Big Red here with a question from "Lynn Irwin"...
So, TAKE FIVE!
Lynn asks,
“Big Red, the wire buckle on this head band might make it adjustable but it is difficult to get it to stay adjusted?”
Fair point,
Scholl Manufacturing Company developed the prototype that became the M-1 liner’s first adjustable head band. The buckle used was referred to as a “double loop buckle” as it consisted of two rounded edge rectangular loops made from thin gauge wire. The loops were of different size, one able to fit inside the other, held together and hinged at the side where the wire loops butted up by a crimped metal ferrule.* This assembly was made of steel painted olive drab and sewn into the short end of the cotton webbing behind the leather sweat band.
When the length of webbing at the other end of the head band was laced through the loops, around the smaller and back through the larger, the resulting band could be adjusted in size while the outward pressure of placing the band onto the wearer’s head caused the fabric laced wire loops to pinch together maintaining proper fit. This three-piece assembly was phased out in the fall of 1943 in favor of a simpler, and cheaper, single piece stamped buckle.
The simplified one-piece bar buckle was stamped from sheet steel and had two slots which permitted the head band’s cotton webbing to be laced through. The bar dividing these two slots was slightly raised and had rounded teeth on one side to catch the web strap and prevent slippage once the band had been adjusted for size.
The buckle was painted olive drab when it was introduced to production in the fall of 1943 and remained so until around June 1944 when war material shortages permitted the QMC to alter the specifications for its manufacture to black-oxide coated brass. Aside from the change in material, the design of this buckle was not altered through the duration of the war.
Big Red Says!
FIVE'S OVER - MOVE OUT!
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