A Military box pleat kilt

[JohnH]

Kathy Lare offers military box-pleating...
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Bradley Henderson
"Tattoos and Tartan"

As does Robert McDonald of "West Coast Kilts. (Thanks for that info. Steve. I'm sorry that I will miss his expose at KiltKamp.) It is also possible that Burnett's & Struth offer it. But, most do not.

Our very own way2fractious has knocked out two military box pleat kilts and I believe is working on a third.(AlanH)

I know that now. Panache is quite right, there is so much talent on this board that it is difficult to follow it all. I had arrived at the pleat cutting stage when I semi-remembered something about it. So I went looking for it. He & I arrived at the same destination by following different paths.

I've seen the diagrams of what makes a Military box pleat, but what makes it so special? They seem like they would be a lot heavier. (Sean the Kilted)

That's really what is at the heart of the mystery! There are 2 extra layers, but only one layer is actually stitched, which means that the top should actually end up thinner!!

Can not wait to see it John, I must say that I was very impressed with the kilt you were wearing when we met at Fionn McCools. (McMurdo)

Thanks Glen. We forgot to take photos then, so here are front & back views.



I'll post the next section later tonight after I have sorted the photos.

[JohnH]

OK that’s enough suspense. If you buy, beg, borrow, steal (Just kidding!) an ex-military box pleat kilt*, open the stitching at the bottom of the lining and poke your way through all the layers, you will, eventually, find a single layer that is the back side of the pleat reveal stitched on both left and right edges. The 2 edges of the pleat reveal are just stitched to their neighbouring edges and NOT through 4 layers.









* Mine is an un-issued, still basted, Queen’s Own Highlanders (Mackenzie Seaforth Tartan) kilt made by Thomas Gordon & Sons.**, bought off eBay for a really silly price. (Maybe it is sometimes good to be smaller, less demand!)



[** Hmmm….. the regiment was formed in early 1961, by amalgamating the Seaforth Highlanders with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and Elsie apprenticed with Thomas Gordon……]

So, to make one for yourself, get a copy of “The Art of Kiltmaking” and read it several times. (DON’T do what I did. I read all I that could find on kiltmaking and managed to get some of the other instructions mixed up with (Barb and Elsie)’s. My first, hand sewn, kilt, (18oz. ex-MOD Hunting Rose. [As worn by the Pipes & Drums of the 1st. Battallion, Royal Tank Regiment, which was originally formed as a Naval unit. Think Landships.]) therefore, came out slightly too big. When I have time, I will correct that.)

I decided that, this time, I was going to make a military box pleat kilt to what appears to be a Government Specification: 31 pleats. For a 30” waist, that breaks one of Barb’s rules, i.e. the width of a pleat at the waist must be ½”, or more. (It does, however, allow you to put 8 yards of cloth into a smaller kilt!) Mine came out at just over 3/8” (10.6mm.). (About the same as my QOH and exactly the same as my knife pleat ex-Black Watch (Hector Russell). That’s why I think it’s a Government Spec., (Can anybody verify this?) as all of the military kilts I have examined have 31 pleats (knife or box) and, for the smaller kilts, the pleat width MUST be less than ½”.)



Please note that I did not just copy my QOH kilt. It is a tad on the small side, though perfectly usable by not reefing (Naval expression!) the straps to the last hole. So, I measured it and my Black Watch kilt and then compared the results with the table of splits in Appendix B and the information on pp. 50-1. The result is a kilt that fits perfectly and looks good. (IMHO!)

Since I don’t, yet, have the confidence to tackle my “horribly expensive”™ 8m. of Lochcarron, Maple Leaf, 16oz. single-width Strome, (I’ve been sitting on it for almost a year, but, it’s very comfortable!) I bought 8m. of Douglas remnant (11oz. Poly/wool) from Fraser and Kirkbright, so I have 2 pieces to practice with and no centre join to worry about. (I made sure to rip it length-wise as soon as it arrived. Otherwise, I might have, accidentally, cut it in half width-wise and ended up with two 4m. pieces.) Incidentally, the Douglas tartan is also Government Pattern number 6. (Cameronians and Canada’s Perth Regiment.) [OK, there are two versions of the Douglas: 3 ½” sett and 7” sett. The F & K version is the 3 ½”. So, double up on the sett measurements unless you like really shallow pleats.]

For those who want to know more about military tartans, here is a link to an index of Military tartans, with further links to the regiments that wore them: http://www.regiments.org/tradition/tartansx.htm

They don’t show the Maple Leaf tartan as that is uniquely Canadian rather than Commonwealth.

Stay tuned for the next instalment.

[way2fractious]

Sorry to be joining this thread late; my weekends are "unplugged" from the internet.

Congratulations, JohnH, on your discovery. You described perfectly the frustrations of the "archeological" digging it took to recover the techniques of this pleating style. The Commonwealth militaries appear to be rapidly shrinking their kilted forces, and losing the knowledge base of their kiltmakers. Outside the militaries, it's almost as if the guild system, with its protected trade knowledge, is still at work for the relatively few kiltmakers who can make this pleating style. Thank goodness for reverse engineering and old kilts as examples.

Of course, none of these techniques would make any sense unless built on top of the foundation of kiltmaking as taught bt Elsie and documented by Barb.

** Hmmm….. the regiment was formed in early 1961, by amalgamating the Seaforth Highlanders with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and Elsie apprenticed with Thomas Gordon...

In my conversations with Elsie, she told me she must have learned this style as a young lass, but hadn't made one for many decades and couldn't remember the differences. Soon after this time I had worked out everything but the pleat basting. How she managed to remember it I don't know, but in a later telephone call she described the basting step with the clarity necessary to penetrate my thick skull. Your pic of the ex-MOD kilt shows well the pleat basting.

Again, congratulations - and welcome to the ranks of the hopelessly addicted.

w2f

[way2fractious]

As does Robert McDonald of "West Coast Kilts. (Thanks for that info. Steve. I'm sorry that I will miss his expose at KiltKamp.)

A exploratory discussion regarding military box pleats has been set for the Kilt Kamp. Barb's response to the proposed discussion was favorable, and if Robert McDonald joins it (as someone who actually knows how to make them), even better!