Club Obi Wan

Hi Gang:

I know that this is not strictly on subject, but I just received my new Real McCoy's B-3 Duotone Bomber Jacket (see pictures of the actual jacket that I have below). My question is, do I use Pecard's on it or not? Most of the jacket is Sheepskin, but then there are the horsehide reinforcement. I don't want to ruin the jacket . What do y'all suggest?


.........Bruce

I would think that one of the Pecards dressings would work for that -- which one I am not certain. Got to tell you -- that is one beautiful jacket!!!

Very impressive indeed! W>

That is a beautiful jacket. I just received a Real McCoy's B-2 hat which I love. It took awhile before the hat fit my head comfortably. I had to stretch it out and let the shearling compress. It was the largest size they had. Now it is comfortable.

I was wondering the same thing about treating my B-2. I have Pecard's jell and I was debating whether to treat the sheepskin, cowhide and horsehide on the hat.

Axel

Axel wrote:That is a beautiful jacket. I just received a Real McCoy's B-2 hat which I love. It took awhile before the hat fit my head comfortably. I had to stretch it out and let the shearling compress. It was the largest size they had. Now it is comfortable.

I was wondering the same thing about treating my B-2. I have Pecard's jell and I was debating whether to treat the sheepskin, cowhide and horsehide on the hat.

Axel

Hey Axel:

I was thinking along the lines of one of Pecard's Motorcycle Leather Care products. What do you think?


..............Bruce

I think I would contact the maker first just to be safe. While my B3 is not made by them many have a lacquer finish over the sheepskin hide to seal it as you are not dealing with the skin side of the leather on one of these. If lacquered the Pecards really won't penetrate the surface or may cause a problem with the lacquer.

Your B3 is SOOO much nicer than mine abeit at a price.

Best,
Tony

Eastman's leather conditioner and cleaner ?



in their catalog they also offer something called "Hide Food" - another conditioner i'd imagine . I also agree w/ Tony about contacting Real McCoy and getting their recommendation. Your B-3 is simply gorgeous :!:

I'm awaiting the arrival of my B-6 from AeroLeather - similar to this example below, though w/ "russet" trim




Congratulations on such a fantastic jacket and Happy Holidays ...

Kind Regards from N.M.

Billy

Thanks everybody for VERY good advice! I will probably do nothing until I have a chance to talk to Paddy at Real McCoy's. I am not sure of the finish, and I love the jacket so much I would be crushed if I screwed it up! Tony, I'm sure your B-3 is just as nice, and thanks for the advice! Billy, your new jacket looks beautiful - enjoy it when you get it!

Thanks for all the kind words! Happy Holidays to you all!!!




..............Bruce

Bruce,
My B3 is from US Wings. I am pretty tall but not that wide (any more that is) and I am trying to find a decent fit in an off the shelf jacket. I have a 46 chest and they directed me to a 50L because "they run small". Well the 50L would have fit a Grizzley bear! I exchanged it for a 48L which is still a bit long (good thing) but still way too wide. Got a 46L on the way now which should still be fine on length even if another 1.5" shorter. Nice jackets really for the current $500 or so price.
I have a Wested being made now to my measurments and am still after a nice G1 made to size. Sold off a bunch of older jackets I just didn't like as much now that I found better suppliers.
If the B3 thing does not work I may just splurge for something a little lighter like the other sheepskin designs but from Aero, Mc Coys or Eastman made to size.
Tony

Thanks everybody for VERY good advice! I will probably do nothing until I have a chance to talk to Paddy at Real McCoy's. I am not sure of the finish, and I love the jacket so much I would be crushed if I screwed it up!

Get yourself the Pecards "Jell". This is the one that DOES NOT CONTAIN
THE BEES WAX! You can also get their leather lotion too, which is what
some refer to as the motorcycle lotion. This lotion is safe for all colors,
even white leather. It is not harsh, and is also a good basic leather
cleaner as well.

Also, get yourself a small can of brown shoe polish, and a bottle of
Woolite cleaner, some Q-tips, and some cotton cloths.

The outer finish of the sheepskin is indeed a lacquered finish. This was
done to keep water, gas and oil from penetrating the hide. It will also
keep any leather treatments from penetrating as well, so any thing you
put on it will not sink in and do anything to protect the shearling.

The elbow sections and all the cover stitching sections are horsehide, and
the buckle straps and side adjustment belts are all cowhide.

You can use the Pecards Jell on the horsehide and cowhide parts with
great results. The use of this will darken these parts slightly, but the
darkness will fade back to the original color after while.

Apply the jell with your fingers, sparingly, to the horse and cow hide
parts by rubbing it in small circular motions, letting it dry, and absorb
over night. In the morning, use a soft, old cotton cloth or tee shirt to
remove any that remains. You can use the Q-tips to apply the jell to parts
that you can't reach with your fingers.

