Make Your Own Ghillie Suit

Creating your own ghillie suit can be a fun and enjoyable experience. Typically most ghillie suits require on average about 100 hours to complete.

Ghillie Suits require no specialized equipment other than your own imagination, patience some jute or burlap, netting, bdu, or some type of base to add the camouflage onto. Depending on your needs you might also want to invest in synthetic or plastic leaves or even plastic bricks if you want to make an urban style ghillie suit.

You may also want to think about the terrain that you will be wearing your ghillie suit in, depending on your locale you may want to make two or even more ghillie suits. One for the winter with light shading and one for the summer with dark shading that blends in more with the green of your surroundings.

The most important factor in any camouflage is comfort. If you ghilie suit is not comforatable then you will likely not wear it and thus your efforts will be in vain so make your ghillie suit with comfort in mind. A good ghillie suit weight should not be more than 6 pounds at the most and more than likely should be around 3 pounds. Another factor is that it breaks up your form. Some of the best ghilie suits that I have seen are nothing more than a net, and some dyed jute or burlap. Cheap, easy to make, stores easily and conceals the human form perfectly. Keep in mind though that burlap is flammable so be careful around your campfire!

The first step you will want to take is to go out to where you will be using your suit and take some pictures so that you have a good reference point during construction. Take the burlap and cut them into odd lengths anywhere from 5 to 10 inches and about 1 to 3 inches in width all over your suit overlapping them making sure that the longer lengths are not attached to an area where they will get into the way during running, stalking or when you are scoping an enemy.

Additionally you may want to fray the ends to break up your form even more. Keep in mind that nothing in nature grows straight. Fray the burlap with a scissor or knife, the more frayed the better. Next sew the burlap around the netting or onto your bdu's such that they wrap around the netting and back onto itself for added strength. A good sewing kit will cost you no more than $10.00-$20.00 at your local fabrics store. Some suggest glueing the burlap on but in my opinion it is not worthwhile as they typically will fall off especially during heated battles. You may also want to attach jute twine randomly around your suit to further break up your form and add additional camouflage.

Dyeing your burlap for your ghillie suit is little more than purchasing the dye and simply going at it to match your surroundings. Use lots of colors, from tan to brown to a range of greens and even light orange, this will help to confuse your opponents as to what they are looking at, especially at distances of greater than 30 feet. Use the lighter colors for your base and the darker colors on top, don't be afraid to experiment.

If all of this sounds like too much for you then I would suggest buying a pre-made ghilie kit or an entire ghillie suit altogether.

About the Author

Cheap Ghillie Suit is the owner operator of CheapGhillieSuit.com the premier Ghillie Suit Retailer on the ghillie suit market.