Rootes75

Thats a good tip Richard. Done plenty of welding on our previous restorations but like I said the old welder handled thin stuff really well. Its this new cheap one that simply isnt up to the job. I will try anything to make it work, so will find myself out some copper sheet at work.

We tried the cheap gasless Mig we bought today, absolute rubbish for welding bodywork. Even on the lowest settings you cannot stop burn through on 1mm. We managed to weld a couple sections in but the finish is awful as I had to keep puddle welding burn throughs on the original material. My old Gasless Mig never had this problem.

Out of interest and looking at the quality of your welding can I ask what welding set up you have?

Its coming along very nicely. My welder has bust just as we started fabricating repairs on the Commer. I have for now ordered a very cheap gasless Mig that has been recomended by a few classic car friends. I thought lets give it a go and see what happens!

Superb work!

I like the look of the M19 Tank Transporter....

Lovely truck and what a great rescue story! Its always good to hear something is saved rather than being left to rot or gets cut up.

Glad to hear its been saved!

Thats a lot of scraping required but I would agree that its quicker than rubbing down. We have found where the older paint has been applied in very thick coats rubbing down can take ages so we tend to use a very wide sharp chisel and sometimes a domestic wallpaper striper/scraper.

Progress has been a slow over the last month, we had Beaulieu, then Westonzoyland warag, then the West Somerset Railway 1940's event and then this weekend Tankfest! So with no weekends free I have just spent the odd evening finishing off the chassis. The chassis and running gear are all fully primed now, so its onto the cab. Plenty of rubbing down has been done already but there is still a lot to go. Also there is plenty of welding required, the front wings need new patches, the bonnet has major rot all alongside the passenger side, the rear cab central mounting is shot and the passenger door needs re-skinning. Some assistance from my youngest, he is actually quite keen on rubbing down. He wants to learn how to spray so I am going to let him have a go priming some of the smaller parts, steps/bonnet sides etc when we get round to it.

Went to TankFest yesterday, had a good look at this White Scout Car in the museum.

I recall seeing a photo of one of these in use recently on Fb, I will see if I can dig out he photo.

The canvas for our Commer is on order from RCH, they have a long waiting list which straight away told me they were well thought of!

What a superb looking piece of kit, the quality of work is such a high standard.

Thats a really nice project.

That is a very good point, at a time when raw material was in such short supply why wasn't it all just weighed in??

If she runs fine I would probably leave it as is, at some point she has been modified and that just adds to her history in a way. You would not know the difference if the bonnet is closed.

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/historics/catalogue-id-historics10015/lot-e2cc80f8-c2d0-4bec-98e8-ada200a19cb7

There are a lot of wartime or late 30s cars being painted up as staff cars. Only last weekend a chap was telling me he had just bought a 1936 Hillman Minx and he had decided to paint it 'RAF blue' and badge it up. In a few years time someone I am sure will claim its authentic.

That is impressive, great to see a vehicle doing what it was intended for.

We went down to Beaulieu on the Saturday, the Tilling Charabang took our eye and we did have a look round it. IIRC it got up around £20k ish.

Thats a very good and informative post. Thank you.

I did see there is a video on Youtube of this, lots of interest for car collectors.

I often wondered if that were why so many Poles took up residence here in the UK, the fact that we were close allies during the war?

That's a good long list of finds. I have had some parts imported from New Zealand in the past, they are much cheaper over there and even with shipping costs the price is much cheaper than buying over here in the UK.