Club Obi Wan

what would cause the sleeves on my leather jackets yo shrink in length? it has happened on a us wings jacket, several westeds, my nowak, & my latest horsehide wested lc. these are all different leathers, mind you. my hh lc from wested I purposly ordered the sleeves a full inch longer so that when it did happen it wouldne be so bad, but it is not looking promising. is there any way to prevent this from happening?
thanx!!!
Charlie

New sleeves 'ride up with wear' by losing at least an inch or more to the bend of the elbow over time.

Sure you can prevent it...but only if you NEVER bend your arms while wearing the jacket. ;-)

Regards! Michaelson

If you were Frankenstein, this would not be a problem.

Well, we DO have few of THEM around here, come to think of it....

Regards! Michaelson

Reconstructive surgery on your arms should do the trick.

It happened to me on a Wested lamb. I took it to a tailor, and he lengthened the sleeves. There's some extra leather folded under at the lining. He unfolded it, re-sewed it and now it looks great!

This is why sleeves are always recommended to be made long. The natural wrinkling 'will' eventually cause the sleeves to be short if not, it may take a while but it really does happen, not only on lamb but also on the thicker leathers too.

You'll find wearing a sweater cause the sleeves to look shorter too, and at those times you'll be glad of slightly longer sleeves.

Ouch, my sleeves are so so. If they shrink they will be too short.

Flash Gordon wrote:There's some extra leather folded under at the lining. He unfolded it, re-sewed it and now it looks great!

Really, and old crease doesnt showed up?

Oh, live and learn i guess.

Good to see you back 'in the house', _!

Regards! Michaelson

thnax for the responses, everybody. the thing is i wear a 20 x 35 dress shirt, & on my latest jacket, the hh lc wested, i ordered 38 inch sleeves (as measured from the collar), & they are already shrinking quite a bit. i am almost ready to order 40 inch sleeves!!!

^ This is good to know. I was on the cusp of purchasing a US Wings A-2 2000, but decided to hold out for something in long. Turns out to have been a good idea, as I had no idea about this shrinkage phenomenon.

bruce wayne wrote:thnax for the responses, everybody. the thing is i wear a 20 x 35 dress shirt, & on my latest jacket, the hh lc wested, i ordered 38 inch sleeves (as measured from the collar), & they are already shrinking quite a bit. i am almost ready to order 40 inch sleeves!!!

Shirt sleeves are usually measured from the center of the back. A tailor would usually measure that way for a suit jacket etc.
Usually the leather jacket makers indicate sleeve measure from the shoulder crown to where the sleeve end is wanted.
I know from Todd's site they measure as for a shirt.

I wear a 34 shirt sleeve, and a 26" leather jacket sleeve is fine even after wrinkling. a 25.5" sleeve is cutting it close.

I can't imagine why your sleeves are 'shrinking', other than the 'wrinkling' already mentioned.
Where did your sleeve end fall on these jacket when they were new?

Well, if you order a long, won't the body be a little longer as well?

Personally I usually do get a Long, but I'm tall, with long arms.

Imahomer wrote:Well, if you order a long, won't the body be a little longer as well?

Personally I usually do get a Long, but I'm tall, with long arms.

Yep, I'm thin and tall, so although a regular A2-2000's sleeve length was "just right," the waist needed to be an inch or two lower. It's good to know, however, that a "just right" sleeve length now would soon become a "too short" one.

Now if only it would stop snowing so I could drive down to US Wings and pick up a long when they get one in stock.

I measured from different jacket, and it seems, that shoulder seam on it is lower then on Wested jacket. So i got a little bit of short sleeves.

You can reduce it some by adding leather balm (like Pecard's) or the likes, keeping the sleeves flat to the floor and using a shoe brush to rub it in over the creases. Grease ironing, if you will.

This will keep them at least a tad longer for a good while, softening up "the bend". At least that's what happens on my goat (jacket) at times when I go over it.