You can use the lotion to do a basic cleaning of the lacquered parts of the
sheepskin, and to keep the jacket looking good. You can apply this with
the cotton cloth in circular motions, and buff it off right away. You don't
have to wait overnight, as it will not soak into the lacquered parts. You
can remove it a few minutes after you apply it.

The sheepskin parts of your new beautiful B-3 will start to get cracks
in them as you begin to wear the jacket. This is inevitable, and all B-3, B-6
and all other lacquered finish jackets get them. Its the nature of the finish.
This is a sign that you bought an authenticlly finished, WWII shearling jacket.
The cheaper versions do not have this outer finish, and only the better
quality made shearling jackets will repel the gas, water and oil.

When the cracks show up, you will see the white hide underneath. You
can apply just the Pecards Jell to them to protect the hide from actual
damage, and leave the white showing, as this is what gives the jacket the
worn, vintage look that the originals have that you see. The pecards
will treat the hide, and keep it from drying out at the cracks.

If you want to hide the cracks from showing when they appear, you
take a Q-tip, and apply some of the shoe polish to one end of it.

Take the shoe polish, and rub it into the crack. Now, take the other end
of the Q-tip, and use it to apply some of the Pecards Jell over top of the shoe
polish, but do not rub too hard. You want to just apply the jell over the
shoe polish in order for it to mix with the shoe polish.

Leave this on over night, and in the morning, use your cotton cloth, and
LIGHTLY buff the area.

Your crack in the outer finish will now be hidden, and the hide will be protected.

For cleaning the inside wool sections of your jacket, mix up a bucket full
of the Woolite per the bottles specifictions.

Now, take a cotton wash cloth that you would use on your face, and
swirl it around in the Woolite bucket in order to whip up the suds.

Take the washcloth, and wring it out so its just damp, not soaking wet,
and use it to scoop up a handful of JUST THE SUDS from the bucket.

Use the suds to clean any dirty or soiled parts of the wool. Do not get
the wool too wet! You don't have to rub the wool parts too hard either.
Let the suds do the work. Just use the washcloth to gently scrub the outer
surface of the wool.

You may have to do this several times to get really dirty spots clean. You
do not want to get the wool too wet, you just want it to get clean. If
you see that the wool is getting too wet, use a dry towel, and BLOT the
wool. Remember, your cleaning this jacket, not beating the #### out it!

Let the wool parts dry before you wear the jacket again.

Some other things you will want to get to keep the jacket looking good
are a scarf to wear around your neck to keep the oils on your skin from
getting on the wool, and making it get soiled over time.

You should also get a small, fine tooth comb to use on the wool if it
gets flattened out or matted down from wearing, which it will, around the
bottom hem, the edges of the neck, and the ends of cuffs of the sleeves.

You use the comb to re-fluff up the wool if you want it to keep looking
good. Don't beat on it with the comb. You just want to fluff it, not yank it
out.

You should also get a bristle brush attachment for your vacumm. This
should be a soft bristle brush attachement that you will use to clean off
the jacket at the end of the season, at the beginning of the season to
remove any dust from the wool and other parts of the jacket, and just
to keep it generally clean between wearings if need be.

And finally, DO NOT HANG THIS JACKET ON ANY HANGER THAT IS NOT
AT LEAST A 1.5 INCH WIDE WOODEN HANGER!!! Did you get that? Let
me stress this point one more time, DO NOT HANG THE JACKET ON
ANYTHING BUT A VERY WIDE WOODEN HANGER!

Why? Because if you do, you will put a lot of stress on the shoulder areas
of the jacket, and because these jackets are very heavy, you can stretch
the shoulder area, and it will leave stretch marks, and ruin the hide in
this area!

And, try not to hang the jacket on even the wide hangers except for
short periods of time. I only use my wooden hanger for when I hang my
Aero Redskin B-3 at work. At home, I lay my jacket down flat
on the bed in my spare bedroom, or on a chain in my livingroom. You
may want to invest in a few of the wide wooden hangers to keep at places
you visit alot, so you can have your own hanger when you go there. Does
this sound weird? Maybe, but you just put down close to a thousand dollars
for a jacket, and you do not want to ruin it by using a 10 cent hanger!!!!

The absolute best thing to do, is keep the box the jacket came in, which
should be a very large box, and store the jacket in there when your not
wearing it, and its being put away for the off season.

When the season is over, vacuum the jacket with the bristle brush, clean
any dirty spots with the Woolite, apply the jell to the horse and cowhide
parts, and do the shoe polish/jell treatment to any cracks you see before
you store the jacket for the off season.

