Otter LRC CM4647296 comes home

[James P]

This is shaping up to be another great thread. Informative, interesting and always great to see a vehicle given the in depth attention that Jordan is capable of.

[David Dunlop]

Just a thought, Jordan.

Try shining a UV/Black Light lamp on the markings as you are working on them. Different paints react differently that might otherwise look similar under normal light. Bulbs are readily available at Home Depot, Rona etc, in either incandescent or CFB versions.

David

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks all for the extra information.

I’ll have to try the black light. I’m finding that the upper layers can easily be chipped off using a small scraper tool from the wartime white paint. It must have had enough of a smooth surface to reduce the adhesion. After the holidays I’m gong to contact Library and Archives to see about getting copies of the War Diaries for 3rd Infantry Brigade Company. Sadly they are not online.

[Jordan Baker]

The original factory applied WD#. The first picture is on the left side of the hull. Picture 2 is on the right side. At some point in its life it had a spare tire mount added. This went right over the factory applied WD#.

Picture 3 is an odd marking I found either on or under the factory paint layer. I also found these numbers on the turret opening guard. I’m wondering if they were left over markings during the manufacturing process?

[David Herbert]

I think it is very likely that at least some are markings left over from the manufacturing process. There will have been a Shop number for the vehicle as a whole but there will also have been batch numbers, individual part and assembly numbers and quality control marks. If you can find good factory shots of vehicles under construction you may get some idea of what was typical. I don't know about Otters but Rams, Grizzlies and Sextons had their Shop number stamped into the hull itself and there was a correlation to the original Army / WD number.

David

[Bob Carriere]

Jordan

Taking photos at various stages of the scraping process in high res. will later allow you to play with photo shop and allow you to read the impossible by playing with contrast, color, saturation, etc. even dark ereas /shadows of pictures can be hi-lightened and read.....

Good luck

[Jordan Baker]

I may have found the hull number stamped into the turret ring. Anyone else familiar with a Otters able to comment?