Linen Thread on fieldgear

[Kurland]

Hey guys,
What surprices me is that we never come accros of original German white linen thread as used in German fieldgear. I would asume there must be lots of leftovers. Does anybody know what the specs of this thread are and where I could find some to repair stuff.
Another curious question. Was al the stuff hand stiched while the holes were already drilled? You also never see a beginning or end of a thread (or a knot). These are questions always come up looking at my stuff.
Thanks for answers,
Rgs Peter

[corporalSteiner]

linen thread is freely available, try civil war reinactment firms. non white sort - not to be forgotten. undyed natural thread too was used. four strand thickness usually.

[Gene T]

If the material is too thick to be machine-sewn, it is hand-stitched. Those holes are not drilled but punched, using a tool called the stitching chisel, pricking iron, or lacing punch. The loose threads at the end of the line are doubled over and trimmed to give it a neat finish. Given that lock stitches are used, there is enough friction between the threads within the holes keep the stitching in place, without the need for an external knot.


Gene T

[Kurland]

Thanks guys for response!
@ Corporal, I googles and found indeed some suppliers, thx!
@Gene, thx. If we take a 98k pouch for example. I assume the punching and sewing was done with one machine in one move? If not, how could a machine find the holes that were already punched?
Thx again for answer,
Regards Peter

[corporalSteiner]

Thanks guys for response!
@ Corporal, I googles and found indeed some suppliers, thx!
@Gene, thx. If we take a 98k pouch for example. I assume the punching and sewing was done with one machine in one move? If not, how could a machine find the holes that were already punched?
Thx again for answer,
Regards Peter

i believe heavy leather, like k98 pouches, were first holed using an awl, then stitched with 2 needles, by hand, using linen thread. this work would have often been done by slaves, labourers under seriously grim conditions, and ultimately destined for the machinery of death. such labour was possible by hand.

cloth pouches i say would be stitched on machines. any extras by hand (like breadbag front loops, dring leather holders on mp40 pouches, etc.) various firms are doing the same today, to varying effect.

[Kurland]

Hey Corporal,
Thx again! Wel that must have been a crazy job! Look at how may stiches there are on for example one 98k pouch! What also suprices me with German fieldgear. There were hundreds of fieldgear manufacturers, but the end-products were always of the same style, specs and details in workmanship (variations on models were many). All these factories must have received very strict instructions to manufacture those goodies.
Rgs Peter

[corporalSteiner]

Hey Corporal,
Thx again! Wel that must have been a crazy job! Look at how may stiches there are on for example one 98k pouch! What also suprices me with German fieldgear. There were hundreds of fieldgear manufacturers, but the end-products were always of the same style, specs and details in workmanship (variations on models were many). All these factories must have received very strict instructions to manufacture those goodies.
Rgs Peter

thats right, peter!
the world waits for - in my opinion - a thorough look at the full design testing and production of german field kit. perhaps much source material has gone up in smoke. and we are left with scraps. you are right, many stitches.
there is a sense that the country over produced itself. to its cost. we like the variety. but think of the time taken to produce such a wide stream of variously intricate items. trite to pronounce, but 'no wonder the germans lost!' of course ultimately the result is an ensemble of fascinating and aesthetically unique items of modern warfare. made by tragic, anonymous hands.

[Gene T]

Peter,

Hand-stitching is tedious work, but not exactly difficult. You just need the proper materials, a good cutter, some sort of clamp to hold the parts together to free up your hands (e.g., a stitching horse), a tool to make nice and even holes (the aforementioned stitching chisels), a stitching awl or two, a proper thread, and plenty of time on your ... hand! The whole setup can be as simple as the one here:




Let's not forget that mechanical sewing devices have really only become common within the last 150 years or so, coming on strong in the second half of the Industrial Revolution. Hence all those fancy Napoleonic uniforms and field gear were almost entirely put together by hand! Just imagine the manual labor involved to clothe and equip an army back then... If anything, the Germans were already an anachronism in this respect by the time the war got under way. Even while German engineers were designing jet engines and rockets, their Landsers were still being equipped with field gear that were essentially made using Napoleonic era designs and technology (if not Neolithic technology), unlike some of the Allies, who had already embraced industrial production methods for such items during the previous war.

In fact, it's not all that difficult to maintain uniformity among leather products made in this manner - you only need to specify the basic dimensions of the product (easily handled through a pattern), the thickness, weight, and tanning method of the leather, the thread type, and the size of the stitching chisel. Sticking to these simple specs would pretty much remove 99% of the variables from the end product, so that even forced labor can be expected to produce something that looked reasonably professional. After all, punching a straight line on a piece of leather using a stitching chisel is a lot easier to do than to sew a flawless line using a sewing machine!

These days, no one wants to do tedious work anymore, and those who still do cost much more than the machines. Animal skins have also largely yielded to their artificially created substitutes for common applications. Consequently, hand-stitched TR leather field gear really did mark the beginning of the end of a very long and illustrious era, in which quality handiwork was not limited to the creation of luxury goods.


Gene T

[Kurland]

Thank you again gentlemen. Very interesting story Gene! This is what makes this forum so great!
Regards Peter