Gun slings

120mm kits usually include lead foil.  

Heavier gauge foil, like the stuff off some wine bottles works good. I cut long thin strips then guesstimate what I’ll need for a particular job, cut a length, test fit, and finally trim as needed before I glue it into place. 

A pricier alternative is to get pre made photo etch slings. 

Oh yeah, one more thing, in military terms a gun is a crew served weapon... Most guns don’t have slings. 

"This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun".

I use lead foil to make rifle slings. I still have a couple of sheets of the Verlinden stuff, not sure who else does it.

Many bottles Of wine have a metal hood over the cork.   

Step one: enjoy the wine. 
Step two: work on the model. The wine helps you not stress over things

For some slings, at 1/35 you can, sometimes, get by with Heavy Duty foil (but it needs to be the actual kitchen supply store heavy stuff, not the grocery store stuff that's only 0.001 thicker than stock foil).  You want a very sharp blade to make the cuts.  A curved edge sometimes works better than a point.  You want a hard surface--bit of glass or a glazed ceramic tile--so as to not curl an edge. 

Person of an age to work with I&R or Historex figures will remember the ±0.015 plasticard for making belts and slings.  Which was flimsy stuf to try and make loops in.

I took calipers to my 1942 dated M1905 leather sling, the leather is right at 3/16" thick and has a number of loops and hooks.  At 1:35, 3/16" is 0.0058" (0.15mm).  The M-1936 cloth sling is about the same thickness, if simpler for only having a loop at either end.

The sling on Moisin-Nagant rifles whas much skinnier, in width and thickness.  A person would be forgiven for just using Tamiya masking tape for those.  Especially as the connections were all skinny leather loops, not metal clips or snaps.

British rifles used a form of the Kerr NoBukl sling, which used a fairly thick fabric sling with teeny brass "C" hooks whish would be invisible at 1/32, and only barely so for 120mm figures

Tks CapnMac82. That helps a lot. I was thinking about the foil but had no idea about the different kinds. And the other info just blew my mind. Tks again for all of it. I'll be checking in on the foil.

Wine bottles have what’s called a capsule. The cheap ones are plastic, more expensive wine it’s usually aluminum.

A local modeler once mentioned dollar bill edges for straps, but that’s defacing US currency - a Federal offense!    But it only costs... a dollar.

I wonder if other paper products might be suitable.

GMorrison

Wine bottles have what’s called a capsule. The cheap ones are plastic, more expensive wine it’s usually aluminum.

 

Where do the twist off metal caps fall under...?

My easy chair.

I save the wine bottle foil and use them for making slings, seat belts and even some aircraft panel parts having a scale look much better than the plastic parts.

Here I used the wine foil to make the hood cover for this 1/48 Dora. It's thin just like real aircraft skin.

Here I used the wine foil to fashion a sling for the MG42. What's nice about using the foil is that it takes any shape and holds it.

A photo being worth about a kiloword:
-1905 Leather sling, used on M-1903, 1903A1, M1917, and M-1 Garand rifles

Installed

Being set up

M-36 cloth sling

That M36 sling was in a middle-green color ot a faded OD.  Copies have been found in a medium khaki, but no evidence of actual issue.  In the 60s they were issued in black for use with the M-16.  There's a spring steel clip for the rear swivel which goes to a sliding buckle, this was meant to be sized to the upper arm measurement of the shooter.  So, you were to unclip the back end, fetch the loop up your ar, and tighten it all off using the forward, clamping, buckle. 

A Moisin Nagant sling (if on an M-44 carbine)

Note how all the connections are leather loops.

Compare a Kar98k sling

Which actually pass thrugh the stock and buckle to a short section of leather on the right-hand side.

Above, there was mention of the 3-point slings used by some military units, a phot

Wear of different sling types

each has about as many detractors are proponents.

Srpuln10

The camouflage on the soldier is awesome. I've been practicing on that camo pattern and I find it quite difficult. That's just awesome bro. Makes me wanna go back to stacking pennies

 

 Thanks. Yes it's quite challenging painting those schemes.

My mistake. When I saw 'gun slings' this came to mind.

army arty march order by Glenn Hanson, on Flickr

GlennH

My mistake. When I saw 'gun slings' this came to mind.

army arty march order by Glenn Hanson, on Flickr

 

Yup! That’s a gun on a sling.

Toothpaste tube material.

Cap'n Mac, thanks for the photos. I have several frets of DML's slings for the M1 that have sat in a drawer because I couldn't make heads or tails of the instructions for bending and installing them. Suddenly, it all makes perfect sense thanks to your post. This is going to make a lot of little GIs very happy!

KnightTemplar5150

Cap'n Mac, thanks for the photos. I have several frets of DML's slings for the M1 that have sat in a drawer because I couldn't make heads or tails of the instructions for bending and installing them. Suddenly, it all makes perfect sense thanks to your post. This is going to make a lot of little GIs very happy!

 

You are not alone in this, for the 1905 sling.  There are a couple-nine/ten of online, step-by-step tutorials (going back to the dawn of the intertuubs, really) just for people trying to set up the real thing.

Use as a marksmanship device creating yeat another bacth of files/videos.  Which was largely a US thing; the rest of the world just used slings as a carrying strap.  Which did not prevent them from being occasionally complex bits of stuff.

I would also like to add my thanks for the informative photo's CapnMac82.

Thank you got them saved. 

I forgot to post a picture of my book that I use as reference for German camo schemes. This is the best I have seen and it's all about original not repro items and done in color.

plasticjunkie

I forgot to post a picture of my book that I use as reference for German camo schemes. This is the best I have seen and it's all about original not repro items and done in color.

 

 

That is a great book to get actual camo info on the smocks worn by the Waffen-SS. That is what I used when I made this figure:

Just what type of weapon are you making a sling for?  Some were leather, while others were various types of cloth.  Vietnam era M-16/GAU slings were a nylon with metal ends that could let go while carrying them on your shoulder.  These were a sort of yellow/tan color that would slowly become a darker color similar to a dark green over time through use and dirt.  I usually just make them out of a piece of regular masking tape.