Carrier armour manufacturer?

[Lynn Eades]

Richard, Rob's post states the use of Austenitic rods. My understanding is that this type of stainless steel contains both nickel and chromium. To my simple un educated mind that is stainless.
I went to a chaps place some years back and he (along with a complete running Dagenham built AOP carrier) had the remains of another AOP carrier. It had been part of a sea wall. All he had was the spider web like welds of a silvery material that I would call stainless steel.
I could easily recognise the (some what collapsed) shape of the carrier welds.
Other Kiwis will know who I am talking about.

As an aside there were 79 of these Ford of Dagenham built Armoured O.P MkIII w (welded hull) carriers that came to N.Z. Later, 40 went to Tonga. I don't know if any of them returned. allowing for two other hulls we can account for 5 of them from that batch built in mid 1941.
What ever the welds are, I could not cut it with the gas but it certainly came away nicely with arc air gouging.

[Petr Brezina]

Interestingly enough my british Mk.III had been welded with non-austenitic rods - all welds are as rusty as the rest of the hull.

[Lynn Eades]

Petr, your carrier is later production than the ones that came to N.Z.
As you can see mine is T84991. My guess is that yours is from the T167892 to T168965 block of Dagenham AOP carriers (from Nigel's book)
I believe your hull does not have the two square holes in the rear plate.
The N.Z. ones came from an earlier batch of 3443 that do have those holes.

[Petr Brezina]

Yes Lynn, you are right, my carrier is one of the latest produced and definitely younger than yours.
I think that its most likely T30XXXX something, last contract from the Ford Dagenham, but investigation still continues.
I found this topic very interesting, so take this note just for comparison - how the building/welding of hulls possibly evolved during the time.
Cheers

[Bob Phillips]

This is an interesting topic and I have to reread the whole works to consider both composition, heat treating and straightening...but while I take time to do that - here is a slightly related / unrelated thought. Many years ago I talked to an old fellow who worked in Guelph at a foundry. It was closed down due to heavy contamination and possible liability issues related to the site. At that time Bill Gregg had the remains of an old WW1 tank ( no turret or duck tail. v8 engine etc) These were the tanks sent to Camp Bordan from the usa at the start of ww2. I was telling the old guy about this and he told me that several of these types of tanks ( hulls only??) were in fact buried on the foundry site because many of the vehicles were scrapped there after the war. The suggestion was that somehow the composition of the steel plate was such that it was difficult to melt or convert into usable scrap. Anybody know more about this??

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Bob Phillips

The suggestion was that somehow the composition of the steel plate was such that it was difficult to melt or convert into usable scrap. Anybody know more about this??

I heard the same thing about the dozens of FV432s that went through the wreckers in Regina Saskatchewan back in the 90s. The smelter next door did not like mixing them into the pot with other metal. This is just hearsay mind you, I did not talk to anyone at the smelter.

[lynx42]

For Sales Dingo 022a.jpg

For Sales Dingo 029a.JPG

door hinge mounta.jpg

Drivers hatcha.jpg


The Australian Ford Marmon-Herrington 'Dingo" Scout Car was made with Australian made armour plate and was fully welded with non stainless rods. I do not know what the composition was but here are some photos of mine (No.77212) for you to compare. It does have the armour test indentations in a couple of places.

Regards Rick.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

Richard, Rob's post states the use of Austenitic rods. My understanding is that this type of stainless steel contains both nickel and chromium. To my simple un educated mind that is stainless.

Lynn,
We had a thread going on this armour plate welding rod subject about 3 years ago. I quoted then from a WW2 REME welding manual for repairing armour (even has details regarding German armour) and the rods were austenitic armour plate electrodes, comprising of 18% chrome and 8% nickel, the coatings contained special substances for welding armour plate. It is true that stainless steel rods are of the same percentages as above but to quote the manual " if armour plate electrodes are not available welding may be attempted with ordinary Stainless Steel electrodes."

So to answer you question there was a difference between Austenitic Armour rods and plain Stainless Steel ones when they were building these vehicles.