Sleeve creases in new-issue wedgewood shirts: 'centred', offset or what?

Everyone Uniform and Drill
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[quote=“zinggy” post=8233][quote=“tango_lima” post=8231][quote=“wilf_san” post=8225]To say that the position of the crease doesn’t matter is rubbish, as it will be picked-up at every inspection in shirt-sleeves. And to say it’s trivial or doesn’t matter is not correct- it means there’s a constant practical conflict every time a new-pattern shirt is ironed, the damn crease will always now be off the vertical, if centred on the relocated epaulette when the wearer is standing to attention…and, for certain, the epaulettes themselves on new-pattern shirts are going to remain where they’ve been shifted to: forward on the wearer by half-a-rankslide.

This needs sorting out. Will have a go.

wilf_san[/quote]

I don’t mean to insult you, wilf, but it doesn’t get picked up, because nobody cares. When you started this thread I remembered having pretty much the same conversation with the boss at the (ATC)
squadron. I mentioned that nobody seemed to be making the effort to get their creases in the right place and he said “Nobody cares. ATF don’t care. I don’t care.” I can double check, but I’m pretty sure if I ask one of my friends who’s been through Halton recently, he’ll say they don’t care.

I think the creases should be central. It looks smarter and it’s what’s in the book. But, rightly or wrongly, it’s like the issue with flags being sewn onto CS95 in the wrong place, just too trivial for an Air Force that’s busy doing stuff to worry about.[/quote]

If Halton dont care they have let standards slip as this sort of thing dose matter in basic training if the RAF are going this way im glad I am out.

I dont like this I dont care attitude with uniform if you dont care donnt wear it[/quote]

I can’t really disagree.

But, we’ve already determined that the shirts that are issued are made to be ironed that way. And most people getting them issued iron them that way. And really, the Air Force is more interested in whether Airmen can shoot straight, look after their personal admin whatever the accommodation, carry out fives and twentys, perform first aid, react to IDF or EEF, perform GASP (both in the UK and in a war zone) and on top of all that still carry out the trade they’re trained in than it is in insisting everybody move their creases an inch forwards to comply with a single sentence in AP1358 that only someone who has read the AP is going to be aware of.

I like to make sure my creases are central, but I don’t think other people failing to do so is an indication of the RAF falling apart.

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personally i feel there is greater importance that a crease is present and correct, ie just one and clearly pressed recently, than the accuracy of its position. the difference between central and seam is by no means huge, certainly less than 20mm

realistically if the crease looks wildly out of position half way round the arm then i can understand the issue, however doubt many people actually realize the difference between a a central crease and a seam crease.

i can see the where Zinggy is coming from, but what does it achieve ignoring the seam datum and ironing the crease in centrally?
i can only suggest it would depend how the training is conducted.

are recruits trained to iron the crease in centrally, or opposite the seam, using the seam as the datum?
if the former then you’ve every reason to kick up a stink, people are being lazy, they were taught to iron it centrally and anything else is evidence (personal) standards have slipped.
if the later and the recruits were trained to iron opposite the crease then without re-training, (a classroom session on how to iron the new pattern shirt) then former recruits weather SACs or WOs or Officers have every reason to follow their training and iron a seam crease.

take the skill of driving.
my parents were taught to work their way through the gears up and particularly on the way down, to aid slowing the car
while i was very much taught to block change up and down (skipping gears) where appropriate using the brakes to slow the car (gears to go, brakes to slow)

does the new “brakes to slow” method make my parents and their generation any less capable or proficent a driver because they have continued to follow their training?

my point being if a seam crease was trained it is more than justified to continue to do so, in much the same was it is accepted to slow a car by working through the gears.
it was how the individual was taught

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Teaching guys at Halton to iron creases in the “right” place isnt being anal its about teaching discipline and uniformity which are skills that are needed before you even think about other training a bit like teaching drill teaches people to work as a team thing that are needed in the RAF, ATC and in civvie street.