This will ensure that when winter comes around again, your beautiful
B-3 will be ready for the harshest of climents!!

Flathead

My B3 is from US Wings. I am pretty tall but not that wide (any more that is) and I am trying to find a decent fit in an off the shelf jacket.

Call the place that you are getting the jacket from, and ask them to tell
you what the actual measurement of the chest is for the jacket.

By this, I mean, ask what is the actual measurement of the chest of a
size 44, a size 46, a size 48, and so on.

By doing this, you can compare how big the jackets actual chest is to
your own chest.

A B-3 jacket was intended to be worn over multilple layers of clothing,
such as a wool sweater, and even an A-2 jacket, in order to keep the
crews warm at 30,000 feet.

And as such, they are made very large. If you intend to wear it with
just the basic items underneath, like a sweater being the bulkiest thing
you intend to wear, then you will want 4 to 6 inches of room over your
actual chest measurement when you account for the thickness of the wool.

So, if you are indeed a size 46, this means your actual chest, when you
measure it, should be 46 inches.

You will want a jacket that has an actual chest measurement of 52 inches
on the outside, so you will have room to move around in inside accounting
for the wool thickness.

Since most places have their garment measurements available, you can
use this informtion to get an accurate fitting jacket the first time, and
not have to keep going back and forth trying to get a good fit.

Now, if you like your jackets more form fitting, then find out which one
would give you 4 inches of movement room instead of 6 inches, and
get that one.

Hope this helps.

As a reference, Aero and Eastman B-3 jackets run true to the original
sizing, and have extra room incorporated into them for heavy layering.

I am a size 42 normally, and I ordered an Aero Redskin in a size 44,
which actually measures outside at the chest to 52 inches. It is slightly large
on me, and I probably could have gone with a size 42, but I figured in
life, we aways seem to get fatter with age, and I wanted this jacket to
fit me for the rest of my life. So I got it slightly larger than I needed it.
This gives me about 7 or 8 inches of movement room inside, once you
take the wool thickness into the picture.

But, the nice thing is, with the side adjusters, I can get it to fit just the
way I want, so it looks fine on me even being large.

Flathead

Flathead,
Thanks for both the care and fitting info. I actually like the way the 48L fits but my wife thinks it too large. I lost weight this past year and she like the trimmer, slimmer me. The jacket makes my look like the Incredible Hulk (I'm 6' 5", 225# 45.5" chest).
Once I see the 46L and 48L side by side I will now for sure. I will check the actual measurments as you described and see.
The car tips were great.
Thanks!
Tony

Flathead,

Wow! Great info once again. I will print this out and use the info to care for my B-2.

Axel

When I had my vintage B-3, (which seemed shorter in length when compared to the pix above for some reason) I had a lot of trouble with keeping the wool clean, so Flathead’s information is particularly helpful for new owners. Hover, my acquisition was not exactly in good shape and obviously had not been cared for when I had it. Generally, in the winter I wore the jacket over a pair of authentic, vintage, faded olive drab coveralls and tucked into shearling lined Leather Flight Boots (which are not really authentic), but they were warm and went well with the look of the jacket - I liked them just the same since we seemed to have more than our share of bitterly cold weather. And I ALWAYS wore a olive drab scarf! I kept my jacket in a large cedar chest when not in use.

I see they still have the Boots in limited sizes:

http://www.orvis.com/store/product_choi ... ture_id=17

Hover, my acquisition was not exactly in good shape and obviously had not been cared for

What is amazing to me, even though jackets like yours were not really
cared for all that well by previous owners, is that these jackets can get
to be 40, 50 or more years old, and still hold up!! Thats a real testimate to how
they were put together, and what types of materials were used.

I liked the boots you posted about. Did the ones you get run true to
size? Or did they run smaller or larger than what you thought they would?

If you have a shearling jacket that is really, really, dirty and soiled, you
could actually use a carpet cleaner, with an upholstery attachment, and
fill the machine with cool water and woolite mix, and clean it with that.
Because of the powerful suction of the cleaner attachment, the dirt and
water get stunk up pretty quickly, but the jacket will stay wet for along time.

I have done this to a few jackets that I didn't care if I ruined them or
not, and even though using the machine soaks them down to the hide,
once they got dry, I used my britle brush from the vacuum all by itself,
and brushed it until the wool fluffed up some. Then I took the fine tooth
comb, and really fluffed it up.

One jacket came out almost brand new looking! The other was too far
gone to really clean up all the way, but it did look alot better. I will say
that before they got completely dry, which took about two days, they
looked like ####. But, once they were dry, and I fluffed them up, they
looked quite good.

