Club Obi Wan

I was thinking...to heck with this acetone stuff. If you want to do it right, use the stuff that they used for the movies.
1. Sandpaper
2. Wire brush
3. Pocket knife
4. Leather Oil (then Mink Oil...can use Pecard shoe/boot oil instead)

Case and point: you know when you scrape the pigment off of leather and it exposes the lighter shade of hide underneath? Well, that exact color isn't on the jacket in Raiders. WHY? because the jacket had been distressed and sanded...BUT THEN OILED. Look at this pic. The jacket is shiny, but the parts that have been distressed are not. The sanded and scraped areas aren't showing a creamy raw hide color either. These areas have been oiled and thus give a darker brownish orange color.


I think that this is the key to making your jacket look like a Raiders jacket as opposed to a LC jacket (which had bright and contrasting "piping") The raiders jacket is dark and shines, but also looks well worn.

I have been experimenting with this on my Auth Goat with interesting results so far. If anyone is interested, I will post pics when the process is complete.

Let me know what you all think.
-GC

I think I am very interested and would LOVE to see some pics!!! The high contrast of the "raw" leather color vs. the dark color of the finished leather surface has always been one of the things that bothered me when I distressed some of my jackets in the past. I've doused my jacket with leather conditioner after giving it a little distressing and that seems to help, but I'd love to see what you've been able to accomplish!

-GCR

I've done sanding and oil...and so far it's looking good. I am looking for the right kind of knife and steel brush to scrape it up a bit. Stay tuned...this is a work in progress. But when I am happy with it, I will definitely post. Keep in mind that I am doing this to goatskin and not lamb, this might mean it might not look perfect. But I'm shooting for close enough. RichardSK did something similar in an earlier post.
-GC

I dont know - look at the cargo pocket - its obviously been sanded/scuffed along the edges.

I just figure different people probably did different jackets - the Tunisia crew maybe not the same as the Hawaii crew.

Not saying they didnt oil it but I think maybe they focused more on using a knife and stuff which isnt going to expose the hide underneath in the same way as sandpaper would whereas in other areas they went for a more scuffed up look.

Personally I always found the look of the jacket in the Temple scenes a bit inconsistent with the rest of the movie - the jacket looked to new there.

Ken

A little off topic, but I dont see any grooves in the bag strap in that pic. I also agree with with the oil theory, some of the latest pics of the TOD jacket look the same way. I sanded , wire brushed mine because I didnt like the results I was getting from acetone. After a coat of pecards with brown tint it gave it the look I wanted. emt

A little off topic, but I dont see any grooves in the bag strap in that pic.

Thats because the grooves are so shallow that they don't always show up. Same thing happens in pics of myself in gear and I definitely have grooves on my strap. Sometimes you see a bit of it and sometimes you don't in the same pic.

So far the oil is darkening the underlaying hide, but it is not making it the brownish color that I am looking for. I'm thinking about using a light brown shoe polish to fill in the worn areas.
-GC

George Caplin wrote:So far the oil is darkening the underlaying hide, but it is not making it the brownish color that I am looking for. I'm thinking about using a light brown shoe polish to fill in the worn areas.
-GC

Please let us know what type of products you end up using and what brand yields the best results. I very carefully sanded certain areas of my Wested some time ago in order to help give it a more distressed look. But as I previously stated, I was never totally happy about the sharp contrast in color between the raw, exposed leather and the finished surface (especially in my case as I have a Dark Brown lambskin jacket, not Authentic, so the darker color really makes the lighter distressed areas that much more prominent). I ended up using some leather conditioner after the fact (also to help preserve the leather I had just intentionally damaged) and it darkened the distressed areas so that they blended with the rest of the jacket a little better, but they are still sort of light. Something darker, with a color dye in it, like shoe polish, might work out better. I'm anxious to hear about your results!

-GCR

how bout some pics GCR?

ps - i love the new avatar......why do i have the urge to be behind that mirror and fling it over???

Indiana G wrote:how bout some pics GCR?

ps - i love the new avatar......why do i have the urge to be behind that mirror and fling it over???

Pics, eh? Sure thing...

