Thoughts on reproduction slings (and other accessories)

[Slater]

So evidently the fellows over in India are getting a bit creative

[Brian Dick]

Longashor, Email me at bdlltd@bellsouth.net. I might be able to help with the IWS top cover for the SLR.

[Beerhunter]

Funny you should say that Beery, but according to the equipment regulations of the era, webbing was only to be scrubbed clean and the brass was to be left to tarnish of its own accord, Blanco was permitted in order to re-colour the webbing where it had stained in use. I don't know the wording but an old post war/Korea vintage CSM told me that several years ago, And when I had a chance to look in an old Equipment Regulations a few years, there it was!

While we were Boy Soldiers/Apprentices at Carlisle we were knee deep in all this 1937 pattern webbing shxxe that had to be scrubbed and blancoed with polished brassware including our everyday belts and anklets. Hopefully Frostie will come on board and remind us! Did you find it character building Fostie?

This webbing was still doing the rounds into the mid 60's until we got the 'just-scrub-and-forget' '44 pattern in Australia to go to Malaya and back in the UK well into the 70's where we still had the 37 pattern web belts

I've read those regs as well Peter and apparently they were widely ignored: "Can't have the chaps not turned out like proper soldiers" etc. BD wasn't supposed to be pressed the way that we all did it at school either - but was!

To my certain knowledge, Patt. '37 webbing was still around in the 1970s. An RE Regiment that I was with in BAOR for s short time in the early 1970s still wore blackened '37 patt webbing. It was also common Sapper practice to back then wear the '37 Patt waist-belt blackened and boot polished polished.

[Longshaor]

What Price Glory seems to be the big vendor for repro P37 gear here in the States. I don't know where it's being made, however my last order was shipped from the UAE, so perhaps Middle-Eastern manufacture?

Compaired to my genuine pieces, the webbing is thinner, the seams are stiched differently, and the brass fittings are not fitted as well (with gaps and pinching of the webbing which protrudes in spots). But I don't feel the slightest guilt in getting it coated with mud or whatever, so money well spent in my oppinion.

[tlvaughn]

Not as pretty as the reproduction sling pictures above, but here are a few slings I picked up a few months ago (the majority are 1940 and 1941 dated). This thread reminded me that they needed a day in the outdoors to be aired out.

[muffett.2008]

You certainly can rig up a few emergency stretchers with that many slings.......but if the repo's aren't strong enough the poor 'B' being carried would end up in the mud.

[Peter Laidler]

On that subject, most of our bigger workshops had an Equipoment Repairers section where there was an Ordnance Corps 'B' trade of 'equipment repairer'. We had an Australian one called Tony 'winker' Wainwright........., at least that's what I THINK they used to call him! He was telling me one day while we werw whiling away the hours over a magnolia ice cream. He was pretty good and mentioned to me that when rivetting webbing, such as fasteners, pop studs and the ends of slings plus all the usual other webbing fixings, including replacing the handles on Bren magazine boxes, that you were not permitted to cut or punch through for the rivet, you had to push a spike through and wiggle it around to make the hole.

This was because if you just punched out a hole, it would simply cut the webbing material and any webbing on the other side oif the hole was useless thereafter because its linear and woven strength had gone, totally. Whereas if you pricked a hole and wiggled it large enough round, then the webbing weave and linear strength was intact.

I BET that the cheap repops have just been punched through, weakened the weave, not rivetted correctly on the other side and this'll be reflected in the cheap sleeve part.

I wonder where 'Winker' Wainwright from Castlemaine is now.......... Are you there Winker?

[Brian Dick]

I get email weekly from companies in Pakistan looking to make anything woven and military you can think of. I suspect that most of these fakes are coming from over there.

[Slater]

Here's a comparison between one of the recent reproductions (on the left) and a genuine sling that I just obtained. The webbing on both is roughly the same thickness, but the webbing on the genuine sling seems tougher, for lack of a better term. Also the prongs on the repro are a bit thinner and the rivet heads are smaller.