National Clothesline

When I was a shirt wholesaler over 15 years ago, we used to charge $5.25 to hot-head press Battle Dress Uniforms (BDUs).

I used to call them “fatigues” back then and I think that I still do, but I think that I always preceded the word with a vulgar adjective. They were truly a money loser back then.

The wholesale (or even retail) price isn’t much more today, but I bring you good news. BDUs can be pressed fairly easy on the Unipress Lightning unit and other units as well. It isn’t so much the shape of the shirt or the buck. The secret to success is in the preparation of the garment on the buck and your expectations.

You can do a very good job on a BDU jacket that will need a small amount of touch-up.

First, press the ends of the sleeves flat on the collar/cuff machine as shown in Photo 1. BDU’s have a strap on the cuff, so you will need to press the “cuffs” for a full-length press cycle. There are quite a few thicknesses of fabric there.

Get as much of the sleeve on the buck as possible and be certain that the material is flat on the buck so that there are no wrinkles on the underside that you can’t see.

In Photo 2, note that when the collar is laid, extra attention is paid to the points of the lapel. These are often folded down when the garment is worn, so special care must be taken to avoid unnecessary touch-up.

Once the cycle on the collar and cuff machine is complete, it’s on to the body press. Here, the jacket is dressed like a shirt would be dressed. Some of these jackets are more fitted than others, so care should be taken to dress the garment properly.

The jacket shown in Photo 3 will be a bit of a challenge because it is rather small and fitted. There will be vertical, pressed-in wrinkles on both sides of the collar. Pressing the BDU here on the shirt unit is still far better and faster than pressing the entire jacket by hand.

Now place the sleeves in the cuff clamps, but not in the conventional manner. See Photo 4. Use only the lower part of the cuff clamp. This will allow the sleeves to inflate during the pressing cycle and, because using the clamp this way steepens the angle of the sleeves slightly downward, you will minimize the possibility of “ripples” in the sleeves.

Before sending the buck into the pressing position, be certain that the pocket flaps and the pocket gussets are positioned properly. As always, spy the mirror for a glance at the back.

These BDU's don't hold much moisture so you will get a crispy dry sleeve and body with a 30-second cycle. When the cycle ends, you should have a good press job with minor touch-up. See Photos 6 and 7.

I used a jacket that did not fit particularly well for these photos rather than one that was tailor-made to illustrate that, even though there are numerous touch-up areas on this particular jacket, fixing those takes far less time than pressing the entire jacket by hand.

During touch-up, a light spray and a 10-second hot-head squeeze is all that is required to fix the wrinkled areas noted in Photos 6 and 7.

Photo 8 shows the jacket with the touch-up work complete. Some military units require a creased sleeve. This is taken care of during touch-up because here, it will take far less time because the sleeve is already dry. Again, simply apply a light spray and a 10 second squeeze does the trick.