Ghillie suit Build-a-long

[Dave521]

The First thing you need to do is figure out exactly how you want you Ghillie suit to look, do you want it to be a one peace or two peace set up. The Ghillie I am building in this one is the jacket for a two peace. The materials I used are listed below but you can play around and come up with your own stuff on some of it.

 

the next step is to figure out a color scheme, here is a easy chart that Iused to decide on the colors
 

Once you have that done its time to cut and dye your threads, I use jute twine I found at Wal-mart, works perferct, it's 3 strand so all you have to do is cut it in to 18" peaces, dye it and take it apart to get your threads.
 
here is what the brown and green threads looked like after being dyed
 
I used Rit dyes, the green was powder form, the grey/black and the dark brown were both liquid dye. For the green I used around 1/4 package in a gallon of hot water, the black and brown I used a childs medcine syringe and measured out 39.3 ml of liquid dye per gallon of water.
 
once you have enough thread dyed you can start laying out the neting for the jacket

first I placed the jacket on the ground and spread the neting out on the top of it.
 
you have to remember to leave enough over lap to cover the front except on the left arm(right arm for left handed shooters) which is left bare so the threads don't get tangled in the string when you shoot.
 
Once the net was cut I started attaching it by sewing along the back edge of the jacket and then hot glued the rest all of this is done at the knots in the corners of the net squares the image below shows how I did it, red it stitched and blue is glued.
 

[Dave521]

then I moved around to the front and did the same on that side, makeing sure to stitch the edges together where they met.
 
once I had all of the netting in place I began tying on my Jute threads to tye the threads on I used a loop knot, basically I took groups of 3 or 4 threads, making sure that the ends were all even then fold it in half so that I had a loop then I tucked it up under the cross string of the netting
 
then I pulled the ends of the bunched threads over the top of the net and back through the loop
 
pulling it thigh so that it made a nice square knot. do this on each side of the square as in the image below.
 
if you aren't worried about having to replace threads at a later date you can make sure they stay put with a drop of super glue, but I would recommand against it since you are bound to break threads. As I got more bunches of thread tyed on it actually started to look like it should.
 
Here are some pics of various stages and I will add more as I get more done on it.

this is the back just after I finished with the base color which was tan( natural jute color)
 

this is the side and arm after I got some of the green put on.It also show the bare section of the right arm that I was talking about earlier.
 

[Dave521]

hehe what project would be complete with out a couple of helpers. here are my two shall we say testers,they insisted on testing the treads every time they moved LOL
 
this guy decided to let his brother test while he guarded the loose threads.
 
here is a nice view of the side, arm and back after I got the tan and green inplace I think it's coming along great.
 
here is a close view of the green and tan, can't wait to finish up the green and get the brown and black on it.

[Dave521]

if you want to build a ghillie using a flight suit I have the pattern for it on photobucket just take a look ther ae some other images I didn't use here. I will keep posting new pics as the build progresses

 http://s359.photobucket.com/albums/oo32/Dragonlord521/

[Hoffman]

I will have to try that, good build along Dave.

[Keystone]

Thanks for sharing. I will have to make one like that.

[DEATHMASTER]

That makes it look easy enough I could do it.
Thanks for sharing

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

Dave,

Two questions that are always asked.... how much does the finished jacket weigh, and in what kind of weather conditions will you wear the ghille?

Over the years, I've wondered if you could add enough blaze orange into the mix to make it legal  during rifle season, and how effective it would be at that point.

Good job, and good hunting!!

[Al Dente]

My homemde suit can be rolled up tight and fit into a day pack.  You do not want to wear on the way to your stand.  The strands get caught on everything, and the jute is an insulator, so you will sweat.  I've worn it during every type of weather and temperature, and you just adjust your undergarments.

Regarding Blaze Orange, you'd have to check you State Regs.  Most have a minimum of "square inches".  It could amount to a hat, a vest, or a whole garment.

