Otter LRC CM4647296 comes home

[Jordan Baker]

Found some time to paint the plate and mount it with the Wheat Lamp in place. One day the rest of the Otter will look the same.

[David Dunlop]

Well done, Jordan!

Now it will be easier to read the manuals when you are tinkering inside the Otter.

David

[Jordan Baker]

Today I pulled out the interior panel that held the fuse box. I wanted to get access to the fuse box so I could begin rebuilding the mounts for the Slydlok fuses.

What a surprise when I removed the fuse box from the panel and some original paint was still present including an inked on part number.

Now for the conundrum. It’s common belief that the interior was painted white. However this is clearly not white but a light tan colour.

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Has the colour changed due to heat? The interior white probably wasn't enamel white. It is a chalky coating that was meant to powder instead of becoming shrapnel fragments if hit, and that stuff does yellow.

My NOS fuse Fox boxes were white and the sandblasting I did on the interior uncovered white, not saying the Otter isn't but you'd think it should be.

[David Dunlop]

Keep an open mind about the actual colour, Jordan, until you have checked other hidden locations to see what turns up.

My money would still be on 'white' as the true interior colour. Don't forget that if two pieces are in close proximity to one another, moisture can get in between them and stay for quite some time. If one part starts to rust, the stain can transfer to the other parts white paint and discolour it without that part getting seriously rusty itself. If the part with the surviving number was on the 'high' side, or top, of the installation, the lower part would have more moisture contact over time, so rust more noticably.

Nice find with the numbers, though.

David

[Jordan Baker]

I’m wondering if it did change from heat due to the fire that occurred in this vehicle at some point. However looking closely at it, the colour is very consistent. I’ll see what turns up as more parts come off.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Heat wouldn't change the paint that much, and it would be more localized. My bet is on your initial observation - light tan not white.

BTW, very impressed that you found the folding engine cover. Postwar, that plate armour would have been the first or second thing to come off and be repurposed into a plow blade or almost anything else.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

Now for the conundrum. It’s common belief that the interior was painted white. However this is clearly not white but a light tan colour.

I have seen the interior paint on Sherman tanks in the same sort of tan shade. I know at least one restorer had that shade replicated.

But it is a fact that the interior paint of US AFVs is was white, so the shift in colour was entirely due to aging and other influences.

What do the records say about paint colour specification?

[David Herbert]

There is white paint in my house that is nothing like as white as it was when I applied it fifteen years ago (non smoking household). The Otter is over 70 years old and has been through a war and lived outside for a good part of its life. I understand that the paint example above was reasonably well protected from degradation but I still don't think that it can have been immune from aging.
It is documented that MOST British AFVs were specified on the order to be painted inside with paint which had an aluminium based pigment but that fairly early in the war we ran low on that paint and quite a lot of Valentines (at least) were painted white inside from new. I would have thought that Canada would have been a bit less subject to war shortages than Britain and so less likely to need to deviate from specification. It should be possible to find what the order for Otters actually specified.

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

It will be interesting to see where this goes as Jordan removes and gets behind more parts.

Follow the evidence as it were.

Adding my 2 cents, when I was gently scraping the bins in the Elliot's Otter for markings in every instance they came up white. Likewise the backs of all the 18 gauge Fox panels holding the bins to the interior armour were white once scaping down the 'patina' of rust discolouration. Some NOS interior parts (other than the junction and fuse boxes that were white) removed from the packaging did look covered in a thick 'buff' but I put that down to age.

[chris vickery]

I would opt for white being correct, the colour you have as more cream likely a washout or chemical change in the composition over years.
Olive drab paint for example is the worst for this. Look at the colour of original WW2 Canadian vehicles and you would think they painted them mustard yellow as years of sun fading.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Originally Posted by Bruce Parker

ILikewise the backs of all the 18 gauge Fox panels holding the bins to the interior armour were white once scaping down the 'patina' of rust discolouration.

Exactly my thought; Jordan you could gently srape of some of the tan colour to see if it's white underneath the very top layer.