Repro French canteens?

[cco23i]

Does anyone make any repros of the French canteens? AND I know U.S units used them for a wine ration but did the Commonwealth units also use them?

Scott

[1886lebel]

Does anyone make any repros of the French canteens ?

Simple answer is NO, there is a company out of Germany making them but they SUCK

Patrick

[cco23i]

DANG! I thought Paul at Shipperfabrik was going to make some soon.

Scott

[1886lebel]

He has been saying that for the last 5 years, COMING SOON Reproduction French 2 Litre Bidons, they never materialized and probably never will. He is all talk and no action plus his stuff SUCKS, I will never spend a dime on his GARBAGE he calls French stuff.

Patrick

[sturmkatze]

Dec 27, 2011 18:46:34 GMT -8 1886lebel said:

He has been saying that for the last 5 years, COMING SOON Reproduction French 2 Litre Bidons, they never materialized and probably never will. He is all talk and no action plus his stuff SUCKS, I will never spend a dime on his GARBAGE he calls French stuff.

Patrick

Ya know, Patrick, I have the Reenactor Consumer Guide set up at www.reenactor-rcg.com if you would like to review things... We NEED people to honestly review stuff from all time periods. If you had a good experience with a vendor, let others know, if you had a bad one, conversely let everyone know. I know for a fact that on the original WWII version, when it came out, it knocked out some really bad vendors. Why not help here? And for that matter, any time period.
Best, Marsh

[pop401k]

There's a repro canteen on ebay right now (10-14-2012) by jmfcol73. Doesn't look too bad IMO, but I don't much about them.

[1886lebel]

Looking at the few details of this in the picture ...

1. The metal chain would have to be replaced with string (easily done) and a hole drilled in the small wooden peg to also add string to it (again easily done)
2. The cover does not look like it has the slit on the side where a leather or cloth tied up the larger spout side where you slipped the canteen itself into it, this one looks all sewn up with canteen in place. The cover with the slit in the side was used since the pre-war days and even into the end of WWII. (If you wanted to be correct, you would have to replace that cover)
3. No details on the leather strap, what does it look like ?

Patrick

[Transport]

Ahoy!

Well believe it or not, I have found a decent repo French Canteen. It came from- the Reenactment shop-
www.re-enactmentshop.com/webshop/world-war-i/french-waterbottle?page=0,1

Here is the skinny on it. The folks there were real easy to deal with considering the payment- dollars to Euros, very friendly and gave me the total price with shipping from The Netherlands before I paid. From that point is was only 9 days till the parcel arrived here.

The canteen is sheet metal and welded down the center- a good job of it too. The wool cover was a good shade of Horizon blue and sewn on- no eyelets on this one. It had the metal chain on the cork- which I replaced, and I replaced the smaller wooden stopper also. Hemp string was used to secure these. The leather strap is black and of good quality. I did have to re-rig it for a better fit. Since I am 6'2" I added a 10 inch piece of leather to it so the canteen would ride right at the waist line. There was a small bit of rust inside the canteen, but that was probably due to the welding and who knows how long it has been sitting around. I cleaned it out with some Coca-Cola for a couple hours, and then rinsed well, with a final douse of Baking soda and warm water. Now it is ready for action.

Seems this is the only game in town, I could not find any on ebay any longer. As originals could have been exposed to gas during the war, this is a safer choice.

Transport out

[cco23i]

N-I-C-E!!

[knirirr]

Based on Transport's review above I finally got one of these. Mine had a small leak (plugged with Araldite) and rather a lot of internal rust. I'm an inch taller and have no leather working skills so it doesn't hang at the right height, but I could always pinch the Nicecollection strap from my 1L bidon if I have to. I note that they're out of stock of corks and straps at the moment, but I was able to get the cover shown in the picture from them:

www.flickr.com/photos/knirirr/9216303675/

[pascal]

If you contact Brett Johnson in the GWA (Patrick has his contact info) he can set you up with someone who will supply you with a refurbished original. It'll have the correct stoppers, hemp string, correct strap with correct hardware, a proper horizon blue wool cover with the metal eyelets for lacing up the side, and correct cloth label on bottom. This will all cost somewhere around $85 if I remember right. So, why buy these poor quality repros and try to fix them up? Originals don't have black leather slings, and they weren't filled with mustard gas. Mine hasn't killed me. No part of the French kit is easily or cheaply obtained, it all costs money and requires a lot of work to do it right. This is why we are so few, yet so authentic.

[knirirr]

Dec 19, 2013 16:35:19 GMT -8 pascal said:

This will all cost somewhere around $85 if I remember right.

Once shipping from the US, plus tax and additional Royal Mail fees are applied then the price will be significantly higher, so I prefer to avoid buying from the US if possible. However, this may eventually become necessary if Nicecollection keep on running their stock down. They used to have excellent straps, corks &c. which I would immediately use to replace the dreadful ones in the picture above, if they would get them back in stock. They used to have some nice complete refurbished ones as well (I got a refurbished Adrian from them). It's a shame, as not only is the quality good but they have excellent customer service.