1942 NZ-marked Long Branch No.4 Mk.1* - finally mine!!!

[Peter Laidler]

As a bit of an aside, when I was an Armourer there, I put the NZ census mark on a load of L2 rifles for a unit at Papakura. The NZ numbers were in addition to the AD/Lithgow number and were allocated from a place at Trentham via the main Ordnance depot at Sylvia Park. The rifles were crap and soon got back loaded for lack of a) spares b) enthusiasm for them and c) lack of intrerest in them. I just stamped them but in NZ, as well as the normal stamps and electric pencil (known to us in the LAD workshops as the fuzzy pen.....) we also had a hand held vibrating chisel type of tool that you could use to chisel out the number etc. It was quite a ferocious machine and if you didn't hold it tight and support your hand, it'd just chomp out divets of metal leaving a mess. Being a pom I just stuck to what I knew - the number stamps! And left the vibro-cutter to Jock Annandale who was also a pom, but a Jock pom if that makes any sense! Jock was also a friend of the late KimW from this forum. Small world..............

Jock Annandale was VERY good with the vibro cutter to the extent that he 'engraved' my name on the back of my Omega watch with it which I still have somewhere. I've never seen one of the hand held vibrators since.......... well, I have but not with a chisel at the front!

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[spinecracker]

Jock was also a friend of the late KimW from this forum. Small world..............

It was KimW's prior post on the parallax forum that I referenced earlier regarding the electropenciling, and it sounded like he had first or second hand experience regarding the electropenciling of No.4s at a NZREME workshop level. I am sure that Mr. Laidler can fill in the details on someone who sounded like an interesting person. So really the question is this - was the electropenciling done when the rifles were received and/or when they were sold? I will try and dig deeper.