No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

[Kiev Thomason]

Folks,
I hate to do it but, unless the Depot has some I hate to say getting cloth from Ben may be tough for a while . If you have an order with him I am sure he will take care of you however I have no more of his fabrics in stock and have not heard from him in about two months now.

When I can get some I will post back here. I do have a few trousers and one or two jackets left but that is all.

[lhsnj]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Kiev

Thanks for the follow up phone call to my email about my order. You have been doing a good job in responding to my email inquiries and also thanks for taking the time and calling me about how to adjust my order so that it could be filled.

I look forward to the items we discussed.

[sepoy1857]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

What seems to be the problem with cloth!!!??? Now him too? It's all but impossible to get what you want or need for uniforms! Why is that??? County Cloth has very limited stock...FHW seems to be out of business...what next!?

Thanks for letting me vent...i'm guessing I'll NEVER get that gray satinette for a SC frock!!!

[August77]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

What seems to be the problem with cloth!!!??? Now him too? It's all but impossible to get what you want or need for uniforms! Why is that??? County Cloth has very limited stock...FHW seems to be out of business...what next!?

Ben is not out of business. He does regularly have cloth in The Depot, however, he has pulled it out right now to take to an event. Should be back there soon. Needle & Thread still had a good amount of his fabric last time I was in there. I don't want to speak for Ben, but he also has things going on in his personal life.

FHW is not out of business either, they just don't produce their CW line of cloth anymore. At least not in the capacity they used to. They still do commission weaving to some extent.

Check with Dan Wambaugh too for material as he has a lot of the old FHW leftovers.

[sepoy1857]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Dear Mr. Lomas,
If you read my post carefully I NEVER said Ben Tart was out of business. However Kiev's original post makes it clear that it will be quite some time before Ben's cloth is again available. As far as FHW is concerned...well if they make carpet rather than jeans, satinette, or cassimere...well they may as well be out of business as far as I am concerned.

I understand the painstaking labour that goes into making authentic period cloth; the frustration lies at the sometimes seeming unavailability from all quarters for those of us who need something made. That's all...It's just frustrating trying to get the right stuff...for the right price...at the right time.

Yes thank you I regularly keep an eye on Dan's Confederate Cloth section...

With Kind Regards,

[August77]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Believe me, I completely understand your frustration! I apologize if my post offended you in any way, I certainly wasn't trying to be rude or anything like that. The only reason I posted what I posted was because I didn't want to see this thread turn into an obituary of sorts for Ben Tart. Keep in mind that he is trying to supply at least 4 separate venues with his cloth (one being his store in Gettysburg), so if one vendor is out, that doesn't necessarily mean that he has closed up shop. That is all that was meant by my post, nothing personal. I apologize again if I came off that way.

[Dan Wambaugh]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Scott,

FHW is not out of the 19th century fabric business. That aspect of their company has just taken a back seat to their ingrain carpet department (which truthfully, even at the height of production it always has) and their new thriving home decor line. Several years ago they had to make some tough decisions about how they could keep their business solvent in an ever-shrinking textile market. Truthfully, even though Pat would put in 50-60 hour work weeks they could not support themselves selling fabric to the VERY small market of re-enactors, at times he even had to take part time jobs to make ends meet.

Today they employ nearly 20 talented people, several of them family members, and their goods are sold throughout the Northeast, Midwest and South. Likewise their ingrain carpets can be found in several dozen historical buildings, including no less than nine former president's homes. I look at the story of their company as an all-American success story, and certainly admire them for staying solvent and even thriving in an ever-diminishing market.

The looms are still there and active occasionally making 19th century fabric. In fact, we plan another large shipment toward the end of the summer. They still commission weave fabrics, but for any "little" project we will have to deal directly with the yarn companies who usually have minimums of around $2-3,000 worth of yarn.

Yes, the market has changed and yes it has become less friendly to the "two yards at a time" folks. But there are still a lot of good folks putting in a lot of hours turning wool and cotton yarns into jeans, cassimeres, and satinettes. Never again will FHW or others be able to stock 5,000 yards of fifty different kinds of materials and still sell it at almost no profit as they did through the late nineties and earlier part of this decade; maintaining that kind of inventory is a sure way to kill your business. Today the name of the game is limited runs of materials made from yarns acquired inexpensively on the second-hand market. So the bottom line is that if you see something in stock at one of Ben's outlets, on my page, or at County Cloth's page, grab it immediately.

