Club Obi Wan

Hey,

So I bought an off the rack Wested LC jacket, for many reasons actually.

(And not the reasons one or two members think around here.. ) One was for the people as I get a lot of pm's, emails, facebook messages about the crusade jacket. So if anybody just wanna drop the whole detail spec collecting shebang and just order, wear or distress and enjoy, then how much **Crusade can you actually get out of a standard off the rack LC jacket? This thread will show you.


First impression, I do not know what Peter have done with the pattern from the old off the rack LC's I have ordered in the past, but he must have done something because, like I said, the pattern (not details) the jacket looks much like the originals in cut and fit.

Also, the jacket is constructed very well, I've ordered a few OTR many years ago and the construction on some of them was very poor. This was one of the reasons (besides details ofc) for why I always went custom and kept pestering them about making me bulletproof jackets,.. Anyhoo, My older off the racks just tore apart like tissue paper and on this jacket the construction is better on some of my custom made jackets. Go figure!

Onto details, what do you get with an off the rack LC jacket? Well, you get a decent set of details. Note: Decent! I know what the correct details are and they are not there. However, for the everyday wearer and not the supernut we find between us, they will do just fine The pockets are the main thing that stands more or less out as CS pockets. I don't mind actually even tho I am the Crusade nut around here, the tallness of the pocket reminds me more or less of the Castle Brunwald jacket pockets when Indy is tied up with his dad, those pockets always seemed so much more taller to me than the Smithsonian and Chicago jacket. It's all good. I am gonna tear this jacket apart anyways.

The collar, yeah, pretty good actually! Could be much better of course but not bad. It's very pointy and accurate to CS.

Double stitched shoulders. Again, CS. But it is cool as I always liked the look of it

The storm-flap, Nice and wide. This is probably the most accurate LC detail on the whole jacket.

I do not like the hem stitch but hey, small detail. But still,....

Pretty decent detailing on straps and boxes. Very good constructed tho.

Onto the fit. The fit is very good. It fits me like a custom made jacket. I can not complain at all. Very nice.

And last but not least, the most important thing with the LC jacket to me is the Skin.. This jacket is THICK. I mean, observe. I never had any lambskin jacket do this before. I absolutely love the thick feel. I know every jacket is a different animal. You may get a thick jacket like mine or you may get a thinner jacket. When ordering standards, email them and ask if they can sort out a thick one from the rack. You may be surprised how thick it is.




All in all, you get a very well constructed jacket with a decent set of LC details. It's all good!

Here is what is gonna happen to it.

Super distressed makeover.
Reshaping the collar and the pocket flaps.



As of this moment, the jacket is air drying from giving a few cycles in the machine.

Stay tuned.

I'm very interested in this as I'm also a big fan of the LC look. I don't like the idea of the inside facings, though.

If anyone can transform this jacket into something other than what it started out as... it's Holt!

Indy Magnoli wrote:If anyone can transform this jacket into something other than what it started out as... it's Holt!

Amen to this brother! He's the ultimate 'makeover, conceptual king' when it comes to 'SA' (and, beyond), Indy jackets! W>

So, the jacket is completly dry now.

I love the look and feel of the skin now. Totally LC. The broken in look and grain it brought out now, man, it looks very much like the brunwald castle jacket allready in looks of grain. Now some distressing, which I look very much forward to.

Here is the new collar. No more slim collar with pointy Crystal skull tips. Now a pretty accurate wide LC collar with round tips.


Check this sleeve out. See how thick and bulky it is. Love it!

Gotta say, I love the jacket as it now stands....BEFORE you perform your black magic on it!

Regards! Michaelson

Kali-mah-shakdidee


I am pretty happy how the collar turned out. It's pretty accurate LC collar to my eyes after reshaping it. I just need to work on the roll and it will look awesome I am sure. I love how it turned out.

So, did you cut the collar and re sew it?

You had to alter it somehow because that is not the same pointy collar as off the rack, looks good.

I'm sorry, I missed this.

No resewing or cutting. Just the ol'school of altering jacket details. By water.

Holt wrote:No resewing or cutting. Just the ol'school of altering jacket details. By water.

You are taking Bruce Lee too literally... and it's working.

So, the jacket is finally finished and let me tell you I ABSOLUTLEY love the result. I love how the lambskin works with the distressing. You get that smooth finsih and that somewhat puffy thick look you see on the LC jacket. Love it! There is no doubt in my mind and never has been. The original jacket is in lamsbkin.

