Me and CW spotted a couple of interesting items on the SoF stall at Malvern on Sunday.
1) Rangercamp full zip denisons for sale for £160! (a bit much considering its one of these: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WW2-British-Parat ... dZViewItem)
We compared the denison with one of the uber expensive 1st pattern ones they also sell (for £250) and they compare very well. In fact I'd say that having handled several real denisons at the show that the softness of the rangercamp one was better than the slightly stiffer SoF one.
2) The aertex shirts they sell are definitely What Price Glory ones, you can even see where they've ripped out the WPG labels... lol
3) They had repro KG3 blanco. It came in liquid form in a small bottle and for £8 seemed rather expensive... The bottle had this url on it: http://www.quillinternational.com and is apparently made in several shades by a WWI re-enactment group. Suffice to say I didn't buy any at that price.
Also on the pegasus militaria stand I found a repro helmet liner. Pegasus sell them for £25 with the correct chin strap. All you need to finish it off is a helmet shell and a nut and bolt... The repros are absolutely superb... Virtually indistinguishable from the real thing and way better that SoF.
Also, I found some real windproofs. This interested me as I'd had a look at the ones that Gadge has the week before. His are repros from ebay and had a strange waxy feel to them... Well I can confirm that the real ones also have the same strange waxy feel, just softened a little by their age... 
Cheeky sods 
Im sure they had their Rangercamp Denisons on the website last week for £99.99 
(not there now)
Hi
You should of said you were there!!!
As I have no blanco at the moment my only purchase from SOF at Malvern was some of this. I will try it and let you know the results.
I ordered 37 BD from Warhorse but do not expect to see them until Stoneleigh.
I did get all the other badges I was looking for expect Hallamshire titles. My best buy was a 49 pattern BD with leather football buttons for £3 which will be the source of material for badge backing and the buttons will go on my best BD's
There was a thread in the non-airsoft events where I said I was going... 
Glad you managed to get the badges you needed... for the Hallamshires one contact monty's locker.
Yes, please let me know how you get on with the repro blanco...
British webbing was supplied in a Khaki (Beige) colour.
This obviously is not ideal as far as camo goes and stands out in all environments (except desert). It also gets dirty easily.
Blanco is the solution.
Its kind of like the poster paint blocks you used when you were a kid. It is an olive green colour (though other colours do exist) and crumbles to a powder and when mixed with water makes quite a good "paint". This is applied to the webbing to change the colour and also to cover bits that have got too dirty to be scrubbed clean effectively.
Pretty much all british troops in North West Europe would have applied this to their webbing during WW2.
I suggest doing a search for blanco on the forums and reading up... plenty has been written already and I'm not about to repeat it all.
58 and 44 pattern webbing came in a green colour so didn't need blancoing.
37 pattern (as used on WWII) was in khaki.
My father-in-law did his national service in the early fifties and had to use blanco and 37 pattern.
Pretty common occurrence.
Its why the MOD is always broke and cant understand where all its kit goes or why it gets shagged out so quickly.
Never mind cadets every serving soldier has about nine sets of soldier 95 in their spare room, a bergan, lid etc etc.
Buying stuff surplus and exchanging it for new and saying it was your issue kit and it got wrecked is pretty common.
I worked in stores for a few months and left with pretty much gleaming gucci kit and enough spare stuff that was 'aquired' (by this i dont mean nicked there is a skill to acquiring buckshee kit) to mean i could hand in my entire issue and still have a full set of kit.
If your dad was using 58 you dont need to blanco that anyway, only 08 and 37 pattern needed blanco.
"I think we are in rats' alley - Where the dead men lost their bones."
I think I read that '08 wasn't always blancoed...
Sorry, back to an earlier post,
My best buy was a 49 pattern BD with leather football buttons... ...and the buttons will go on my best BD's
My great coat came with leather 'football' buttons attached. I removed them though. I know they were 'fashionable' in the 50s and so many people, especially when using the garments as civvy clothing, made such alterations; but what is the appeal of these buttons? Did '40s soldiers wear them as such?
A Proud Member Of 'Team Spleen!' who play mainly at Gunman Airsoft, Tuddenham, Suffolk.
I'm not aware of it. I must admit this reference to leather football buttons confused me. They're not something I've ever seen on wartime BD.
Its probably safer to have GS buttons on your greatcoat. Brass for early war, vegetable ivory (green plastic) for late war.
Football buttons often came on the 'British warm' officers private purchase greatcoat.
Quite common for officers to use football buttons on 40 pattern austerity BD as the cut allowed it.
I've some pics of this taken in 44 somewhere.
"I think we are in rats' alley - Where the dead men lost their bones."
Like Gadge I have several photo references of Officers BD having football buttons used. They should be easier to undo but mainly it would be another way to look different. Maybe even trying to make it look more like the civilian ski wear on which BD was based?
Even when I was a Subaltern in a TA unit it was unusual to find two officers dressed alike. As we were an OTC officers on attachment and cadetship and bursary officers made the most of corps and regimental differences.
yeah... officers get away with all sorts of oddness
