Club Obi Wan

Here are finally some pics of me wearing my HH Wested LC jacket. I have never worn it since I got it 6 month ago. First I thought the jacket is a Cow. But it's just a very grainy horsehide. The collar is a bit big. I need to train it a bit. I think I'll keep the jacket.

(MOD Removed image See this post: viewtopic.php?p=113417#113417)

Regards

orb

Great jacket orb, looks a bit like the one you sold me

I have one just like it in Goat that is fantastic. These LC patterns have really grown on me. And I like the bigger collar...

C3

Great jacket, but looking at it confirms something that has always annoyed me about my 4 yr old Wested Raiders – the back seam is an inch too low, which causes it to gape open. Here’s a comparison – top is mine, followed by a zoom KT’s latest pic and orb’s from above:

As you can see I've marked the 1 inch difference where the back seam and top of the rear arm seam meet on mine, while the other two jackets backseams meet exactly.
Anyone else have a Wested with this issue?

marc (adventurebilt) just received a gorgeous horsehide jacket where the seam is located just like yours. it does not seem to affect the fit on him however from what i can see.

when i ordered off wested's website and did not specify the 80's cut, i always received it with the arm seams lining up with the yoke seam. when i ordered an 80's cut, the got the orientation correct. i do not know if that effects the drape at all as i do not recall if they just shifted where the sleeves are sewn in or if they reduced the size of the shoulder panel/made the yoke longer.

My take on it (FWIW), is that Wested doesn't intentionally do it one way or the other. Though I think the "special offer" jacket is supposed to be accurate to raiders (sleeve seem an inch below the yolk seem), but those are made off site IIRC. I personally think that Westeds history for a lack of attention to "special requests" in general is an indication that the placement of this seem is simply hit or miss. Also, I'd say it's mainly us who've ever noticed that the seem should be below the yolk, and it's one of those (arguably) crazy special details that sometimes gets over looked. It seems to me that they are happy with it if it's in the ballpark of the yolk seem. Todd's on the other hand take special care to get this right though (atleast on the custom jackets), because it's one of those details that the fanatics (myself included) hold as important. Just my .02

About the sleeve seem causing the back panel to stay open, I personally doubt it, I don't see how that would have anything to do with it. I'd add though that it's screen accurate for those to be open all the time, check out the screen grabs. So it's probably just the nature of the beast, though I don't think deeper pleats (as Wested sometimes uses) helps the look.

PS - Hey Orb your jacket looks great btw. Westeds HH is very nice stuff!

Doug C

What is a Wested "special offer" jacket? Mine is just the straight up off the rack at their web site. Is that a "special offer"?

No, the special offer raiders jacket is made of a light weight lamb hide (different from the normal wested authentic or dark lamb) and has a couple of raiders details: No leather facings on the zippers/inner pocket, silver zipper, smaller pockets, etc. They are standard sizes (no longs)

C3

The jacket in Raiders and the better looking jackets I’ve seen have the back seam (yoke?) set higher up toward the shoulder, while my jacket is set about ¼ of the way down the back, so it positions the top of the pleat almost at my armpit. The only shot of a movie jacket that I’ve seen like this is the ToD jacket, as seen here: http://www.theraider.net/films/todoom/g ... ts/185.jpg
I guess one way to live with it is to tell myself it's a ToD and not a Raiders jacket...

The shorter yoke places the seam above the shoulderblades, and the natural drape of the jacket actually helps pull it closed. The longer yoke results in a seam that sits below the lower curve of the shoulderblades and the drape of the jacket pulls it open.

It's not just a "special detail" but an engineering detail that Wested seems to have forgotten over the years.

cool jacket man.and great fit
hey you remind me kinda of Bill paxton

Holt

The shorter yoke places the seam above the shoulderblades, and the natural drape of the jacket actually helps pull it closed. The longer yoke results in a seam that sits below the lower curve of the shoulderblades and the drape of the jacket pulls it open.

It's not just a "special detail" but an engineering detail that Wested seems to have forgotten over the years.

Bingo. That's exactly what I see with my jacket. Oh well - maybe next time...

WeeMadHamish wrote:The shorter yoke places the seam above the shoulderblades, and the natural drape of the jacket actually helps pull it closed. The longer yoke results in a seam that sits below the lower curve of the shoulderblades and the drape of the jacket pulls it open.

It's not just a "special detail" but an engineering detail that Wested seems to have forgotten over the years.

This "fact" is no doubt gleaned from your experience of hand making a few hundred Indy jackets I assume?

Kt Templar wrote:This "fact" is no doubt gleaned from your experience of hand making a few hundred Indy jackets I assume?

Appreciate the unwarranted personal attack. Not sure where that came from, but thanks anyway.

I don't recall stating anything as "fact". It's just a simple personal observation of the construction of my own jacket and many others that have been displayed in this very forum, and simple physics.

But I guess not having made jackets means my eyes don't work.

(Just so you know man, it's okay to like Wested without getting all hostile on people that don't share your view of perfection.)

It was late, I was overly sarcastic. Perhaps starting your comment with "I think...." would have prevented my grumpy post.

I think that the size of the yoke has some relation to how well the pleats stay shut. But don't know for sure.

However, the TOD and LC film jackets have a lower yoke and don't have pleats that stay open all the time.

Maybe the movie jackets just never got old enough to start displaying this tendancy or the leather was thicker or they had some webbing between the back and the pleat.

maybe they were just stitched closed @ the top by the costumer...
C3

The pleats of my Todd's custom jacket, which has a really short yolk, doesn't stay closed any more than the pleats on my Wings jacket with the long yolk. They both stay open, just like in the movies.. My Westeds, from what I can remember of them have all had fairly short yolks and they all stayed open too - except for the ones with the ridiculously deep pleats.

Doug C

Elastic baby. It’s what the Navy has been using on the G-1 jacket pleats since the late thirties. Peter has done it on request. It’s standard on a Gibson & Barnes Expedition. It works. Cheers

Oddly enough, my jacket did have elastic on the pleats and because of the long yoke it still rolled out funny. I actually removed the elastic after a couple of months and it improved the appearance slightly as it allowed the pleat material to relax out and fill the space a little – otherwise it looked like I had two giant gills on my back.
I wouldn't mind the pleats staying open so much (all the movies jackets had pleats that stayed open) if the placement was higher on my back. Oh well, again, outside of getting a new jacket there’s nothing I can do but live with it…

Well the design has to be right also. They work on the Expedition. With Peter it’s hard to say. I’m sure he’s built many custom jackets from people telling him how to “fix” the pleats, with their idea of what will work, that your guess is as good as mine.