Jacket distressing TIPS

Discuss technique for prolonging the life of your gear or giving it that aged look

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RayROnline
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Jacket distressing TIPS

Post by RayROnline »

Everyone who has ever tried their own distressing on an Indy jacket, has good stories and horror stories. How about we share some tips and warnings?

I'll start.

I have distressed several types of jackets...all lamb. Wested, Todds. and some other non indy stuff. Each time, I found that denatured alcohol didn't really take out color as some people advised. It did help remove the sheen.

But it's not always like that. Armed with experience, I started into my new Wested Dark Brown Lamb. It is very thin and light. I know it will repel water with its shiny exterior so the first thing I wanted to do was remove that. I chose denatured alcohol. To kill 2 birds with one stone, I wet it by lightly poring it on so I could also get the jacket wet like a soaking. Then I lightly rubbed it with one of those non-scratch cleaning pads.

Well on this jacket, alcohol really has a different effect. I didn't see it happening much because the jacket was pretty wet and dark. But I did notice brown drops coming off into puddles. ](*,) I was lucky, I did not scrub hard. I only gave it a light rub. When dried I can see the color faded is spots. And I got lucky again. The loss seems to be in all the correct "wear" areas, like around the buttons on the pocket or at some natural fold. It is hardly noticeable, but I COULD have ruined it like this.

Moments ago, after letting it dry for a day, I did a wet oil job with Obenauf Leather Treatment. This darkens most leather and restores the bad stuff. The oil is wet enough to act again like a wet jacket so that it reshapes to gravity. This also lets me put it open on a hanger and mold it into shape. This is great for shaping the collar! I dabbed off the excess but did not dry it down. The jacket soaked in a lot of the treatment...a good sign that I got the outer finish off. And the Obenauf will replace the waterproof protection I took away.

So: Denatured alcohol works really well on SOME leather finishes, hardly at all on others. When alcohol failed I used acetone very effectively. I have never used sand paper, just non-scratch scowering pads...and once, their stronger cousin from the hardware store.
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Re: Jacket distressing TIPS

Post by ChrisMD »

"This thread is worthless without pics!"


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Re: Jacket distressing TIPS

Post by RayROnline »

ChrisMD wrote:"This thread is worthless without pics!"


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At least that attitude is. :-({|=
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Jacket distressing TIPS

Post by ChrisMD »

RayROnline wrote:
ChrisMD wrote:"This thread is worthless without pics!"


Sent from Free America
At least that attitude is. :-({|=
I think we all wanna see the jacket! Im close to trying some of your ideas. Ive been a natural distresser up to this point.


Sent from Free America
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RayROnline
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Re: Jacket distressing TIPS

Post by RayROnline »

ChrisMD wrote:
RayROnline wrote:
ChrisMD wrote:"This thread is worthless without pics!"


Sent from Free America
At least that attitude is. :-({|=
I think we all wanna see the jacket! Im close to trying some of your ideas. Ive been a natural distresser up to this point.


Sent from Free America
I think I can accommodate that, Chris. Just that last comment came off a little strong, LOL to get you started look at the Todd distressing thread in this section. I have a lot of before during and after shots of the Todd's jacket recent release you can see how that came out & what I did. And next I'll have to post some of this Weston for you.
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Re: Jacket distressing TIPS

Post by ChrisMD »

RayROnline wrote:
ChrisMD wrote:
RayROnline wrote:
ChrisMD wrote:"This thread is worthless without pics!"


Sent from Free America
At least that attitude is. :-({|=
I think we all wanna see the jacket! Im close to trying some of your ideas. Ive been a natural distresser up to this point.


Sent from Free America
I think I can accommodate that, Chris. Just that last comment came off a little strong, LOL to get you started look at the Todd distressing thread in this section. I have a lot of before during and after shots of the Todd's jacket recent release you can see how that came out & what I did. And next I'll have to post some of this Weston for you.
Its usually an emoticon that says the worthless without pics thing. No worries. Cant wait for pictures!


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Strider
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Re: Jacket distressing TIPS

Post by Strider »

My advice on distressing is that less is more. Start very small and work your way up.

The first jacket that I ever distressed I almost ruined. I went way overboard. No, there are no pics. It looked like a tiger had clawed the sleeves of my jacket and left claw marks. Fortunately for me a round of brown shoe polish and brown Pecard mitigated most of the damage. Trust me, it was awful.
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