This IMHO makes getting uniform right very hgh on the list

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[quote=“zinggy” post=8252]Teaching guys at Halton to iron creases in the “right” place isnt being anal its about teaching discipline and uniformity which are skills that are needed before you even think about other training a bit like teaching drill teaches people to work as a team thing that are needed in the RAF, ATC and in civvie street.

This IMHO makes getting uniform right very hgh on the list[/quote]

I completely understand that. And I do agree with you.

But on the big list of things worth worrying about, its pretty close to the bottom. The ‘it doesn’t matter’ answer isn’t mine, it’s the one given by people a lot more important than me. If they aren’t getting worked up about it, why should you or I?

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I feel the discipline piece needs some context and before it is pointed out it this is in the RN but the regs are the same and the shirts the same.

To start though out my training and the time I spent assisting recruit training the position was key and I can also add that putting the crease in the middle of the epaulette is taught to RN stewards.

Back to the discipline point. If you allow a crease to move on a shirt, a button to be undone, why should we follow the rules of applying of applying 6 clips to a door (makes it water tight) or wearing safety gear or even applying a safety catch on a rifle.

You get the point.

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As the saying goes button today safety catch tomorrow

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[quote=“zinggy” post=8252]Teaching guys at Halton to iron creases in the “right” place isnt being anal its about teaching discipline and uniformity which are skills that are needed before you even think about other training a bit like teaching drill teaches people to work as a team thing that are needed in the RAF, ATC and in civvie street.

This IMHO makes getting uniform right very hgh on the list[/quote]

i’m not diagreeing with you, and if regs are in place they should be followed…

and with that in mind does the teaching follow it? it would all depend if Halton are teaching as per the shirt (seam) or as per the regs (central)…

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You might even find that Halton has the old shirts in stock so this hasent been an issue yet… I could be wrong as I dont know how long the new ones have been out I havent seen any as of yet

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Halton are certianly teaching drill to their own spec rather than as per the AP, so who knows what uniform regs they’re working to…

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You know, before people start throwing around phrases like “button today safety catch tomorrow” (I hate that phrase with a passion) and saying its slack drills blah blah blah - it might actually be a good idea for those whom reside in towers of ivory to make their mind up with respect to patterns of shirt and how they’re ironed…

Or tell the MOD buyers that lowest bidder is all well and good, but a little consistency would be nice (think jumpers, trousers, different shades of blue shirt etc…)

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You know, the other day on the ranges I absent-mindedly put my shooting aide memoir back into my bottom left smock pocket and forgot to do up the button. What with the buttons on the new smocks being shrouded nobody was able to spot this fact and warn me, so within minutes I had killed everyone present and myself.

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You know, the other day on the ranges I absent-mindedly put my shooting aide memoir back into my bottom left smock pocket and forgot to do up the button. What with the buttons on the new smocks being shrouded nobody was able to spot this fact and warn me, so within minutes I had killed everyone present and myself.[/quote]

Well every day is a school day :stuck_out_tongue: Right im going stop with the one liners!

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after speaking to a friend of mine who is currently at Halton (flight 12 Pearson) i asked how they are taught to put the arm crease in

the answer came as
"fold the epaulet in half along its length to find the start point for the sleeve crease, this should then be ironed as a single line finishing at the cuff"

thus i can confirm Halton (or at least flights 11 & 12) are being taught the central crease position

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[quote=“steve679” post=8311]after speaking to a friend of mine who is currently at Halton (flight 12 Pearson) i asked how they are taught to put the arm crease in

the answer came as
"fold the epaulet in half along its length to find the start point for the sleeve crease, this should then be ironed as a single line finishing at the cuff"

thus i can confirm Halton (or at least flights 11 & 12) are being taught the central crease position[/quote]

As I suspected if 11 & 12 Flts are being taught this the rest of RTS will be doing it the same.

