COTTON GABERDINE DPM SMOCK

[SCOMAN]

I was looking for a windproof cotton smock of sorts and have been considering modding and dying my Swedish snow smock. An item on eBay caught my eye, a British army DPM cotton gaberdine smock from the early 90's. Anyone have any idea how it will take Dylon woodland brown dye. I thought with it being cotton gaberdine it'll take the colour well. Anyone have any experience?

 

[Macaroon]

I've done one of those in the past, and you're right, it does take the dye very well indeed, especially brown. BUT, and it's a big but, all the trim and stitching and velcro etc. will not take the dye at all and you end up looking like one of those Victorian photos of a youngster dressed in clothes that have piping all over. There's a lot of trim on these garments that you don't really see, but trust me you see it all right when it stares out at you from an otherwise greatly improved garment.

I've always meant to try this with both normal dye and a chemical dye at the same time, that'd work but the chemical dyes need boiling and such, and are not the same simple procedure as those for cotton.

I hope someone will come along with a solution for this, as I've quite a bit of kit I can't wear for this very reason.

 

[R.Lewis]

You can get 'I dye' dyes in cotton and poly of ebay. One of each will dye all of it including stitching, Velcro the lot. Only downside, you need to do it at 90 degrees or more. I use a steel bin over our fire pit. Did a present issue mtp smock pretty good so on gaberdine it would work great.

 

[Macaroon]

It's the changes to the gaberdine that the high heat brings about that stops me doing the i-dye thing; it just changes the properties and feel of the fabric such that I don't like it as much as 'in the raw'.

Perhaps that's just my perception of it, but keeping cotton at or above 90* C for an hour or so seems to change it more than I like.