I do not recommend doing this to any high priced jacket, or any jacket
that is a vintage shearling jacket like a B-3 or B-6, because the hides
are very bittle at this point, and they would probably get destroyed by
this process. But my two newer jackets did fine.

I also would not do this to my Aero B-3, as I spent alot of money on it,
and even though it might not do any harm, I will continue to wear the
scarf, and clean it as I described in my other post so it never actually gets
that dirty.

Flathead

The shearling lined Leather Flight Boots ran slightly larger than my normal shoe size. They had a tendency to rub up and down on the heel as most boots of this type do when walking; this, and the inevitable matting down of the shearling over time probably contributed to the ‘looseness’. But I determined going down a half size would have been way too snug. I simply got heavier boot socks and the problem disappeared. I imagine you could also have a cobbler add a padded insole, or, perhaps just get one from a Walgreens or such.

BTW: The straps are not functional on these boots so you can’t tighten them up on top.

Wow! Beautiful jacket. And thanks for the care suggestions. Fedora

Fedora wrote:Wow! Beautiful jacket. And thanks for the care suggestions. Fedora

Yeah, Flathead definitely seems to be the source for the best advice on B-3 care, I feel much better now!

Anyway, the reason that I am addressing this to you, Fedora, is that I owe you a BIG thank you! If it were not for you and YOUR purchase of your Real McCoy, I would never have known about the company. I am eternally in your debt .


..........Bruce

Anyway, the reason that I am addressing this to you, Fedora, is that I owe you a BIG thank you! If it were not for you and YOUR purchase of your Real McCoy, I would never have known about the company. I am eternally in your debt .

You are most welcomed. ANd I have to thank _, who first let me know about this great company. They are expensive, but worth every single penny, if you love accurate A-2s. I have even been able to buy the RM patches from ebay, and now own 2, very finely made in layered leather. I love em". Fedora

Flathead,

I used your suggestions to great results. My B-2 cap had a crack on the sheepskin at the front of the cap. I used shoe polish and Pecard's jell on the crack and it disappeared. I also used the jell on the horsehide trim and top of the visor. Is there anything I need to apply to the underside of the visor which is the rough surface of the cowhide? I didn't have any leather lotion to put on the rest of the sheepskin surface, but it sounds like I only need it if I want to clean the lacquered finish.

Thanks again,

Axel

Is there anything I need to apply to the underside of the visor which is the rough surface of the cowhide? I didn't have any leather lotion to put on the rest of the sheepskin surface, but it sounds like I only need it if I want to clean the lacquered finish.

First off, Merry Christmas!! I hope everyone has a great holiday, and
everyone is healthy and happy for the new year!!

Now, about the underside of the visor. Thats a tricky one. Since the
bottom of the visor is not finished in the same manner as the topside,
and just the rough surface of the leather is showing, you can pretty much
put whatever you want on it just to protect it EXCEPT the
regular Pecards with the beeswax. Since this is raw leather, the beeswax
would really clog up the leather, and it would not breath at all.

If you put the jell on it, it will protect it, but it will also darken it up quite
a bit, and the darker color will most probably not fade away, but be
perminent. So that choice is up to you. It would now be protected from
any rain, snow and water, but it will be darker, and it will now feel different
to the touch. It will feel somewhat "wet" all the time, even though the
jell will have dried. It will feel different because of the conditioners left behind on the
leather to protect it.

If you just want to maintain it, and add a little protection to it, as it will not
really ever get that wet underneath there, I would go with the Lotion. It will
help to keep it clean, and the lotion will add a little protection from the
elements, but not as much as the jell. Its really used to keep it clean and looking
good. And, although it will look darker after you first apply it, it will fade
back to almost its original color, and still feel the same to the touch as
before you applied it.

I would at least start by getting yourself some lotion, and putting that
on first. You can always go to the jell next if you think you should. It
is however not recommended that you go from the Jell to the lotion, as
once the different conditioners in the jell are on the leather, the lotion
will not have any affect anymore if you did use it.

I have not put anything on my McCoys B-2 yet, and I have had it for
two seasons now. The only thing I have done is hide the cracks per what
I said before, but I have not put anything on the rest of the cap other
than applying some Jell to the trim piece around the edge of the visor
when it started to show some signs of wear.

Flathead

Merry Christmas to everyone also! I have been wearing my B-2 around the house to get the fit better, plus it's my Xmas present to myself.

Flathead,

Thanks for the suggestions. The next time I order from Pecard, I will order some leather lotion. I'll need to decide whether to put it on the underside of the visor. Pecard recommended the leather dressing for my other leather hats (one kangaroo hide and the other an unknown leather). I have not done that. I guess the dressing is good for waterproofing the hat. The roo hat is already waterproofed so I may use the dressing for that. I used the jell on the hat of unknown leather and it looks fine.

Axel