Club Obi Wan

Been raining here in Kansas, Last week it was raining and cool. Needless to say I braved my antique cow and headed out. Got more than a bit wet. Now after a week it's dry and shrunk! The body of it fit's better than ever before, but the arms are short, and I mean so short the lining is sticking out. Granted, now it's way to hot to wear it but what can I do here. Didn't think it would shrink so much. Any suggestions?

John

I know there's a way to stretch the sleeves after soaking them. I'll see if I can find the links for them. Basically you soak the sleeves, pull the liner towards the armpit, insert a large (not quite sure what size) Gatorade bottle with about a pound total of water into the cuffs to weigh down the leather to help stretch the leather. Perhaps you can get up to 2" back, depending on what you lost. I have heard you don't want too much weight in the bottle to risk pulling the stitches out.

Yep, same fix I've posted a few times.

Wet the arms.

Hang the jacket on a nice heavy duty hanger.

Place something of some weight, less than a pound...like a heavy orange or grapefruit, or gatoraide bottle...something that will pull the sleeves down some and keep them under that slight pressure while the sleeves dry (in the past i've cut large gatoraide bottles down, using the tops as wedges through the cuff openings. they will go through to a point but then jam because they become wider than the cuff opening. then taken smaller 16oz water bottles and sat them in the gatoraid tops. a half full bottle should do it, so that's a half pound.

make sure to pull up any bunched up liner because it's the liner that will limit the amount of gain in stretch length.

afterwords, add a little leather conditioner just to replace a little of what some of the water may have taken out.

cheers,
mike

Way cool, as soon as the corner gas station opens in the morning I'll start the stretch out. Thanks guys, knew I could count on someone knowing what to do.

...you may be looking like a gorilla before it's over, John? No anvils in the sleeves!

Hmmm, interesting.
I wonder if the antique cowhide used on the Hero jackets is the same as the import legends.

My jacket has stretched out a little since it was new and I have shrank (lost a few more pounds ). The shoulders hang way off and the sleaves now hang past my second knuckles.

Texan Scott wrote:...you may be looking like a gorilla before it's over, John? No anvils in the sleeves!

So my idea of the ten pound dumb bells would be bad? I can see it now, from Indy jacket to straight jacket.

Either that or elastic man!

Now I'm tempted to try this idea on my 9 year old Wested. It's gotten soaked several times and I've let it dry and applied pecards everytime, but the sleeves have shunk a bit. This sounds promising!

Hey John, have you already done this? I'd like to see before and after pics.

Regards,
'81

It worked like a charm! Thanks guys. Not only did it give me back the length but added about 3/4 of an inch, which is good because I have monkey arms. TS, insert comments here, go ahead you know you want to. Sorry 81, I didn't think of taking before pics, hind sight and all. I did have to wrap the bottles with towels in order to get the size I needed but it worked great and didn't have any distortion. Got a few water marks to deal with tho'. Glad I drink from a water cooler!
With high regards,
John

I was wondering how long should I leave the bottles in the sleeves; how long did you guys do it for?

I left them in until it was dry

Glad it worked for you!

The more proven success stories for this technique, maybe the more widely accepted it will be.

In regards to how long to leave the weights in the sleeves it depends on how long you want them. I suggest when they get to the length you want (or a little extra), that while still damp start wearing the jacket until dry. This will add some nice wrinkles into the sleeves and some shrinkage will happen (maybe) in the final drying.

If you leave in until completely dry you will end up in all likelihood with more length than you really wanted

unless you have monkey arms

What? I'm just sayin'