.



Terry: I would be happy to make your day again. Find me something else to buy....17 pounder, L5 or 6 pounders are all on my list. I don't mind going the distance or doing the work...good things don't always come easy.