Club Obi Wan

Well, after having my jacket for about 9 months, I finally decided that it just looked too darn new. I had planned on letting it naturally distress itself, but I realized that I would be long dead before it actually happened. Even after giving it a couple rub-downs with 91% alcohol, it was only slightly affected. So, after re-reading every post I could find on jacket distressing, I got some acetone and pulled out some 220 and 100 grit sand paper. Well, after rotating between the three different abrasives for a few days, I've finally called it quits. I know all this has been done before, but here's my own observations.

First, acetone smells just as bad as I remember it, especially after you knock over the bottle and about a quarter of it spills on the carpeting

Second, the goatskin is incredibly tough leather. All the sanding I did only seemed to make the skin softer, rather than really making distress marks. The visible marks were caused by some very rough swipes from the 100 grit sand paper, and I'm pretty sure I could mask those with leather conditioner if I wanted to. The 220 had almost no effect at all. Also, considering the acetone ate through my wells lamont pvc coated gloves, it took a lot of rubbing before I noticed any significant color changes. Even having done everything short of gouging the jacket, it still doesn't look that beat up when compared to the films and other cow members jackets.

Finally, between this distressing job, trying to take pictures of it, and my newfound hobby of watching the commentary features on dvds(esp. John Carpenter/Kurt Russell films ), I have an even bigger respect for the pre-computer film industry. It's very difficult to make something look good, and it's even harder to make it look good on film. None of the pictures I took look like my jacket to the naked eye. The camera accentuates certain things we don't see, and yet it doesn't pick up other things we focus on. Anyway, this book's long enough, so here's some pictures. The first 3 were the closest I found to what I see with my own eyes. The last one shows how much the color tones of the jacket actually did change (considering the jacket used to be a very dark and uniform brown), yet this effect isn't seen under most light conditions.

I actually think your jacket looks pretty good, especially in the first picture there. As goat is pretty much indestructable you have got a good result there.

Ken

It looks okay to me, too, as far as I can tell. But I love the idea of wearing the jacket and crawling around on the pavement, etc. It DOES sound like a more fun way to distress a jacket!

I have to admit, if I was going to have a jacket artificially distressed, I'd be tempted to send it to one of the folks around here who does that sort of thing all he time.

bink

Michaelson, are you seeing this? I always get shivers when someone distresses a perfectly new jacket. Seriously it does look great, I'm just old school - let is get beat up naturally.

Mike

INDIANAMIKEY wrote:you'd have better luck slapping the jacket against a brick wall..and crawling and rolling around on the ground, and have a lot more fun!!

That would be a lot more fun, but you'd end up with a destroyed jacket. When sanding it, you have to be really careful along the seams or the thread will be torn apart. There are also inconsistencies in the leather that have to be watched for.

IndyMo wrote:Michaelson, are you seeing this? I always get shivers when someone distresses a perfectly new jacket. Seriously it does look great, I'm just old school - let is get beat up naturally.

That's the camp I was in until recently. However, when I forked over the money to Wested, I wanted an Indana Jones jacket. After owning it for a while, it was still just a very nice leather jacket in the shape of Indy's. I have plenty of nice jackets to wear, even another leather coat from Wested, but this was my only Indy jacket and I wanted it to look like it.

Anyway, thanks for the comments everyone. Like I said, the pictures are exaggerations of what the jacket normally looks like. I'm happy with the result, an older looking, lighter colored jacket with some scratches and worn seams.

I like it - it looks good, very Indy to my eyes. The thing about goatskin is, it's near impossible to achieve that look through time and normal wear (has anyone ever seen a picture of a naturally distressed goatskin jacket?). If that's the look you want, maybe helping nature along a little is the only way.

BTW Trevelyan, nice Jaws quote in your sig line.