How to clean a sling?

[Gaz]

My Enfield sling is an ex-RAF one: blue-grey canvas. It's a bit mucky after 60 years of use and abuse and I'd like to clean it up a bit, get all the old oil stains out and so on. What's the best way of going about this without damaging the canvas?

[Steve E]

Scrub it with warm water and soap, then leave to dry, then re-apply blue-grey blanco or use black boot polish. Thats what we used to do in 'basic training' when I joined the RAF

[Watcher]

That set me thinking and look what I found:

http://www.blancoandbull.com/

I remember being given a tin of RAF blanco when I was in the Air Cadets in the 70's. It was like grey boot polish.

[Gaz]

Good link that, ! Might invest in a tin of repro Blanco and bring it back up to scratch.

[Watcher]

I'm tempted for my slings!

[etprescottuk]

I would leave 60 year old canvas alone, it can not be good for it to introduce anything to the material, just chalk up the stains to a long wonderful history.

[saddler]

Wash it - but in COLD water & with a ph neutral pure soap

Then re-apply correct colour blanco

OR

Look for a new-old-stock web one & retire yours

[Blu]

Ah blanco, now that brings back some memories. I fecking hated the stuff

Blu