It's funny how you can strive for SA and custom jackets for only to discover later on how an of the rack jacket can do the job just as good.


Anyways, with this project, I really used my time on getting this right as I did not want justanother distressed LC jacket. The LC jacket had tones of distressed areas. Like the seams are hit hard while the breast panels are smoother. Same with the back panels. It also had different tones in undertones. some lighter red some deeper.

After almost two weeks, the distressing look good but GRAY!!! I was was so dissappointed with the undertones... However, this is were the magic had to take place. Coloring! After two days of using color CAREFULLY I am happy with the result.

Now the jacket looks like an LC jacket and especially the style I was going for. The Beach jacket.

So here you have it. And Of the RACK standard LC jacket made into a screen reminisent LC jacket.





EDIT: NEW PICTURES WILL COME


WHat do you guys think?

Looks great.

excellent job ! how do you distress the seams without wrecking the stitching ?

Thanks. By being extremely carefull and thats why I used such long time on distressing it.

ok,thanks. I wonder how long the original screen used jackets from LC took to distress and what techniques they used . cheers.

Looks great; makes me want to go to the Wested site and buy up one off clearance and or a brand new one.

Still amazed how you got the collar to look like that without cutting it, amazing. If that jacket could only talk

Your jacket looks pretty dang good EXCEPT, those pocket flaps would drive me nuts
Nice weathering work too I might add.

LOL, please don't remind me of those inaccurate flaps. I'm trying to accept them

Thanks guys!

Why not round them a little bit like you did with the collar?

Nah,.. I tried but stopped. had bad results with another jacket so I dropped it.

If LC and CS had a babyjacket, this would be it.

So did you use dye or paint to get the redish undertones? We have this Red Clay Mud here in North Carolina that I think I can achieve that look by dragging my jacket through it

I used a leather alchohol based dye, so it wont go anywhere, plus some shoe polish

That's a nice subtle job. Most jacket aging looks fake and heavy handed.

Great looking jacket Holt. I would not have thought that was lamb by the way it was standing up. It almost looks like HH, but not as thick as Aero's FQHH. Great work on the details.

R David

update,

I gave it some more dye and finally have the color I want.

here it is with some of my other LC gear which is under construction as well.

I really think it's time to change Holt's title from "Moderator" to "Forger of Things".

That's high praise coming from a guy who makes fake money and passports for a living.



Regards,

Indiana Jeff

Holt wrote:I used a leather alchohol based dye, so it wont go anywhere, plus some shoe polish

Looks good but did it change the feel of the leather much? As a leather worker I have used alcohol based dyes on some veg tanned leather and it was not the best choice for certain hides as it really stiffened and took away from the soft feel.

Thanks guys.

No, the leather did not change by applying the dye.

Lookin' good!

Holt, any chance you took a good photo of the new jacket lying flat so we can see a before and after? And while it goes without saying, well done, sir!

Spectacular!
Holt, your gift for this sort of thing always leaves me completely impressed!

Very, very impressive. Gorgeous.

Holt wrote:update,

I gave it some more dye and finally have the color I want.

here it is with some of my other LC gear which is under construction as well.

Hey Holt, I noticed you have that back flap that flairs out instead of keeping it's fold like in the movies. I have the same problem and was going to start a new thread to ask this but do you know how to solve that? I tried keeping it under something heavy as well as even light ironing but no good.

I spoke to Diego who made it and mentioned that because this is normal the movie guys sewed in elastic straps or something to keep the back fold in.

Any thoughts?

This is the nature of the Indy jacket and a common problem we all get eventually.

And no the movie jackets did not have elastic bands inside the jacket. All 3 of them opend up eventually,

The only thing that keeps them together is like what was mentioned allready. Elastic bands inside the lining.


And thanks guys

Holt wrote:This is the nature of the Indy jacket and a common problem we all get eventually.

And no the movie jackets did not have elastic bands inside the jacket. All 3 of them opend up eventually,

The only thing that keeps them together is like what was mentioned allready. Elastic bands inside the lining.


And thanks guys

Thanks for the answers man. I'll see if anyone has done that yet.

Holt,

Did you find the sizing to be pretty close to accurate with this one off the rack? Or did you provide some guidance to Wested in the ordering process?

Nice!! I would not have believed it if I had not seen the finished results...