Ben will be back in the swing of things soon, it will just take awhile and take a commitment from our community to not inundate him with phone calls to allow him to get back on his feet and start weaving and dyeing again. This may be a lean summer for cloth for new projects, but really all that will require is that we look harder for fabrics than we did before. Heck, perhaps the upside will be that scarcity will result in a greater variety of materials in the ranks and at least for a little while we can break the "gray jean/brown jean mentality" that so many have lamented for so long. :)


Best Regards,

[FloridaConscript]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Man, I found an old envelope of FHW weavers samples circa 2000......jeminy crickets. must have been at least 50 fabrics jeans, cotton jeans, satinette, broad cloth, gobs of shirting....the good ole days.

[JerseySkilletLicker]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

The "good ol' days" indeed!
At the height of my business my "in stock" contained:
-30 fatigue blouses of all sizes
-At least 10 to 15 infantry dress coats
-10 CS Pleated Frock Coats!
-60 to 70 civilian shirts of all patterns
-60 cap covers, all sizes, Type I & II
-40 to 50 Type I and II forage caps all sizes
-30 or more civilian vests, all styles and fabrics
-20 or more cap boxes, different makers and styles
-10 each of .69 and .58 cal. cartridge boxes
-10 double bag knapsacks

tons of waist belts, cartridge box slings, canteens, different canteen slings, housewives of different styles, base balls, bats, officers haversacks and on and on and on....

...and still folks would come over and ask for the ONE thing I dident have!:cry_smile I loved being a sutler, but Im glad its over for me...its in much more capable hands of Bill Lomas and Dan Wambaugh!

[FloridaConscript]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Joe,
I'll tell you, getting a whole Fed kit in about 3 orders sure was nice. The only wait time involved was the post man.

[26th NC]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Joe,

I always received great service from you and other vendors, even while I was deployed. I especially remember in 2004-2005 I made an order with you, got a little "busy" and could not complete it for several months. You kept that item for me when you could easily have sold it to someone else. I was etrnally grateful for that.

I wish I could have captured the look (and verbal conversation) on the faces of several of my Soldiers when I opened a package of CW goods from you or another vendor, explained to them what it was for and got the remarks "after this $#@!% you do WHAT??!! It was always good for a laugh later over a bottled water (those of you who've been deployed know why).

look forward to more fabric from Ben Tart, FHW and others.

Layton pennington

[sepoy1857]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Thanks Dan...I really had no idea. I just remembered some of the stuff that FHW used to make and wondered why is was so scare. Thanks fort clearing that up. I'll be watching for when you get more cloth in....specially if there is any Steel gray or medium gray satinette! Thanks.

[Kiev Thomason]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Dear Mr. Lomas,
If you read my post carefully I NEVER said Ben Tart was out of business. However Kiev's original post makes it clear that it will be quite some time before Ben's cloth is again available. As far as FHW is concerned...well if they make carpet rather than jeans, satinette, or cassimere...well they may as well be out of business as far as I am concerned.

I understand the painstaking labour that goes into making authentic period cloth; the frustration lies at the sometimes seeming unavailability from all quarters for those of us who need something made. That's all...It's just frustrating trying to get the right stuff...for the right price...at the right time.

Yes thank you I regularly keep an eye on Dan's Confederate Cloth section...

With Kind Regards,

Sir,
I understand where you are coming from,but in my post I said no more from ME. Thats all . The Depot and a few other folks have some and I also said that. I have been calling him for two months on some orders he had from me and cloth that I was told was being shipped out for me to sale for him per mine and Bens deal. If he does not get me cloth or items and he has them at other places that says it all .He is not out of the game ...he just for some weird reason is not getting back with me. I know he has a whole bunch of stuff going on in his life and life comes first. If anyone does talk to him tell him I would like to speak with him asap and I wanted to know is he ok .HE IS NOT OUT Of BUISNESS.

[sepoy1857]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Dear Mr. Lomas,
If you read my post carefully I NEVER said Ben Tart was out of business. However Kiev's original post makes it clear that it will be quite some time before Ben's cloth is again available.
With Kind Regards,

Dear Kiev,
With all do respect...once again I never said he was out of business.

[Kiev Thomason]

Re: No more Ben Tart cloth on hand gents!

Dear Kiev,
With all do respect...once again I never said he was out of business.

It's cool. I was not jumping on you. Please don't take it as that. I was just letting folks know that he is still up and running it's just that I have no more items or cloth from him. I just don't want rumors and such to get started.

Dan has great fabrics from FHW and the depot and a few others have cloth from Ben that people can get for their summer time projects. Heck I may end up having to buy from them. I may just be to small time for Ben and he needs to put his items else where and thats fine. I would understand that. i just want him to call or email me and tell me where I stand. For months I talked to him and thought we had a good thing started...oh well maybe I was wrong. I may fill the orders I have and just go back to making stuff for my pards. That would be less stress for sure.