Club Obi Wan

Has anyone noticed that the dye on this jacket lightens very easily? I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to remove the shine on this jacket and finally resorted to alcohol. If you rub for any length of time, the dye turns orangish and smudges. Is this normal? If alcohol doesn't get rid of the shine, what does?

Wearing it?

61ButteMT wrote:Wearing it?

12 hours or so a day since I got it.

Ok. So I continued testing by using a q-tip dipped in alcohol and rubbing the same spot for a minute or so. At first, the leather turns bright orange (like Tennessee orange), after a while it calms down. Only down side is youd really have to scrub the entire jacket with alcohol to get rid of all the orange. I don't think I'm prepared to make that leap.



not exactly the desired effect

Acetone might do the job ether for you. As always, proceed with caution.

Regards,

Indiana Jeff

Dunno. People expect jackets to look like pics of 50 year old samples in a few weeks. No shortcuts to a great jacket breakin. That's me. Artificial means of aging always look crappy to me. But good luck with it.

I decided to soak the sleeves. They were the shiniest part of the jacket and the only part I felt was big enough for soaking. They turned out looking great. Most of the shine is gone, the grain of the leather is much tighter, matching the rest of the jacket better. Unfortunately, now the sleeves are pretty small. The forearms are especially tight, and gloves are hard to get on.

You live and learn. I can't imagine washing this jacket, it would probably be super tight. I wonder if any makers have considered washing the hide before making the jacket. Seems like a great way to get the right look and the right fit

Washing can help. I did it to one Aero FQHH to shrink it a tad after losing weight. Just have to be careful.
Glad it worked for you.

On the other hand, you might be able to get the sleeves to relax after some more soaking. I have had some luck with this; in my case I machine-washed the whole jacket. Soak the sleeves, stretch them gently, put towels inside and out, and let them dry away from heat and sunlight. When dry, condition with your favorite product. Of course, then you have to re-wrinkle them...

My experience is limited (this has worked on lambskin, but I've never fully soaked my 30th goat), so I'm open to correction/improvement. Hope it helps.

Oildale Jones wrote:On the other hand, you might be able to get the sleeves to relax after some more soaking. I have had some luck with this; in my case I machine-washed the whole jacket. Soak the sleeves, stretch them gently, put towels inside and out, and let them dry away from heat and sunlight. When dry, condition with your favorite product. Of course, then you have to re-wrinkle them...

My experience is limited (this has worked on lambskin, but I've never fully soaked my 30th goat), so I'm open to correction/improvement. Hope it helps.

I am currently trying this with one sleeve. I dunked the forearm and stuck a bottle of vegetable oil in the sleeve. It immediately expanded... A little too big now. I figure I'll let it half dry with the bottle and half without. If you look at the raiders bar scene or well of souls, my jacket seems to have the correct upper arm width, with extremely tight forearms. I hope to fix the forearms and end up with a proper looking jacket.

I like your innovation!

This is how it currently looks:


The cuffs are fine now, they can fit gloves fine. The forearms seem to be a little tight, though they always were. I may try to stretch them a bit.

Looks good. You know, I forgot the bottle in the sleeve bit. My new Aero had cuffs that are a tad tight, so I did this last night (hot water on the cuffs followed by bottles) and let it dry overnight. Voila! Now they're perfect.
Glad yours worked out too!

Finally got it right. Took a vodka bottle and put it in the sleeves at forearm level. Jacket now seems to have the perfect amount of room in the sleeves. I wonder if this is worth trying on the front panel. I have a narrow waist, so the jacket is fairly tight up top and loose as it goes down..... ha, dunno if I wanna mess around with that though.