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[quote=“zinggy” post=8312][quote=“steve679” post=8311]after speaking to a friend of mine who is currently at Halton (flight 12 Pearson) i asked how they are taught to put the arm crease in

the answer came as
"fold the epaulet in half along its length to find the start point for the sleeve crease, this should then be ironed as a single line finishing at the cuff"

thus i can confirm Halton (or at least flights 11 & 12) are being taught the central crease position[/quote]

As I suspected if 11 & 12 Flts are being taught this the rest of RTS will be doing it the same.[/quote]

Ok, but: are they wearing the latest-issue shirts, which have clearly been designed to have the epaulettes sitting forward on the shoulder, or traditional shirts that still have the epaulettes on top of the shoulder?

Bear with me on this- I am not spinning bull, this is a genuine puzzler…if we genuinely are still meant to be ironing a crease from the centre of the epaulettes in the new shirts, they’ll always be wrong.

It’ll almost be as weird as having trousers ironed with the rear vertical crease exactly in the centre of the back of the leg…but the front vertical creases each offset inwards from the knee centreline by 20mm. Gash.

Look: imagine an original classic RAF short-sleeve shirt, with shoulder epaulettes on top of the shoulders, not the new forward-tilted location for new issue. Imagine turning your head to the left, and raising your left arm to the horizontal. Everything is in line: the crease is from the centre of the epaulette and is in-line with the centre of your arm. Drop the arm to a position of attention or repose- everything works.

Now imagine a similar situation with a new-issue forward-tilted epaulette shirt. One where you’ve obeyed the regs for an epaulette-centred crease, despite the shirt having been re-designed. Raise the arm and look. Well, well, the crease looks crazy. It’s run forward from the centre-line of your arm, hasn’t it? And drop the arm…wait, the sleeve’s starting to torque round, and look weird. Why would that be…simple, because unlike any other ironed garment in the history of clothing, you’ve forced the front material of the shirt-arm to be a narrower width over it’s length than it is at the rear.

This is hardly Projection of Air Power stuff, and can of course be viewed as being trivial, but why would a military pattern shirt, of a new design for Air Force issue, clearly be tailored in such a way so as to throw the epaulettes forward, and then have an insistance that the arm creases are deliberately put in a location that’s (on the new issue shirts only) unnatural, impractical to retain, illogical and distorts the material?

wilf_san

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I can’t help but feel as though people are putting too much emphasis on the idea that the new style shirts have been intentionally ‘designed’ to have the shoulder straps forward.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were simply a manufacturing error, or even a design stage error. These are the lowest bidders we’re dealing with.

Also as a tailor, I can’t accept the argument that the creases are ‘supposed’ to be exactly opposite the seam. That may be a common place to put them but it’s by no means a ‘fixed datum’ as many here are suggesting.
When designing a shirt one could choose to place the seam, or seams (there’s no limit to one per sleeve) wherever they wanted.
Creases can be independant of the location of the seams.

In fact, using the seam as a datum assumes that the sleeve angle on every shirt is identical. I doubt whether they are manufactured to such a degree of accuracy.

Whilst it might be more visually pleasing to put the crease ‘centered’ outermost on the arm and plumb, there’s nothing technically ‘wrong’ with putting it centred on the shoulder strap, no matter where it sits.

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Honestly, I doubt anyone (in any position of real authority) has put any thought into it. And Even if they did, I doubt they care.

As said before… cheaper bidder (and probably a mate of a government minister!)

I’ll get my shirts from snaiths in future! (ok no I wont, am a tight fisted git!)

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i disagree simply based on the regs

my source told me it doesnt matter where the crease ends up, providing it starts at the centre of the epaulette, is a straight line running to the cuff.
ie it need not run parallel with the arm or the seam, thus any difference between having material “forward” or “backward” creating “narrow”/“wider” portions can be removed, the crease can be pressed into place to avoid this.

personally i prefer the “opposite the seam” format, as it follows the direction of the sleeve and is a datum for repreated pressing. the centre crease seems very open to just allow it to “end at the cuff”…