Hi,
In the past 8 months or so, I have had 2 RAF airman’s (I am CCF) cap badge anchors snap.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks
Skill issue.
Simply get good.
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This shouldn’t really happen unless you’re playing about with the anchors or taking your badge on and off all the time. Only thing you could do is add some solder to them but that’s way overkill.
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Yeah, I don’t play with them really, my first one was one I’d had for ages so it’d probably weakened
Do you fold your beret up? Stuff it in your pocket? Roll it in your belt loops?
Nope, very definitely a quality issue, we’ve had loads snap off recently (both airman for our ATC SNCOs and ATC for our cadets). They simply don’t fit in the beret.
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Yeah, it was semi joking.
My old hat had problems lining up the badge and the holes. Tried a new badge, didn’t work very well either.
I switched to a brass badge, that’s had much better longevity than my plastic staybrite. But I don’t stuff it in pockets or treat it rough
Fine for those who can source such things, but most can’t.
I try not to stuff it up much, but it may during the school day or the odd occasion. I always lie it flat it my bag as I know how fragile the cap badge is!
Might just be that. No rhyme or reason sometimes.
Same with everything in the forces, “never forget your equipment is made by the lowest bidder”.
The quality of the ATC badges recently has been awful. It’s maddening. We wait ages for a box of badges, due to shortages, and break a significant proportion of every box trying to get them into the beret on issue.
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I’ve had the same staybright enlisted aviator’s capbadge (we aren’t airmen any more!) for about 12 years now, which I do fold and keep in a pocket (not through belt loops, that’s how they get dirty and / or lost!)
I have seen capbadges sewn onto berets due to the anchors snapping, but this difficult without removing the hardened area from issued berets and is usually on private purchase army style ones (without eyelets, etc.)
The anchors do often need a certain degree of manual manipulation to fit through the eyelets and maybe some are applying this more heavy-handedly than others?
I have an unpolished brass badge on my ‘field’ beret, but that’s more about upsetting the right people than the better quality.
I was going to write ‘Air Specialists’ cap badge’ but it sounded wrong. ‘Enlisted aviators’ would’ve been what I’d have wrote though!
Correct. We have had the same for more than a few.
When i got enrolled in the church, all of us there were confused. The older cadets helped us to fit the badges. We carefully bent the peices by pressing them against our knees untill the somewhat fit.
Its normal at this point. The material isnt as good and apparently used to be metal but are now flimsier.
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Soooooo about that cap badge? Back to day one! 
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Indeed! The brass one is still going after ten years though (and I did have to manually manipulate the anchors when swapping it onto my current beret).
The breaking badges has been going on for years, the new berets have a slightly small pitch on the holes. I just gently bend the centre of the badge on the side of a desk until the pins line up, works for me. Dodgy berets and crap badges, well done DLO.
Question is, are people reporting this equipment failure through the ECI process? Otherwise they’ll order the same cheap ones again.
I’m not familiar with the ECI process, but I’ll be ordering a replacement and giving the reason as damage.