First, here's the whole jacket:

I know what you're probably thinking "That jacket still looks pretty new, what gives?" Well, the distressing I did was strictly around seams and edges, while the marks on the arms are natural, from being worn and wrinkled up while rubbing against trees and rocks while hiking, camping, etc. They are alo the most prominent areas of distressing on the jacket (even the leather conditioner failed to darken them up as much as I'd like). As for artificial distressing, I used very fine sandpaper, steel wool and scouring sponges to give certain areas an advanced age look. I then doused the areas with conditioner, which made them seem much less raw and fresh and actually gave them the appearance of much older distressing. I have yet to find a decent steel brush to use in order to make the leather really rough and worn like the jacket on the pic of Ford above.



Upon closer inspection, some of the distressing becomes more obvious. The lighting also tended to wreak havoc with my digital camera, throwing all the colors off and making the distressed areas harder to see. Here's a close up of the collar



close up of some of the natural distressing marks on the arm



back of the jacket



close up of the pocket



close up of the side strap (I've since changed the configuration to conform to the Agent 5 specs)



I'd still like certain areas to be a bit more "chewed up" and other areas to be a bit darker, like the marks on the wrinkles of the arms, I've yet to try any Pecards products, perhaps I should look into something like that? If that doesn't work, I'll probably go for some sort of dark brown polish. And I still have to find a nice steel brush.

Hey George, how's your work coming along?

-GCR

Very, very nice! I like the natural look it has - not overdone, not nearly dead, just sort of natural and relaxed. Mine is almost looking like that, but the collar isn't distressing much.

Great job!!!!

In Christ,
Shane

Really great job, I think I should try the same, my one still looks new, that isnot good

beautiful work GCR. sometimes its hard to balance the texture of new leather with distressing the edges. sometimes the outcome of a rushed distress job is a jacket with new looking leather which obviously has been violated with sandpaper (hence my 1st "closet hanger" wested). i think you've just accentuated what you've naturally done and its working for you.

cheers

Thanks guys!!!

With Wested announcing a new jacket that will be ROTLA accurate and have that worn out look right from the start and with Todd's jacket coming along, I think I'll finally be able to satisfy my desire for an ultimate Indy jacket. That means I might end up using this jacket as a sort of testbed for different distressing techniques...but we'll see. If I can ever find a good steel brush, I'll probably give that a go, but I want to be sure I'll be able to darken the leather back up once I scrape it and scratch it with the brush. I tried shoepolish on my last jacket to try and darken it up, and I had so-so results. Maybe I should look into Pecards?

-GCR

I think your jacket looks great. It has a natural, almost normal look to it. How do you get the leather over the snaps to fade out?

davyjones007 wrote:I think your jacket looks great. It has a natural, almost normal look to it. How do you get the leather over the snaps to fade out?

Thanks!!! I simply sanded the area with a very fine grit sandpaper. I followed that up with a good dose of leather conditioner to keep the leather supple and help to darken the newly exposed areas so they don't stand out as much. That's about it!

-GCR

mine's looking quite the same so far. It looks pretty normal. I tenderized it with a wire brush and scuffed it up a bit with a pocket knife, but the goatskin is so tough, it doesn't look like much at all!!!

Give me some more time, and I'll post some pics of my own.
-GC

With Wested announcing a new jacket that will be ROTLA accurate and have that worn out look right from the start

Did I miss something here?. Can some one give me the link for this thread please, went to the Wested site and no mention.
This might be interesting.
Thanks, Croft

its in the pics of todd's jacket thread, page 4.

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 9:30 am Post subject:

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Having had a burst blood vesssel behind the eye before Xmas my computer use has been limited and I missed this post. Having read it
I have to laugh watching Puppetboy being pulled one way and another and promising to change this and that in an effort to please everyone. I remember that war.
'Leather crushed in the tanning' 'Natural tear or stretch marks' No way.
It may be what Todd has been told but its not true and I qualified in tanning.
The fact is that Australian/NZ skins being thicker have a loose grain and cannot produce a top quality leather, they have thick growth marks on the necks which is shown in one picture, also because the animals in Aus/Nz are skinned by machine they suffer stress and damage as the skin is torn from the animal. Also we are talking mainly sheep and not lamb. That said these skins are suited to distressed look.
It has also made me think and dig out MK's Smithsonian measurements.
Agent 5's input has made me realize that I need to produce a ROLA Authentic going back to piped pocket, no inner facings etc. from a new worn look lambskin which I have in my possesion. I showed this to KT Templar yesterday and he liked it. I am looking at the $195/£100 mark.
Pics to follow
Cheers
Peter

ha ha VP....i beat ya on that one!!!

Thank you very much, IG!

I've search high and low for that post myself, and could not remember for the life of me where the heck I had seen it.

Regards! Michaelson