Making new kit look old

It's perfectly feasible that you would have a "clean shirt" in your clothing bag or even stuffed in a gas mask tin etc. Soldiers even today tend to wash clothing items - especially underwear, socks and shirts - as often as possible for obvious reasons. I have photos of friends and comrades in Afghanistan arseing about in rivers and Wadis - getting a bath and at the same time washing their skids and lightweights. I know of a unit of Welsh Guards who had to run out in only boots helmets and shirts to fire a salvo of mortars to support an operation in double quick time because a snag was unexpectedly encountered and they were the nearest battery to the action!!!!! They were in the middle of washing their smalls at the time!!!!!!

My advice is just wear it - and in time it will fade in with the rest of your kit.

Bah, my suggestion is... just wear the M43 and sweat a bit... Take plenty of liquids and you'll be fine! hehe.

Then at the risk of sounding like a grumpy git....

Are you just open day skirmishing or doing WWII. If you're doing WWII forget the 'tactical' 'everything needs to be good camo' mentality.

The US army especially was critically ignorant of good personal camoflage drills on the whole in WWII

(E.g. helmets were very rarely netted and nearly never scrimmed, applying camouflage locally just didnt happen unlike the brits and the germans who knew how to break up an outline having had three years more painful experience of modern manouvre warfare skirmishing and similarly unlike the british blacked out or cammed faces and hands was pretty rare)

There are exceptions like spray painted para uniforms, the short lived camo uniforms worn by 2nd Armored and the blacked faces of paras but on the whole I don't think the USA took 'better camouflage' very seriously in NWE so having new shirt isnt really that much of a worry.

I only say this as for me part of the WWII skirmishing mindset is to try and get away from 'tactical, cammed, efficient, layer principle' modern airsoft/military philosophy and get into the 1940s 'live in a wool suit in both July and January' mentality.

While I agree with most of what's been said, here's some practical advice for making kit look used, because that was the request after all !

In roughly this order...

Soak it in a weak bleach solution - a cap or two of bleach in a bucket of water or a sink. Don't go overboard with the bleach because there's no going back ! Also don't soak it for long as bleach will weaken fabric.

Hang it on the clothes line outside and spray bleach solution onto it using an atomiser - like a play watering mist spray gun. That way yo can concentrate on the places where you would see sun bleaching - the shoulder, elbows, etc.

A slower process is to use lemon juice and hang it in the sunshine for a few days.

Rough up the edges of the cuffs, collars and pockets and also the elbows with something abrasive - cheese grater, sand paper, etc. You can go as gentle or as hard as you want here.

If you have an airbrush, this is the best tool for the job. Airbrush layers of brown and black onto the cuffs, collar, elbows and other parts that would see dirt.

As a general rule, think about where kit would actually receive a battering - the stress points like pockets, cuffs, elbows, knees etc are the points you need to concentrate on to make it look real.

or just use it...

Roll around in the mud... etc...

If you have an airbrush, this is the best tool for the job. Airbrush layers of brown and black onto the cuffs, collar, elbows and other parts that would see dirt.
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For 'zombie' haloween costumes in the past I've found a similar (and slightly cheaper if you dont have an airbrush effect) can be had by 'dusting' clothes lightly from about three foot or more away with black car primer spray paint.... again, like the bleach no going back so start off far away and do light broads strokes and build it up slowly.

I agree totally with Yith but you're never going to get it to look 'worn' as it would be after even two months of wartime use (living in it daily) unless you spend all weekend rolling around your rockery

The only problem with the 'wear it and use it' argument (which as said I wholly subscribe to) is that it takes about ten years of airsoft and re-enacting use to make something look like its had a few months of frontline use!

"I think we are in rats' alley - Where the dead men lost their bones."

 

Not to good for Sunday, but I wear my trousers, shirts etc while I'm doing work in the Garden etc. I then just give it a wash, after a few wear's, on a cold setting so the stains stay but not to smelly. It just speeds up the process Gadge is talking about.

According to what I have read on the DAK, new hands would dip their bright new caps and tunics in petrol and let the petrol bleach the items, then 'wash' out the petrol to give an 'old hands' look, but their white knees still gave them away. I am not advising to do that, just commenting on what some soldiers got up to.......

I think it was a mixture of petrol, salt water and chorine tablets the DAK used to bleach their caps. A salt water & petrol mix can work speed up the bleaching process though. Its what I've used on mine but it still takes a while to take effect.

And no smoking.