Regards,
Swindiana

thanx again for all the responses, everybody. after doing some reasearch on some other forums i am beginning to think that "predistressed" leathers sometimes shrink more than their regular leather conterparts because there is no protective layer, if you will to help keep the moisture & precipitation out which in turn causes the leather to shrink faster than usual. so my train of thought is that on predistressed leathers such as novapelle & the novak jacket you should coat it with something like pecards & this will slow down the process of shrinking. although this doesnt answer the question of shrinking sleeves & the rest of the jacket fitting fine...

Imahomer wrote:Well, if you order a long, won't the body be a little longer as well?

Personally I usually do get a Long, but I'm tall, with long arms.

I would think so if you're getting OTR. If you have long arms and a short torso, it might be better to go the custom route.

I got my otr goat and the sleeves were long, I had a tailor take them in. After I got it back I felt they wee still a little too long, but I waited to see if they would pull up, and they did and now it fits just right.

Who ever thought that you'd have to play around with it so much just to get a good fit.

People should stop spending so much time on the rack....you see what it does for Gonzo after all (Muppet Treasure Island reference)

The Nowak Indy 4 leather is pretty stretchy. As I broke mine in, I kept pulling the sleeves down into my hands to encourage length. When I stand up straight now, the cuffs seem to rest just above my knuckles. After watching CS a couple times, I've also noticed that some of the jackets were bigger than others... Additionally, depending on how broad your shoulders are, or how it drapes can make a difference.

s.

Russian Raider wrote:Ouch, my sleeves are so so. If they shrink they will be too short.

Flash Gordon wrote:There's some extra leather folded under at the lining. He unfolded it, re-sewed it and now it looks great!

Really, and old crease doesnt showed up?

Not really. The tailor ironed the crease, or whatever they do to leather to flatten it. If you look close, you can see it, but from a distance it's not noticeable. Still better than too-short sleeves. ;-)

Flash Gordon wrote:It happened to me on a Wested lamb. I took it to a tailor, and he lengthened the sleeves. There's some extra leather folded under at the lining. He unfolded it, re-sewed it and now it looks great!

Got any pics of this? JW because I may have to do the same.

Nibs

a question.. when does the leather stop shrinking? i mean.. right now, my one month old wested hh is about .25" below the first joint on the thumb even with bit of stretching on the elbow and slight creasing when standing straight with arms hanging loose.

i want more creasing on the sleeve, but don't really want the sleeve to 'ride up' too much more than that.. maybe about .5" i can let go, but if it's any shorter, it would look short.

pete

get long sleeves.

I allways add an extra inch to the sleeves in case of ride up and shrinking.


this is a must!

I've said this before - I have had many, many leather jackets - more than 15 (25 maybe?) and I have NEVER had the sleeves shrink with creasing. It isn't everyone's experience.

CM wrote:I've said this before - I have had many, many leather jackets - more than 15 (25 maybe?) and I have NEVER had the sleeves shrink with creasing. It isn't everyone's experience.

i agree with CM.......i've never had significant scrunching that i would have to account for it in a sleeve length measurement. maybe i just don't raise my arms up enough or something.

I think it may have a bit to do with where you live, humidity / heat and where you store your jackets.

My HH has shrunk more over summer in my wardrobe than as a result of the warm washing machine run I gave it and subsequent dry out.

Luckily my sleeves were quite long / chunky to start with so it's still fine, but lost a good centimetre (Or less than 1/2 inch for you Yanks!)

You guys scared me to death. Now when i am wearing the jacket i keep pushing sleeves down. When noone looking of course

Better to get the sleeves too long than too short. A good tailor who works with leather can easily fix long sleeves down the road. Too short and you're in trouble.

RZ

Yep, problem is, as i stated above Wested and i measured from the different jackets with a different shoulder seam position.

I agree with RaiderZee.... You can't add on, but you can always take it in and have those bad boys shortened.

Yesterday I was out wearing my TN CS Jacket and there was a snowstorm. The jacket got quite wet. After getting home I still wore the jacket for an hour then putting it on a hanger. Today I took a look at the sleeves and they was quite wrinkled. I started to pull on the sleeves a bit and they must had shorten by about 0.5 Inch. Now the sleeves really start to fit on me. They were a bit too long.

Regards

orb