how do you make new stuff look old?

[prefetch]

i'm thinking of a couple of different types.

uniforms: how to make new repro uniforms look like you've been out in the field for a year or two?

crates: lots of fresh new repro crates, but how do you make them look weathered?

shoes/helmets: again, what's the trick to make 'em 'worn in' without running around in the woods for a year or two?

[Rusty1340]

Keep in mind that crates during the war were new at the time they only look old now, because they are old. Uniforms just put them out in the weather or wear them go play in the mud.

[Ben Dover]

All the wooden ammunition crates I ever opened were new looking.
As for aging your uniforms, wear them for a few weeks 24 hours a day for all occasions do not remove or launder them.

[prefetch]

As for aging your uniforms, wear them for a few weeks 24 hours a day for all occasions do not remove or launder them.

um...24 hours a day for a few weeks, eh? i'm not sure how practical this advice is, but um..thanks.

[F. R. Fox]

Uniforms:
1) Fade:
Use a few drips of bleach in water and wash your uniform (NO WOOLS!!) in this mix. Wash untill you get the desired faded look. Do that once daily and you will see it fade more quickly than in two years.

2) Wear:
Get a knife, and use the blade straight up and down, and rub the cuffs untill the cuffs get thin and start to unravel.

3) Stains
Use gun oil, or house hold oil and put a few satins on your garment. Chest, elbows, knees and misc. areas will make it look REALLY used. Rub your dirty hands, or wipe your dirty face on your patches. They will look aged after a few times. Your body oil is the best stuff to age ANYTHING!


Crates, ie. wood items.:
1) Age:
Light stain and or linseed oil works pretty good to darken the wood. Light varnish looks good to give it a shine.

2) Use:
Rub your hands in used black engine oil, wipe them off, and then rub on bottom corners, edges of lids, carry handles, and what ever you think would be an area of use. If painted, use a dull blade and scrape the edges lightly and flake the paint, and put scratches in the high use areas.

3) Aged metal hardware:
Metal items that are nickle plated or have a chrome look can be dulled quickly using heat. You can watch the shine go away as its heated. Sit the entire crate out next to your lawn, the sprinklers will further rust the metal and run black streaks down the wood. The sun will even the age out and it doesn't take long.

Shoes:
Most shoes (except for paratrooper boots) show up in a vegatable tan color. Get brown leather dye and dye them brown. Then use Leather New (or leather soap) and soak them in it. Then use leather conditioner paste and rub them down. They will be ready for use the next day. For M43 Double Buckle boots, do the same, but use brown leather polish on the cuffs, and shine them up a bit. They will not get very shinny, but will look just like original ones do. Paratrooper boots only need polish. Normal conditioning keeps them looking old, and preserve their integrity.

Helmets.
1) Color:
Getting the right color paint is the first step. The best (go out and buy) paint with the closest correct color, is made by Mobile Paint Manufacturing Co. Inc. O.D. color No. 123-49. Its used by hunters, and sold at sproting goods, and some surplus stores. The front says BLP Mobile Paints and has a duck and a deer printed on it. I dont care what anyone says, its THE BEST color and 98% close to the comon minty helmet color for around 6 bucks.
2) Use:
After painting your helmet, get a knife and scrape the brim. All original photos of G.I.s have their helmets brim losing their paint, and have a shine . So, scrape and flake your brim up. If the helmet has good cork texture, turn it upside down, and press down, and roll the top. This flattens the cork, and since the G.I. sits on his helmet and lays it upside down, a smoother top will result.
Chin straps. Take the hardware and use a patch of sand paper to rub away the black on the edges. Next, hit them with heat. Get them hot, and let them cool on their own. The shinny, turns to dull. Next is the cloth straps. Got a dirty face? This sounds silly, but rub the traps on your oily, nasty face. They will dirty up nicely! Make sure they are adjusted to the length they will remain in (back of helmet, or worne under chin) so they dirty in its natural spots. Your body oil will put green stains on the cloth from the brass hardware. The same goes for the susspension. But after about 6 days of sitting on top of your sweaty, dirty nasty head, the webbing will start to look original.
Do the same to the leather as you did with your boots.

3) Age:
If you have or want markings, use Flat Almond, or Flat Ice Cream white paint. Mark your helmet by hand or free handed. This gives it character. After the paint is dry, lightly bub the markings with emory cloth. The only paint coming off is off the tops of the cork. It gives it a pebbled look. Take a knife and strike it accross the markings. Scratch them up a bit. Like you dove through a bush.



Not that I have no life and devote my time to aging stuff. But Ive been colecting and restoring WWII stuff since I was 8.

[Ben Dover]

A couple of good 20 mile hikes thru rocky and swampy terrain will do wonders on combat boots, that is why I kept several pair handy back in the good old days. You could get some 5 buckle GI overshoes to pull over your new boots and add salt water to simulate sweat, five miles should do it. I have memories of long hikes on humid days wearing a poncho,that will also ripen your shirt and britches. What era are you trying to reinact?

[BillyClanton]

Another way to age crates, tables & chairs is to oil it & whoop it with a chain.
I got in an argument with a show promoter once and lost my space because it was supposed to be a Civil War suttler area and I wanted to put up a General Store facade made from new rough-cut lumber. He said, "No". He wanted it to look old & rustic and would have it no other way because all the ones he had seen were that way. I tried to explain that it was NOT old & rustic in the CW, but brand new & fresh-cut. It became old & rustic a hundred years later
Most WW2 re-enactment displays (IMHO) should be with new crates with some minor shipping dings & weather wear, but not aged to the point that they look like real 70 year old crates. The oldest gear around in WW2 might be 3 or 4 years old, max.
Also, they were packed new, shipped overseas, off-loaded, issued & opened, then trashed, used for other purposes or burned for fuel. Today's equivalent would be a cardboard box or sack.
On uniforms, I remember when in basic , all the E-1 newbies wanted their new shiny Sateen fatigues faded & worn like the "old salt" E-3 PFCs. All it takes is a few washings with a well-mixed weak bleach & hot water mix. Just don't over-do it.
Hope this helps, Billy

[Jim Gordon]

My dad had the best way to "age" his utilities, In boot camp (USMC) the boots were scrubing them with sand and soap to give them the proper look. Several old salts walked by and Dad and others traded their brand new utilities to the old salts for old wore out "stuff". When he told me that story 60 years later, he still laught about it. He also said the D.I. were fair and first rate but tough as rawhide, they were trying to get them ready!!! Jim

[prefetch]

Uniforms:
Not that I have no life and devote my time to aging stuff. But Ive been colecting and restoring WWII stuff since I was 8.

thanks fox, great advice. just what i was looking for.

[F. R. Fox]

You are welcome

[F. R. Fox]

A couple of good 20 mile hikes thru rocky and swampy terrain will do wonders on combat boots

Our modern Marine Corps combat boots had to be re-soled, or replaced after 35 mile marches on soft terain at Camp Pendleton. I can only imagine what ROCKY terain would do to the best reproduction WWII LEATHER boots

[HankII]

Marry it.

[Rusty1340]

Marry it.

Yeah it worked so well on a lot of us