Blanco time

 There has been a bit of a dearth of dressing up events during Covid, however in a few weeks I'll be off to an Arnhem game and as I haven't had my British para stuff out since a very wet event indeed in October 2020, I thought it was time for some new additions to the outfit. 

Wet Paras in the rain.

I have a pair of postwar anklets with steel slides and I thought I may as well get some repro WW2 ones with brass. At the same time I use an envelope carrier for my waterbottle, which is usually fine, but when it gets wet, it is utterly impossible to get the bottle out.

So, one order to Soldier of Fortune later and a nice pair of repro Size 4 anklets, the later pattern without brass tips on the straps. These are huge, but need to be by the time they have gone over a pair of folded BD trousers and the top of the ammo boots. There is also a nice skeleton water carrier. The whole lot being in basic 37 webbing colour. 

My other set of webbing is 'scrubbed', which takes it back to a more raw cotton colour, and I mainly use it for Italy etc. For late war Europe though, I colour it green with KG03 Blanco, KG03 being the shade predominantly used in NWE. Blanco was actually invented in Sheffield, and the real stuff comes in small tins, and you have to mix it with water to make a paste. You can still find original tins, but they aren't cheap and very helpfully various companies make repro blanco in a range of shades in liquid form.

The bottle above is liquid KG03 from Shoot and Scoot.

The original Blanco factory in Sheffield! The first shade they produced was white in the 1880s for use instead of pipeclay on Slade Wallace leather equipment.

I usually just put the liquid stuff in a plastic tray and apply it with this chopped off brush. The last batch I had to dilute with water, but this bottle seems pretty runny so I just put it on neat. You apply it with a stabbing circular motion to get it into the weave of the cloth.

Two coats later (with an overnight to dry between coats) and it is done. You can see the contrast with the original shade on the inside of the water bottle carrier. Tbh, it looks a bit light still. I'll let it dry thoroughly and maybe give it another coat.

There is something rather satisfying about blancoing. My Dad had to do it, so did my Grandfathers and Great Grandfathers, albeit with the proper stuff, so it feels like a family tradition. The British Army adopted pre-dyed webbing some time ago, and neither of my daughters has shown any huge interest in re-enactment, so I guess I'm the last one doing it.