Mk2 Ferret Scout Car.

[Mike Ferret]

Just starting off with a quick resume on our FSC. 
 

It was acquired by The Keep Museum, in Bodmin,Cornwall, from the RMP Museum in Portsmouth earlier this year.

Initially the plan was to strip it down(most of the external fittings and fixtures had already been removed).

Clean it down (a lot of work had been put in by the RMPM guys previously).

Some of the bins needed some work on them and we are lucky that we have a commercial vehicle specialist on the team, so all bins have been repaired, stripped and undercoated. 
 

It was decided to go with a 2 pack paint system and as the vehicle is going to be taken out to show etc (The Keep team do a lot of visits and shows ,so it is planned that it will go out and about and not sit idle as a gate guard). Because of this it was decided to go with a single colour so it was decided to go with NATO Green Gloss.

The spraying was done by a local profession vehicle body repair specialist at no cost to The Museum( which has been closed, for around 3.1/2 months due to problems with the grade 2 listed building) a survey has been completed and the repair work will be underway shortly.

Because of his availability we had around 3 weeks to prepare the bodywork.From the attached photographs you can see how far we went with stripping as much of the old paint off as we could.

On Saturday the spraying began and some 8 hours later the work was complete.(I was unavailable for Saturday) and to date I have not seen the completed work(That’s coming tomorrow) It’s like waiting to open a Christmas present…

We still have a lot of work to do refitting everything and sourcing items required to get her roadworthy.

whilst it was in this current state we were able to complete the servicing of all wheel stations which was a bonus.

 

 

 

 

[10FM68]

Lovely to see it being brought back to life, so well done for all the work.  But I don't understand why you would wish to paint it a colour it would never have worn - the British army never painted its vehicles in gloss NATO green.  If you wanted a single shade, which I can understand, then the oh-so-obvious answer is Deep Bronze Green in which it probably spent most of its life anyway.  Then you can have all the signs and coloured wheel nuts etc, etc you want and, still, it'll be authentic.  As it is it won't be.

[Mike Ferret]

Hi 10FM68

My initial choice was to have it painted as per BAOR standard, Matt green and Matt black. 
Originally it was going to be painted by hand( to give it the authentic look) .

They then had the offer from the bodywork guy, he came out and looked at it (I was on holiday at the time), his recommendation was that if we were going to use it on external displays etc ,then Matt paint would mark too much and would show signs of wear, whereas gloss would be easier to keep in tip top condition. The decision was taken out of my hands.

I wasn’t aware of the decision until the job was completed on Saturday. 
I have seen her in the dark when she arrived back this evening ,I’ll get a good look in the daylight tomorrow, I’m afraid I’m an ex cavalryman who is the only trained FSC person in a world of museum and infantry personnel.

[10FM68]

Well, he's right about gloss paint lasting better, certainly.  And, after all, the bottom line is that it is another piece of post-war British kit which has been preserved!  

[Mike Ferret]

I got my first look at her yesterday.

Next job is to get the wings and stowage bins away to the spray guy for painting, obviously he’s fitting things in around his normal daily work, so not sure how long it will be before they are back, I think in the meantime we can concentrate on painting the inside(silver) and the engine compartment( which took a bit of a beating with TFR when it was pressure cleaned) , it literally took a lot of the paint off.