[Dave521]

I have seen a couple of Ghillies for sale on the web that used blaze orange inplace of the tan. as for how well it would work I couldn't say, but since deer are color blind it shouldn't effect the way it preforms. I have a freind that has a ghillie he bought and when he got wet during a rain shower he took it home and sprayed it with scotch guard water profing and them soaked it with sent blocker to kill the oder of the water proofing. he has killed 5 deer since then and love the thing. as soon as I geth the jacket done and can weigh it I will post the weight with a pic of the finished jacket. still trying to find a pair of camo pants that will fit me. my old ones are to big since I have lost a few inches of waist size. like Al said though the thing is extremely warm, the guy I had wearing it so I could get the pictures was sweating bad by the time we were done and that was only about 5 minutes. here is a pic of the suit now that I have the brown added in.
Oh a bit of info I forgot to mention the neting you can get at k-mart or wal-mart. it's just a replacement net for a volley ball set and works great.

[Slasher]

Nice job... Looks a lot like how I did mine... Cept I de threaded burlap on mine... argh... thats a mess and not a lot of fun...

Are you going to spray paint it?i

[p1choco]

Spray paint?  What would that do?

[waknstak IL]

Dave, Good looking suit. I am in the middle of making one myself. There a a lot of good vids on the subject on youtube as well. I used a 8 dollar Wally world hammock for my netting. I hope to have mine finished by the time it gets cool enough to use it. In addition to jute, I also bought some Raffia grass at cabelas. A lot of guys use it to cover layout blinds for goose hunting. You can die it and tie it just like the jute. Its really tuff stuff and a little more 3D.

[Naphtali]

Originally posted by Dave521:
I have seen a couple of Ghillies for sale on the web that used blaze orange inplace of the tan.

Dave, please furnish URLs or contact information for blaze orange ghillie suits.

[Dave521]

Yeah slasher I went the burlap route for the tan thread, then I just happened to stumble on to the jute twine one day at wal-mart and it works so much easier LOL and I am going to shoot some flat black on it when I get it done and cover the hot glue spots in flat black so they don't shine as much.
 P1choco the reason you spray the suit after it is finished is to help blend the colors, basically you just mist it(ie.. stand 15 or so inches back and spray it) also you need to paint the spots you hot glued since they tend to be shiny and reflect the sun.

Naphtali I looked for the sight I saw the blaze orange suits on but couldn't remember the exact web addy. I just happened to stumble across it while doing research for the build. I have a couple of feelers out so as soon as I get the info I will post it here. I talked to a few people and companies that build ghillie suits and they told me that all you need to do is switch the natural/tan  and brown jute threads for the blaze orange threads, you can use two different shades of blaze orange to do this with.

[Naphtali]

Dave:

I really hope you can help me out. I did several AltaVista and Clusty searches. (I no longer use Google since they caved to the Red Chinese on "self-censoring" what Google-Red China allows its users to use. This is egregiously hypocritical when you read their mission statement, prospectus, and advertising. Feh!!) What happens is I get hits on ghillie suit makers who also offer Blaze Orange garments. There is no overlap.

[Dave521]

I got the same thing, I think I might have stumbled onto someone selling a suit they made, but there were a few different suits, it's been a month or more since I saw the page but I will find out something or figure it out myself. this is my first build on a ghillie suit myself I might try andother with the orange to see how it comes out though. if I do I might be talked out of it for what I put into it :-)

[Naphtali]

Originally posted by Dave521:
I got the same thing, I think I might have stumbled onto someone selling a suit they made, but there were a few different suits, it's been a month or more since I saw the page but I will find out something or figure it out myself. this is my first build on a ghillie suit myself I might try andother with the orange to see how it comes out though. if I do I might be talked out of it for what I put into it :-)

If you try another, strongly consider using 100 percent wool rather than synthetic. This decision guarantees the garment will be UV nonreflective. An if you choose to make it of wool, I will either buy it from you, furnishing funds for materials up front, or ask that you create a second one as you go, for me. Please PM/E-mail me to continue this conversation.

[Kingwouldbe]

Dave, this is a cool build-a-long, thanks

[econnell71]

Do you put any kind of flame retardent on it?