Club Obi Wan

I've had my Gibson & Barnes/Flightsuits Expedition for 3-4 years now. I choose the beautiful Russet brown goatskin. The jacket has held up great, and is loosening up, but stil has new looking leather. I know some have distressed their Expo with favorable results. Has anyone distressed a Russet jacket by any chance? I was wondering about the results.

I wouldn't really be thinking about distressing it, but last year my girlfriend at the time thought it would be funny to cover my entire truck in window chalk right before I had to make an important commute, so I quickly cleaned the truck off, but somehow managed to get 7 or 8 thin streaks of it on my jacket... and it didn't come off. So I was thinking of distressing it.

Any thoughts?

Go easy. A little goes a long way. I used sandpaper on my old Wested and went at it too hard, and darn near overdid it. I also don't recommend acetone distressing, unless you're sure you've got a steady hand and know what you're doing. Acetone distressing can never be undone or fixed, while the sandpaper distressing I did was able to be fixed to look great once I applied some brown Pecards and shoe polish.

With G+B goat I found the only thing that worked was sandpaper. LEss is more - as people say you can always distress it further but its much harder or impossible to reverse distressing.

Ken

Not that I'm planning on doing it but just out of curiousity what grit sandpaper would you all recommend?

I think I used 180. Now I would use something smoother, perhaps 400.

I used a 320 grit sanding sponge on a $30 close-enough jacket this weekend.

Turned out pretty well I think. I think the sanding sponge worked better than just sandpaper because I could get a good grip on it, and it's more pliable than using a sanding block. I'll post some pics in a day, bit for now I'm going to go sleep in my jacket.

I distressed my Leather Concessionaires very successfully with just sandpaper and water (this was way before I ever heard of Pecard's).

The water helped to minimize some of the early mistakes I made, which were mostly in the form of long, straight lines that I didn't like. To avoid this, I made a lot of short, gentle swipes with the sandpaper, turning my hand slightly as I did so to avoid the straight lines.

I later traded that jacket to Lee Keppler, and I'm not sure but it may even be the Leather Concessionaires pictured in the jacket section (it might not be there anymore after the revised jacket section is put up). At least the jacket pictured is the same size as the one I owned, and looks extremely similar to the distressing work I did.

Jack

I have a slightly sad, but funny confession to make.

I have since gotten much more tired of my Expo's newness... So i bought a multi pack of sandpaper w/ different grits... starting with the fine grit. I worked for a while... didn't make a dent. still shiny as ever. So i went rougher...still nothing. So i zip up my jacket, lay it on the couch, wrap a baseball bat rough side out of the grittiest sandpaper i have and my friends and i take turns beating it mercilessly.

I dust it off, put it on, and walk out into the sun.

Still nothing. When i look closely, I can barely see any progress. I am bored and mad...


I am desperate and I drive a jeep.

I go to a gravel road near my apartment. I tie the expo behind it. I drag it several hundred yards, turn around, flip the jacket over, and drag it back.

I dust it off and still only see a few scratched and dings...



That was a month ago. My Expo still retains its shininess, with very minimal scratches. I must give it to flightsuits... They make a bulletproof jacket, but the break-in time is forever

That's a great story. I would love to see some pics of this bad mamma jamma.

As far as removing the shine, isopropyl alcohol, the higher percentage stuff(I think 90%??, I can't recall) does wonders. I use it on all my Indy jackets that are way too shiny. Just use the alcohol on some heavy duty paper towels, and have at it. Dulls it down real nice-like.
'Blues

Wow! I realized I never posted pics of my $30 jacket. Here's what it looked like with a little bit 'o sanding and sleeping on it. Best I could do on a budget and short notice. (Still get called "Indy" so I guess it worked!)

http://www.surf-rat.com/Monty/h2k7_1.jpg

I used some 400 grit to remove the shine from my Wested goat. Wasn't looking to distress it, just cut the leather shine down a bit.