No flies for the Marines

[major bill]

In another post we are discussing Marine uniforms of 1861. One thing that helps ID Marines is their white buff belts. One of the problem suffered by the Army when they switched to waxed black leather belts was the wax drew flies. The soldiers hated the flies because their leather belts attracted "such swarms of then, as to become disgusting to the sight, nauseating to the stomach and in fact absolutely tormenting to the soldier".

 

[redbob]

Being a Marine and being married to a retired Army officer, all that I can say is "No Comment".

 

[AndyHall]

Maybe the wax was tallow-based. No wonder it attracted flies. Yech.

 

[major bill]

The old white buff belts stained the uniforms with whitening rubbing off on the uniforms and the new waxed belts left oil or grease stains on the uniforms. I know the feeling. We would have "new" MP polish their black leather belts with shoe polish. By the end of the day tier heavily starched khakis woudl be ruined with shoe polish stains. We were mean, but it was funny, well as long as I was bigger and meaner than the new MPs.

 

[civil war marine]

White buff leather belts were used, what I have learned and read is that those belts were cleaned with powdered lead. Marine re enactors I have spoken to have used baking soda along with a tooth brush, they use leather saddle soap first let the belt dry and use the soda and brush to clean and brighten. it has worked for me so far and kept the leather smooth and strong. just an opinion.

 

[major bill]

And this doesn't attract swarms of flies.

 

[James B White]

Maybe the wax was tallow-based. No wonder it attracted flies. Yech.

I've been trying to find a recipe online of what might be used in the army for black or white belts. It ought to be findable, but seems it's as well hidden as military tactics and fort plans.

I do see some 19th Century recipes for leather treatments that include tallow, suet, and various fat-based substances. (edited to add--I don't remember tallow candles attracting flies, except moths and the usual bugs when they were lit, and don't recall anyone complaining about gnats or flies around their tallow candles.)

Other stuff, like lampblack, varnish and things like that wouldn't be attractive to flies, I don't think. But I wonder if it had something to do with animal fat. Still, that's odd, because flies are usually attracted to fruit-based stuff. Fruit flies, vinegar gnats, those little gnats that fly around bananas. I've followed a recipe for black leather dye that included vinegar. Would the vinegar smell be enough to attract flies once it went on the leather? I was never doing enough for that to happen, not like a whole barracks.

Can't find what I used, but there's the premium blacking here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=7JVEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA63
"Premium Blacking. Take of ivory black and treacle [molasses=flies], each 12 ounces, spermaceti oil four ounces [whale oil--animal fat--flies?], white wine vinegar [vinegar gnats?], four pints, mix."

I'm pretty much stumped.

 

[major bill]

On another thread I talked about black leather belts attracting flies.