I received this gorgeous vintage 5512 from Deadbear77 and always thought a newer NATO looked goofy on it. My first attempt at vintagizing a NATO was dunking a dark brown strap from crownandbuckle in bleach for 24 hours.
The glue had a reaction with the bleach which gave it some cool looking staining and only slightly faded the brown strap to a tan color. It was cool, but still didn't have the look that i was looking for.
My second attempt, was with this black/red nato from crownandbuckle
Initially, i soaked it in bleach for 24 hours and it created the stains around the hardware and slightly faded the strap, but still not what i was going for.
I decided to try boiling the strap for about 15 minutes to break down the nylon and throw it back in the bleach.
after about 15 minutes, a lot of the dye in the straps had come out and i was left with this beautiful specimen!
needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised, and I highly doubt i'll be swapping straps for a while now.
If you want to give it a try, check out www.crownandbuckle.com They are CONUS so shipping is very fast, very reasonably priced, and any orders made this weekend qualifies for free first class mail shipping. also use the coupon code "watchuseek" for a 15% discount.
The glue had a reaction with the bleach which gave it some cool looking staining and only slightly faded the brown strap to a tan color. It was cool, but still didn't have the look that i was looking for.
My second attempt, was with this black/red nato from crownandbuckle
Initially, i soaked it in bleach for 24 hours and it created the stains around the hardware and slightly faded the strap, but still not what i was going for.
I decided to try boiling the strap for about 15 minutes to break down the nylon and throw it back in the bleach.
after about 15 minutes, a lot of the dye in the straps had come out and i was left with this beautiful specimen!
needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised, and I highly doubt i'll be swapping straps for a while now.
If you want to give it a try, check out www.crownandbuckle.com They are CONUS so shipping is very fast, very reasonably priced, and any orders made this weekend qualifies for free first class mail shipping. also use the coupon code "watchuseek" for a 15% discount.
